Category Archives: insects in Mexico

Seasonal Hunting Party

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What is Pasiano looking for??? Click on photos to read the story.

What is Paciano hunting for in the Virginia Creeper?
Hard to find in the dense foliage.
But here is evidence of what he is hunting: its droppings littering the terrace and the table beneath the vine
Aha! Caught one. It’s a hummingbird moth larvae.
In two stages. Here are two that he removed from the vine, but where is the one that got away?
Mystery solved. All in all, he removed about a dozen of them, which I safely relocated in the spare lot. How could we kill anything that turns into something that looks like a hummingbird? Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten a photo of one.
But here is an image of hummingbird moth by Graehem Mountenay. I’ve never been able to capture one and have seen only one in 22 years. They must be present, though, judging by the dozens of their caterpillars that we remove from my Virginia creeper each year.

Hibiscus Bud with Daddy Longlegs: FOTD, Nov 6, 2019

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When I tried to take this photo, a cluster of Daddy Longlegs unfolded from behind the bud. Every year they collect by the thousands on my walls and plants. Welcome back, long-legged annual visitors. Please click on photos to enlarge the view. This is the first time I’ve gotten close enough to see their eyes!! Oscar is here for his English lesson, but later I’ll establish a link to earlier views of huge clusters of these yearly guests.

If you’d like to see the video of a past year’s Daddy Longlegs invasion, go here:

And then go HERE to see the incredible view of the first year I hosted a Daddy Longleg convention.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day

Not Cricket

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Not Cricket

Almost anything the least notable that happens to me anymore, Forgottenman insists I must make into a blog post. I object. He prods. I comply. Tonight it was simply a VERY LOUD cricket whose noise was ricocheting off the concrete walls and dome of my living/dining room and practically causing the mainly glass walls to vibrate. After about 20 minutes, I developed a splitting headache and went in search of it, knowing that in these rooms and the adjoining kitchen there is so much stuff that I’d never find it. But, to my surprise, I tracked it down. Here is the Skype conversation that ensued:

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Moving House

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Moving House.

Did you notice that ring on the top of the storage space to the right of my poinsettia photos?  If so, you might have been curious about what it was.  Not just a ring of dirt from where I moved the pot.  This is what was going on! It reminds me of humans evacuating a hospital before a hurricane or after a disaster.  And yes, I did feel a bit guilty. But it looks like their backup plan worked just fine. (Click on the first photo to enlarge photos and read captions.)

Whe I returned from two months at the beach, I was amazed to find poinsettias blooming even more profusely than they had bloomed in december. Notice the ring on the top of the bodega to the right of the flowers?
It was partially soil from the bottom of the pot, but it was also hundreds of tiny ants
hurrying to move their eggs to safer ground.
Obviously, the bottom of the pot had been their nursery.
Now they moved in orderly twos
and ones,
every upwards.
following the line of the window edge
A few did not avoid the trap of a spider web.
But eventually, all had relocated in the light sconce above. When I went out six hours later, all was still. Not a sign of a tiny ant or egg, until I turned over the pot from the location I had moved it to. About 50 of the ants had re-relocated back to their former home. When I turned the pot sideways, they scurried around like mad, grabbing their assigned eggs and making off again. Hurriedly, I set the pot back down again. No time for a photo this time.

African Mask Bug: Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge

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I found this fellow just outside my gate. He was about an inch and a half long. I’ve seen them here before but I can’t remember the name.  Rotated one turn to the right, it looks like an African mask.

Spider on the Ceiling

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Spider on the ceiling, legs evenly spread round,
I can’t help but wonder what keeps you ceiling-bound.
Have you little suction cups welded to each foot,
and if so, has nature adequately put
each one on this spider far above my bed
so it will not disconnect and land upon my head?

 

I woke up much earlier than usual today, and after I posted my poem and photos, I went back to bed. I closed my eyes for a short time, then opened them and stared fixedly at the ceiling above the bed.  It was not fully light in the room, but in the diffused light from the curtains which form a sort of scrim in the room, I could see a black blotch on the ceiling right above me.  Trying to figure out what it was, I scrunched my eyes up and eventually made out lines radiating out from the center.  It finally occurred to me that this might be a spider.  Further scrunching determined that it was, indeed, a delicate-looking spider perhaps an inch or two in diameter. It hasn’t moved in the half hour or so it has taken for me to write its laudatory poem, locate my camera, arrange for adequate lighting and camera settings, shoot its portrait and to get posted.  It will probably still be there tonight.  If so, its fame will probably be expanded with another poem.  If I remember.

Canna Lily with Bee: Flower of the day, Aug 18, 2017

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For Cee’s flower prompt.

Best for Last

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Best for Last

Just as I’m ready to ingest
the morsel I consider best
and so picked out from all the rest
to be my last bite, savored with zest—
last memory of this gourmet fest—
from north and south and east and west,
descends each winged little pest,
radared in on diabolical quest
as though invited at my behest.
They put my appetite to the test,
settling as though to the nest,
their hairy feet intimately pressed
upon that morsel that I loved best.
I wave my hand over them, lest
they eat too much, then I confess
I guiltily consume the rest.

 

The prompt today is pest.

That Time of Year: Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge, July 9, 2017

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It’s that time of year when flying termites descend by the thousands, chew off their wings and go in search of delicious wood to munch.  These fellas thankfully got caught in a huge rainstorm that lasted for hours, pinning them by their wings.  I woke up to drifts of them in places like these steps up to the garage. Kinda ghastly, but definitely oddball.

 

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