My name is Nate, and I am an amateur naturalist with a passion for behavioral entomology. I have already joined databases such as Bugguide.net and spiderid.com (for which my username is P. Almoni) and regularly contribute to them, but I feel that a blog would provide more room for behavioral observations so key in the scientific community. I plan to post weekly about a variety of subjects, including my pets and observations I make in the wild. For now, let's just get started with an introduction of my pets. (Warning: graphic images of predatory behavior to follow.)
This one is a giant wolf spider named Jumpy (I am waiting for a more positive identification, but for now, "Jumpy" will do). On the left is the wing of a bee fly, Anthrax anthrax, which it devoured in a matter of hours.
Here is Jumpy just having captured the fly. I found the fly buzzing up and down a tall, wooden fence, landing next to mason bee holes. The mimic fooled me into mistaking it for a carpenter bee from underneath. Upon a dorsal inspection, however, it was obviously not a carpenter bee.
This is Yoda, my juvenile Chinese praying mantis. I have been keeping him in a plastic container with a Lego jungle gym for about twenty days, and just yesterday he ate his first crane fly! I'll be glad to not have to constantly supply little bugs now that he can eat larger prey. Here is a slow-motion video of how the hunt turned out.
This is Sticky, my curved-toothed geometer caterpillar. I captured and pinned his mother, but not before she could lay two batches of eggs in her holding container. I decided to wait for them to hatch, and learned that newly hatched inchworms are difficult to contain. I returned from church one morning to find my shelf literally crawling with the little boogers, and in my frantic attempt to expel them from my house, I stuck Sticky in a vial and forgot about him. I came back a few hours later and provided a leaf for him to eat, and raised him from there. I have had him for almost a month, though I have lost track of what instar he is on.
Finally, this is Izzy, my Otterhound-Rat Terrier mix and companion in all things entomological. We regularly go outside searching for invertebrates: I look for unusual insects and spiders to photograph, and she looks for crickets and grasshoppers to snack on. We make a pretty good team.
I hope to keep providing interesting information and useful pictures over the coming months and years. Stay tuned for a Costa Rican insect and spider post, as well as updates on my pets and general observations—and questions—about nature.
