Giant Jumping Spider, 48 Baby Cockroaches, and Cool Mantidfly.

Hello!

It's been a minute since I last posted, and a lot has happened. Well, OK, only one thing happened: I got hit by a freight train named "school." Because of that, I'll have to pull a praeteritio and not discuss the discovery of about five Polyphemus moth cocoons, my acquisition of a toad bug, my friendly pet assassin bugs, and much more. So, over the past few months, here are the highlights:

GIANT JUMPING SPIDER

I have always found it odd how negatively people respond to the words "jumping" and "spider" in the same sentence. To me, it screams "I'm cute! Pet me!" This Phidippus otiosus was the largest jumper I had ever seen. At about a centimeter and a half, it is pretty magnificent (and cute).

Here is a slow-mo of it jumping.

"PREHISTORIC" ARTHROPOD

The firefly larvae, colloquially known as the trilobite beetle due to its resemblance to the extinct creatures, is really quite neat. They have tiny, noodle-like heads which they hide in their thorax area and use to get deep inside of the shells of the snails they disembowel for breakfast.

Flexing his muscles.

 GIANT COCKROACHES

Some people are OK with jumping spiders but still possess an irrational fear of cockroaches. However, you must admit that these little fellas are darlings. I got about fifty of them from my science teacher, whose roaches were accidentally purchased gravid. I brought them home, all prepared to become the proud father of forty eight.

Could only get so many of them together.

SO CUTE!

You can see the antennae moving so quickly!

If you notice, the orangish boarder of the cockroach mimics that of the firefly larvae. It makes me wonder what function it serves; both are ground-dwelling critters that hide in leaves. Leave any ideas in the comments!

 Immediately, I took the opportunity to add some variance to Yoda's diet. 

Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside.

The legs were twitching when I took the picture.

 COOL MANTIDFLY

I caught an Anasaitis canosa (Twin Flagged Jumping Spider) and it laid eggs and THIS came out. 

Evidence for the hopeful monster theory? (The idea that one day a lizard laid an egg and out hopped a bird.) Not quite. Some mantidfly species are parasites of jumping spiders; this one just happens to be one of them. They such the blood out of the adults until they lay eggs, then they get in the eggs and eat them. Really neat little creatures! The big eyes do add some element of cuteness, but not as much as the cockroaches.

See you next time!