Insects and Spiders

@jupiz. Thanks!

@greentricky. Love that photo!

D'oh. Identity crisis, again. :-(

One of several Steatoda Nobilis (Noble False Widow) hanging out around the window frames last night...

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Anyone have any idea what these are? I seem to have a mini infestation of them on one window in the house. They fly and they are about 4mm long.

Top view

I wonder they are some kind of carpet beetle??

Yep, furniture carpet beetle. Check under the soft furniture for the remains of the pupa or if you have a healthy number of spiders you might find the sucked dry remains of the larvae too.

other night I felt a splinter sensation back of the thigh and it started to throb a bit so dropped-trou to much eye-rolling from Mrs Pasty and she eventually had a look and said "it's a bite, erm, and I know where from" and looked at the floor where having dropped out of my PJs was a half squished dead brown spider (medium sized). It throbbed for good few hours and I convinced myself I was sweating and getting shooting pains and numbness around the balls. It eased after 4-5 hours but I could still feel a little discomfort for 24 hours and some sensitivity for a couple of days - now, 5 days later, there's just a small hard lump at the bite site....never been bitten by a spider before hence my unnecessary panic - what species was it likely to have been? Medium brown and probably 1.5" diameter

All spiders have the potential to bite, but only a few can actually pierce human skin (they tend to be the larger ones). I was bitten by a giant house spider once (I was trying to pick it up to put it outside) it left two pin pricks of blood in the end of my finger, there were no other side effects.

Poplar hawk in Sussex, on my wardrobe to be more precise. Pardon phone pic, carefully reintroduced to the great outdoors.

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It seems we were both wrong, I stumbled across the Natural History Museum's Identification Service yesterday and emailed a pic. They responded by lunchtime which was impressive!!

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/take-part/centre-for-uk-biodiversity.html

They are ash bark beetle, Hylesinus varius. They asked if we had any logs in the house (which we have!).

I took a look and you can see where they have come from:

Apparently they only live in ash bark and don't attack any other wood (so no panic for the furniture!). The logs have gone out now until the winter.

This little spider was in the log basket and must be well fed!

@ColinTheBald - that is a great specimen!

It seems we were both wrong, I stumbled across the Natural History Museum's Identification Service yesterday and emailed a pic. They responded by lunchtime which was impressive!!

Ack, well that's good news at least! I had an invasion in a bedroom in a flat once. Vax shampoo over and over and the numbers dropped, but you'd still see the odd one creep up the wall.
The ID service is so good, isn't it! It was mostly manned by voluntary work experience / uni students when I got to hang out there and the queue to get a placement was very long.

I had never heard of it until yesterday, yes it is brilliant!!

I got stung in the neck by a wasp on the weekend (twice, same wasp). We should team up and fight crime when our super powers develop a bit more.

I believe Spiderman and the Green Hornet have been copyrighted, but (and I think I speak for LFGSS as a whole) we do look forward to your cosplay videos.

No bicycle thief will ever evade our dynamic duo!

Whap! POW! cough... fart.

First Clouded Yellow I have seen this year, shit phone photo but uncommon enough to share. On wasteland near Rye, so not somewhere I could just nip back and grab a proper camera.

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Mad camo.

Been a tough year, tatty looking 6 spot burnet

What a photo! Brilliant.

These two dutty whatever-they-ares going at it in public in the Peak District earlier today

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What's this river creature? Just escaped from a fisherman or something native?

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I fear it is just an angler’s maggot, fed on red dyed food. Good bait for perch, I recall.

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Yeah definitely a red maggot (pinkie)

It was doing well, no anglers in sight.

Do you get pink flies?

Not from a fishing maggot, you just get a mini pink Jeff Goldblum.
Bleugh, I hate flies!

Anyway, can't have too many Damselfly, here's a common blue(?) from today's walk. The big dragonflies were snatching flying ants out of the air, I'd love to have a high-speed camera to capture that!

And a long horn that wouldn't stay still.

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