Comments on: Delightful Insects of Summer

By: DYMongoose

DYMongoose — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:54:14 +0000

I absolutely despise June bugs (worked a fireworks tent in the middle of a horse field. I was the only light around for about a mile) and cicadas. Any insect that screams at me is instantly not cool, as well as any insect I can hear “flapping” as it flies. But the worst of all is a wasp. Death to them all.
Cicada killer wasps? Hmm… how big are those things? I might actually have to pull for the cicadas in that case, which is an atrocity…

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:12:10 +0000

What about the giant cicada killers?

They are huge wasps that don’t attack humans, they hunt and kill cicadas.

I stood a few feet away from a nest in the ground with about 5-6 of them flying around and they totally ignored me.

By: CK

CK — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:34:34 +0000

Living here in dry heat Southern California, we don’t get as many insects as other parts of the country. It’s good and bad. Since I grew up in the midwest, I can certainly appreciate the lack of mosquitoes and other such insects, but I also miss the cool ones, like fireflies…!

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:04:38 +0000

I like those bugs that walk on water–water boatmen, I think. Very cool to watch.

By: cb

cb — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:28:34 +0000

*way more fun THAN it should be

ugh.

By: cb

cb — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:27:33 +0000

I TOTALLY second “flicking june bugs from the opposite side of the screen door”. That’s way more fun that it should be. :)

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:44:28 +0000

How about ephemenoptera, the mayflies that launch, live, love and languish within a few days? Preferred by 10 out of 10 trout, and philosophy fodder as I sweep their earthly remains away under the porch light.

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 30 May 2007 14:52:29 +0000

No on the cicadas. Here we get the 7 year ones that infest everything. It’s extremely gross.

Hoorah on the walking sticks/stick bug/Phasmatodea! (I definitely just looked that one up :) Did you know there’s about 2,800 described species of those little darlings?

By: Bassman

Bassman — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:35:09 +0000

To be nit-picky: Honeybees coNvert the nectar, not covert.
But, almost all of these insects are ones which we see less and less often. It’s already June and I haven’t seen a bee. Lightening bugs aren’t doing too badly. When I was a kid there were swarms of June Bugs. You couldn’t step outside without them regularly smacking into you. They are very rare now.

Re: earthworms. A really good book: The Earth Moved

By: heather

heather — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:25:03 +0000

Nothing says summer like a field full of chirping crickets in the moonlight. Though they can get annoying when there’s too much of them.

And let us not forget those ever enigmatic worms!(not exactly bugs, but close enough) They renew the soil and help things grow. Those guys are truly fascinating, I mean what other anumal can survive being cut in half AND is hermaphroditic?