Images from:
1 Corky
2 Bill (Ant and wasp)
3 Reiuxcat (garden spider)
4 Sturge
5 sTevo
6 Eugenia
7 Tim
8 TennDon (Cornered Chipmunk)
9 maryd (This little guy was enjoying a pumpkin snack from the Halloween jack-o-lantern)
The rest of the images are courtesy of pixabay.com
Want your pictures in an upcoming Sunday Critters? Please email them to me:
They must be a picture you (or family/friend) took and are willing to have us publish them on this site. Do not send any images you found on the internet.
Use ‘Critters’ in the subject line. Include your screen name in the body of the email. Tell me the name of your critter so I can include it with your screen name. Let us know in the comments any other info you want to share!
NEEDED:
Mother/child critters
Cute critters
Baby critters
Thanks!
PS I apologize for the ‘creepy crawlers’. I have a special love for some of these bugs and more. Growing up, I had many of these as pets. Mostly for just a day to watch them. But I kept my praying mantis for three days, feeding it moths. Fascinating! However, I did not include the snake I was going to show. Almost, but I figured I shouldn’t push it! hehe
Claudia — As children, my siblings and I also made “pets” of lots of critters. I loved Monarch caterpillars and kept them in a shoe box, feeding them leaves. Garter snakes, lady bugs, even a bat one time. I think the reason children are naturally drawn to the things that creep, crawl and flit in the garden is because these things do it at a height that is accessible to children — on the ground level and among the plants and flowers. Isn’t God a wonder to do something so lovely?
I love preying mantises and lady bugs. No stag beetles or spiders or wasps or slugs they’re just too creepy. And I like squirrels of which there are plenty around my house and chipmunks, skunks and racoons not so much. It could’ve also used some pictures of bumble bees.
Ehhhhhhh, what’s up, Claudia?
Actually bugs are fascinating (so long as they are outside) because they are so diverse… and ruthless. In one sense they are the ultimate survivors, but at the end of the day they’re just food for something bigger.
No doubt about it, I need new glasses. In AA’s note above, I read ” I loved Monarch caterpillars and kept them in a shoe box, feeding them leaves. Garter snakes,….. ” as having a comma after leaves, which alters the sentence into a very different and troubling image.
I wonder if during Genesis, after God made a bunch of animals and said, “Now I’m going to make me some Bugs!”
What a nice gathering of pics! I love bugs!!
Good job, Claudia!
F4UCorsair — I was being Sunday Lazy. Got up too early and didn’t write out a proper sentence to describe the keeping of other critters.
Awwww …
Thanks, Claudia!
That spider looks so big,I think you would have to use a shotgun on it. (the brick in the back ground is 3″)
https://www.realclearscience.com/2015/03/19/why_god_has_an_inordinate_fondness_for_beetles_263850.html .
I do appreciate the Sunday photos, Claudia. Thanks 1e6!
I’ve got a soft spot for bats and mantises…
My little sister had this habit of taking a fuzzy caterpillar, putting it in a plastic bin as a house and giving it doll food.
The lil bug never lived long either, but we had plenty of funerals.
(RIP catty, wormy, fuzzy, catty II, etc)
Claudia,
Multi-Toed Multi-Toned Rabbit Ears
https://postimg.cc/XX4W6RW8
WYWHLYA
Thermal Version
“We were inverted”
https://postimg.cc/Jt26mFHg
Showcasing my prey, I see. Another fine collection, Claudia!
I make a living off of 7 of these (skunks and squirrels only counted once each). Once for bats in the last 32+ years so I’m not counting that one.
3 are our friends in the pest biz. Four if you count the bat. All of them are our friends when the “our” means bug men making money.
Was once called to a rental unit that the tenant had always refused any pest service inside. “Don’t like chemicals and bugs are ok with me”
But this day he was swamped with boo coo bugs.
He was desperate for me to spray the tree, front yard and the front of the house. He had already bought an end-of-the-hose sprayer and chemical and sprayed as far up the tree as the water pressure allowed. Which was between 15-20 feet. Whole house had dead black bugs all over it as did the tree where he could reach.
I didn’t spray anything that day.
It was particularly funny to me that Mr Natural had just killed the best natural pest control he could have asked to be on his property.
It’s just that he didn’t recognize Ladybugs in their larval form.
The look and reaction he gave after I told him what he had killed was priceless.
I’m totally for any natural pest control. Less chemical is better. Always.
Pro tip: It’s the larval form of Ladybug that eats other bugs, The adults don’t at all.
Dadof4, I have a confession. I did the same thing when I saw a black bug crawling on one of my fences. It was just one, and before I made the same mistake with the next one, I went to my computer. My heart sunk when I realized what I did; I was so crushed!
I went outside and found a few of my dogwood bush branches filled with aphids. I left them on the fence for the baby ladybugs to feast on. I hope they forgave me!
https://pixabay.com/photos/greenfly-aphid-sap-sucking-insect-328586/
Dadof4
What is the Ladybug time frame of larval to Hard shell?
Asking for a friend that moved into a house and about 2 to 3 weeks later had dozens of ladybugs appear in the first floor level and never saw any ‘black’ bugs or worms. Do they go airborne when small and get blown in with the breeze if the sliding glass door and screen were left open for extended breezy times and convenient ingress and egress?
Depending on the species and environmental variables such as temperature, the pupal stage may last 3 to 12 days
It looks like this was a refresher for me, too. The adults do eat soft bodied insects.
(Insert excuse here so I don’t look so bad.)
@ Bugs talk
Blown in? No, if I’m getting what you’re saying. Meaning, en masse blown in to create a mass of adults at some point? no.
The larvae are pretty heavy compared to, say, baby spiders.
I have been called out to massive populations in sheds and whatnot. Best guess is some Momma ladybugs laid a few thousand eggs together in the area.
That, or some quick temperature drop drove them in from the perimeter of the structure. Seeking warmth.
Every call to a mass of them in a shed or garage ended in no treatment at all.
A few minutes of conversation about them squares the the customer up on the reality of the situation.
There is only an uninformed, psychological, aspect of seeing them as a pest to be killed, IMO. No real need to kill them except they “bug” you by their presence.
Then again, I have the full spectrum of customers’ opinion on “pests”.
From: “KILL THEM ALL! EFF THEM. Don’t care what good they do.”
To: “My religion forbids me from killing anything. Rats are cool and I’m only hiring you for the ants because the pool company won’t replace the shorted-out equipment any more if I don’t show them a receipt that I had an ant service done.”
First time I showed up for the ants there I was turned away because the husband had the no-kill-anything policy and wifey – who negotiated and hired me – wasn’t there.
In my head: ( Why the eff did you set this time, then? You could have , at least, called and reset a time.)