lightsinthedistance-modernlife

Let's just say that my summer project with assassin bugs is going well so far. More to come soon!

I decided to turn on the outside lights for about a half hour tonight to see if anything would fly up, and I got some good results! Right now I'll post the pictures that I took tonight, and I'll elaborate tomorrow. I caught a few of the beetles and am keeping them to hopefully identify later and get a closer look under better light conditions. It was about 52 degrees tonight, so still a bit chilly for more insects to be flying about, but once summer warms up more, there will be all sorts attracted to lights.

I've now been back in the United States for three days now, and each day I have made time to go out looking for insects. I've missed the familiar plants and temperate weather, and on top of that, I've had a lot of success, especially today. So far I've confined myself to my backyard, but that hasn't limited what I've found. I pulled off some dead bark from some staghorn sumac, and found some ants which had set up residence inside the plant. They quickly grabbed the ant larvae and ferried them away from view, and ran around feverishly trying to figure out what had happened. I was hoping for some beetle grubs, but this was fine too. I also found a firefly crawling around in the grass. It's still a bit chilly for most of the fireflies to be out, but I've seen a few. Hopefully it will only be a few weeks until they're out in abundance and flashing. Speaking of fireflies, if you haven't yet, check out Firefly Watch , a project to look at firefly abund...