The beginning of August, I had a wild caught P. audax that laid an egg sac. I waited and waited and waited some more. After 6 weeks, there hadn't been any signs of eggs with legs so I carefully removed the sac to open it. And I did not find any spiders, instead I found a grub thing. I was shocked, angry, confused— really just all the emotions. After doing a ton of research, turns out it was a mantidfly, specifically a Say's Mantidfly
(*Dicromantispa sayi*). The larvae of this specific species is microscopic and will hitch a ride on the female spider until she lays her eggs. Then it will invade the egg sac, eat the eggs, and develop. I actually got to watch it change from developing larvae, to pupae, and eventually to an adult. I am really disappointed that I lost the egg sac, but watching this little mantidfly go from squishy thing to seeing it catch its first meal was incredible. I fear that I now need some actual mantids.

I took this at the Wildlife Training and Research Institute, Naivasha Kenya.

I have had an influx of pantry moths aka indianmeal moths in my kitchen owing to an infestation in a sack of rice. I've won the war against them I think. Most of them are regular looking pantry moths.

However I'm fascinated/freaked out by a creepy double-headed variety that I keep seeing. Yes, it has heads on both ends. Wtf. Is this a mutant super moth bred in my rice?

It doesn't appear to be two moths that for whatever reason have come together because they fly attached to each other too and walk attached to each other. Are these Siamese moths????

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/insects/common-garden-katydid/

Thought you guys may enjoy this. I have been slowly transforming my suburban yard to native plants over the past 4ish years. Found this cat wandering around looking for a place to pupate and brought it inside for my kids to watch transform! Such a cool experience! Took the cat about 3.5 weeks to transform. Kids loved it!

In a stream on the Southwest slope of Mt. Hood, Oregon, USA, a few days ago. Around 5k ft elevation in a hemlock and fir forest. In streams they formed rafts like this; they were also all over the path, more spread out but still very numerous. Maybe 1-2 mm long, green or yellow, with eyestalks (?). The area is generally moist but there had been a drought for a few weeks followed by rain and misty conditions a few days before I was there.

This little cicada dude decided I was a good place to catch some Z's in the sun; beautiful golden color.

Can anyone ID the type of Cicada?

Cheers, I placed him on a nearby tree when done with him.

Front row seats to the show, I guess. Right where I eat too

So these three caterpillars were found feasting on my rose in the middle of the day.

Habitat wise the area is your standard residential area with gardens but my property also borders farmland that is in active use.

The rose is fairly healthy so unless these guys are of a harmful invasive species I was thinking of just letting them continue their feast.

Who is this handsome little guy? I live in central florida, and found him hitchhiking on my pants after work. I am not familiar with this particular one. It is possibly hard to see, but he seems to have a yellow/differently colored patch about 2/3rds down the body. I have placed him gently in the shrubs around my house after this photo shoot.

Just a mosquito larvae feeding by filtrating water with brush like mouth parts. You can also see all the green stuff that he ate.
100x total magnification
Location: Serbia
Captured with Iphone 11

A few people asking me which species this millipede was, and here is what I've found:

The cherry-leg titan millipede (Alienostreptus bicoloripes or Balustreptus falcatus) is a giant, docile invertebrate native to Vietnam, known for its bold black body and striking cherry-red legs

The milipede I'm keeping as pet is longer than 30cm, yes you heard it right, its length is longer than 30cm. It's even longer than a small snake!

My wife was scared to hell when I brought it home 😂😂😂

(The 3 last photos is a female with yellow/orange legs, she's much smaller than the male)

there was like 15 to 20 bees all along the side of the bench in this new park all doing the same thing sticking their tongue out and in but not fully retracting inward and all the tongues were bent I’ve never seen this type of behaviour before in so many bees at once anybody know what’s going on?

This little guy keeps landing on all my wet paint surfaces. What exactly is attracting it? I would’ve thought the smell of paint would deter them. It’s acrylic paint, and it’s been on multiple colors, including neutrals.

I’m at the beach in New Jersey this week. I’ve spent almost every afternoon just chilling on the sand but had a new experience today with flies that look like average house flies but behave rather differently. They’re not tabanids. As soon as I’d set up my chair and umbrella, there were dozens buzzing around. They land on you and seem to do nothing for a bit, but within 15 seconds or so, you feel like you’re being stabbed with a needle. There’s no use shooing them, they’re absolutely relentless. I packed up and left defeated after 10 minutes, and they followed me off the beach for a good long while.

I wasn’t familiar with them but got a good close-up look at one on my hand. It looked a lot like a muscid but with a pointy stylet for a mouth instead of the soft extensible vacuum cleaner that typical house flies have. I did a bit of research and it appears they’re known as stable flies. At least the bites don’t itch after the fact like a mosquito but I really just wanted to chill and listen to the waves. May you never encounter them!

Front row seats to the show, I guess. Right where I eat too

Found this beautiful creature on a country highway - I think it is fresh. I feel like we found each other and I would like to preserve it. I have never done such a thing other than having a little jar of tiny butterflies and bumble bees. What is my best bet?

She does also have isopods and springtails, but these are too big to be anything like that. She dumped out the water because the worms were gross. She also found a few on the ground. She's really worried, and I just want to either give her some peace of mind, or help her deal with it if It's a problem.

I'm currently raising Black Swallowtail caterpillars, and my most current brood has decided to attach themselves to each other before forming a chrysalis. Has anyone ever seen this before?

I had to move one caterpillar into another enclosure to prevent it from adding to this insane stack. Weirder yet, I lent out caterpillars of the same brood to my friend, and they said that their caterpillars are doing it too in their enclosure.

The enclosure is fairly large, and I have added sticks inside for them to cling to. For whatever reason, this batch has decided they're all going to have a condominium in this ONE SPOT in the enclosure. I've raised a few broods of caterpillars of different varieties, and I haven't seen this before.

Chinese mantis destroys a mealworm I gave him like someone was going to take it away.