what’s been bugging me

In the six years this blog has been going, I’ve posted a number of pictures of bugs and creepy crawlies, so I thought I’d bring some of them together in an entomological collection.

My very first blog bug was this giant moth (it had a wingspan of about five inches). I wrote about it in May 2007 in the post Wings in the Night:

This rather smaller one – less than an inch from head to tail – came later:

DCTN has been visited by various types of mantis:

It has featured carpenter bees, dead…

…and alive:

Some of the bugs look as if they belong in sci-fi movies:

Some I’d be very reluctant to give house-room to…

…even if their close relations are quite good at clearing up unwanted bodies:

Looking back over the bug collection what gets me is how few pretty, daytime creatures there are. They mostly seem to be bug-eyed, dark and dangerous.

Fortunately, I did manage to find one bright butterfly in the archives to round off this post: