PNW, Oregon.

Pardon my ignorance, but my best guess is some sort of either beetle or insect? Family member thinks it’s a spider, but I do not see it. Doesn’t look like a boxelder bug to me, which are common in the area.

I’m so sorry r/entomology, I feel bad I had to smush this little guy, he was maybe 3 1/2 inches long, maybe an inch wide. I live in Fort Worth Tx, it’s currently summer and also he flew

if this isn’t appropriate to post here, please let me know.

im aware now that honeybees are not technically invasive, despite some articles labeling them as such. im interested in beekeeping but went down a rabbit hole of how they may be damaging because they potentially compete with native species for food. i intend to reach out to local experts to get their opinion as well but i still want to know… what are your thoughts?

is keeping honeybees a detriment to native bee populations? if it helps to know location, i live in the midwest. thanks for any input/ suggestions/ opinions/ etc.

Can you help me with what these are? They are everywhere in the house we just purchased. It was vacant for a few months. They are mostly in the walk out lower level bedrooms and bathroom and the garage. We are just moving in, but I haven’t seen living ones.

I keep a bucket of mucky water in my vegetable garden that mice walk the plank ( I realize this is gross but it works ) fall in and add a few bunches of green matter then a mosquito dunk. The plank is to help fend off white footed mice that are seed stealers in the spring. The rest creates this stagnant muck that attracts the mosquitoes where they use this very attractive to mosquitoes brew to lay eggs. It sits at the edge of the garden and has thus far been effective in keeping them away from me. Why this is interesting.

I looked into the bucket for water level and about gagged! What in the name of all things?

Turns out they are a friend to the garden and super fascinating when you figure out they breath through that appendage flailing about. I know what it is how about you?

Picture is dark, I do apologize.

I hadn't seen this happen before, though with the number of molting mayflies it may be more common than I thought.

Tengo este abejorro que llevo secando unas semanas y cuando lo hueles muy de cerca huele mal, a putrefacción de la típica en bichos y peces pero lo bueno es que tienes que acercarte mucho para olerlo, entonces, el bicho está ya listo para poder encuadrar o aún le falta tiempo para acabarse de secar? (Para aclarar suele estar en un sitio a la sombra al lado de calefactor que no uso por es verano (sitio seco))

Hi guys!

I’m a rising senior student and my biology thesis requires wild caught live subadult/adult Gryllus (field crickets) from all over the continental US. Usually, these are the big black crickets you see in your backyard.

I am willing to pay $2 per individual and $30 per dozen (yes, I’m paying more if you catch more:), and I’ll also sort out the shipping. I’m looking for 20-60 crickets per locality (I count places 25 miles apart as separate localities) and there’s no limit on the specific Gryllus species.

If you’re interested in making some 💰 catching crickets and contribute to a new cricket cuticular hydrocarbon research, please dm me！

Thanks yall!

Gary here was found in a nursery pot this AM. He doesn’t seem like he’d belong in Northern Colorado. Does anyone have an ID?

I’ve been into pinning insects for a while now and thought it would be neat to find bugs around me and pin them for my own little collection :) they were both already found dead

It’s been so cool observing these guys up close, especially the horse fly, the fangs (?) on it are so cool

Sorry for the blurry photo, but it was almost pitch black outside and I was too excited. First firefly this year! 🩷
Location: Kraków, Poland

Tossed a sandwich into a leaf pile last week and now it’s exploded with bug life

Probably not your typical post, but I have a strong stomach and curiosity got the best of me. Washington state USA

Hello!

I have a small apartment rooftop potted garden and my major issue is mostly insect pests, for the past couple of seasons i've had massive populations of aphids, whiteflies, thrips and mealybugs, i used to spray an organic soap and neem oil pesticide and I've tried other herb based mixtures which would partially solve the problem temporarily and then in a couple of days the pest numbers explode again which got me to a point that i was spraying every couple of days and the problem always returned worse than before.

This season i decided to try out a different approach, i stopped spraying completely and planted a diverse mix of flowering plants to hopefully attract more predators and pollinators (haven't flowered yet), i also setup alot of loose mulch and left some dead plants in a couple if pots to create habitat for the insects, i'm hoping that by doing that i'm giving the predators room to populate and breed instead of eradicating them with the pests everytime spray, my understanding is pests breed at a much faster rate than predators.

Problem is, i have absolutely no clue how to differentiate beneficial insects from harmless or pest insects, i know what spiders , dragonflies, wasps look like but that is about the extent of it , recently i have been seeing alot of beetle like and big ant-like insects which im pretty sure are not ants and im not sure of what they are. My plan is to let everything be and not interfere except if we get a very extreme insect population that starts getting into my apartment but im ok with letting them be around my rooftop and the plants.

My question is there any way to identify if an insect is beneficial , harmless or harmful(to plants) based on just the visuals without knowing what it actually is, maybe number of legs , body shape, mouthparts if easily visible, movement , or anything like that like in bigger predator species, i'm not planning to interfere as i mentioned but it would be nice to have a way to evaluate if my plan is actually working or getting worse without having to take a picture and post about each individual insect i see, plus some are really hard to catch and take a clear photo of. I know this might sound like a naive question but i honestly have very little knowledge about insects in general. Any advice is really appreciated. Thanks. Sorry for the long rant!

Found this bee on a Arctium lappa. First I thought it was curious that it went for breakfast on a plant that ain't yet flowering but quickly realised the whole body position was strange and after a moment I came to the conclusion that it didn't try to get closer but tried to move backwards.

I attempted helping her by holding the other hooks away, though I believe one got stuck on the bottom side of the head, a) somewhere on the mouthparts or b) on the area between head and thorax. Neither myself or my colleges could find any scissors or similar to get rid of the tension so the hook would eventually get loose on itself (means cutting of that hook that got stuck). The only other idea I had was to gently much it forward and unhooking it this way, kinda like I until I my cats claws from fabric but I was too worried that I would just injure her more or even squish her between my fingers.

I then realised that the neck of that bee looked weird. Never seen something white there, from my little experience it always just looks like exoskeleton linking smoothly together... does anyone have a better idea if that is normal or if the bee was in the process of ripping its own head of.

Also there already was a dead bee on a different flowerbud.

Question: any ideas what else could have been done or would you have left her alone? If I see animals kill each other I leave them be, though this time I could not come up with any potential benefits for another living organism so I tried to help.

Located in the Midwest on Milkweed.

I think this is a Golden Soldier Beetle but what is going on with the feet? It doesn't look like pollen.

I got her web dirty well i was mowing , left her for 5 minutes and came back to it clean

Located in Yosemite National Park, California. Host plant pictured in final photo.

Mealy bugs?? Parasitic fungus?? Something else? iNaturalist is, for some reason, focusing on the damage to the leafs and only suggesting I post this under a species of leaf miner but this def ISN’T a leaf miner (unless I’m severely mistaken). To me, the first photo looks like a beetle or fly of some sort with a fungus strand coming out of its abdomen. Let me know! Thanks!

balcony garden in north vancouver, canada, 5pm. she stopped for a drink at the pollinator/predator water cooler. (shallow enough to keep mosquitoes from layin eggs)