Insects and Spiders

There is no shame in considering that thing to be unacceptable.

Today I learnt that woodlice are crustaceans and not insects. Seems so obvious now

When down in Cornwall we found a Sea Louse on the rocks...

Not as big as this mind.

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Yeah I saw a couple of sea slaters when I was in Devon this summer. About 3 inches long!

Edit: sea louse / sea slater the same thing?

Yeah Slater. Altho I don't really see a difference myself.

I think we were both a bit surprised when I headbutted this web earlier whilst watering the garden. Not sure what spider it is but it's pretty chunky

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My garden is full of these fat buggers and their bloody webs.

Garden orb weaver. Get really big this time of year!

Those fuckers love to line my side return with their webs. Presumably because they love watching me flail around like a tit whilst frantically brushing spiders - imaginary and/or real - out of my hair.

Fun fact, the white cross on the back of the orb weavers is made from guanine which is created from the the amonia byproduct of metabolised proteins... Aka poo.

A Western Conifer Seed Bug came in the house earlier this evening.

Second I've seen so peesume they've taken up residence in our evergreens.

Pic from RHS site

This birch shield bug (?) landed on my daughters buggy yesterday. Then Later, my eldest cane running in from the garden To tell me there was a ‘crazy caterpillar’ in the garden. Knot grass moth I think.

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Read this last night and had a chuckle then did exactly the same myself this morning, my dog just gave me that, ‘I’ve seen it all now...’ glance.

Nice big moth on the wall this morning

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Lovely short documentary on dragonflies: https://vimeo.com/76976406

Awesome

Nasty little sod as a youngster, weren't you?

Yes, excellent!

Funnily enough not really my family name literally means from the swamp. 😎

I failed to listen properly to what Mrs Ludd was saying to me earlier as I was transfixed by the sight of a hummingbird hawk moth on a shrub out at the back of the house. Mid-October?!

I saw one of these for the first time on holiday in France mid Summer as a child.

I was transfixed as I couldn't work out if it was bird or insect.

Then I saw the proboscis.

Amazing that 2 very separate species have arrived at the same solution.

why in the penis has this ladybird got lumps?

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I can't find anything that matches this (remarkable) picture, only that there is a species of parasitic wasp which exploits ladybirds to 'host' its larvae. None of the pictures associated with it show growths like the above, but perhaps in this case the larva has eaten its way through the ladybird, erm, sideways?

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/biological-warfare-parasitic-wasp-uses-a-virus-to-control-its-host

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2014.2773

If it's something else, it would be odd that something so obvious and striking doesn't seem to have attracted research, at least from what I can find, but perhaps it's so rare that you're the first to see it.

Either way, I can't imagine that this ladybird is very well.

Oh dear. Thanks Oliver.

A few more for the record.

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get me britain's top ladybologist on the phone!

I know a few ladybird experts on twitter, I'll ask them