#dead bugs

[onenicebugperday]

Entomopathogenic fungus (Engyodontium aranearum) infected spiders

Engyodontium aranearum is a species of ascomycete fungus in the family Cordycipitaceae. It parasitizes the long bodied cellar spider, Pholcus phalangioides. It causes 100% mortality in infected spiders.

Photo 1 by bugzone, 2 by garrett_brown, 3 by laurahuckleberry, 4 by lois_rancilhac, 5 by emilvus, 6 by komille277, and 7 (for scale) by samdeakin

[cnestus]

everyone please admire this genital dissection i did today while trying to identify this male longhorn bee. i avoided doing these for the longest time but it really is the only way to reliably ID a huge chunk of bee species. i spent like an hour trying to key this guy out using external morphological features but it only took about 10 seconds once i yanked his crazy little hog out and compared it against the big chart of bee dicks. he's a Eucera amsinckiae.

[rosjectum]

Our darling Sosáčisko died on December 3, 2024. It will be greatly missed.

learn more:

[ex0skeletal-undead]

by organizedchaoscollection on Instagram

[big1ron]

May or may not go back and completely recolour this another day.

[unlikelycliteratureenthusiast]

Christopher Marley's collection of natural species is absolutely spectacular. 10/10 would recommend!

[creatureimages]

variably alive bugs washed up on the beach

[jupiterswasphouse]

[PHOTOS TAKEN: AUGUST 20TH, 2024 | Image IDs: Four photos of a green, black, and white, partially translucent lynx spider on a large green hydrangea leaf, holding a freshly caught, fluffy white and black erebid caterpillar, clearly preparing to eat it /End IDs.]

[radmannotmadman]

bug Tumblr help

How do I preserve a dead bee no glue no borax

[herbalfaerie]

patiently waiting for spring so I can look for bugs

[mycoblogg]

HORROR WEEK- FOTD #147 : zombie-ant fungus! (ophiocordyceps unilateralis)

the zombie-ant fungus is an insect-pathogenic fungus that infects & controls the muscular system of an ant. it is a member of the ophiocordycipitaceae family, & has received notoriety in popular media after inspiring parts of the hit series & game 'the last of us'. it mainly occurs in tropical forest ecosystems :-)

the big question : will it kill me?? only if you're an ant :-) if you're an ant, the fungus will take control of your body - not your mind, as is commonly falsely believed - force you to climb about a foot off the ground into a tree, latch your jaw into a "death grip" on the vein of a leaf, & sprout from your body !! you will be eaten from the inside.

[images : source & source] [fungus description : none]

[onenicebugperday]

Victory jumping spider, Phidippus nikites, Salticidae

This species is found west of the Rocky Mountains and displays a wide range of coloration from white and bright yellow to bright red, with adult coloration usually in combination with black.

Photos 1-2 by nature4lzw, 3-4 by reptipods, 5 by silversea_starsong, 6 by ianmwright86, 7 by brian_wright, 8-9 by mhedin, and 10 (for scale) by llellin

[cnestus]

HEY WANNA SEE A COUPLE FUCKED UP MUTANT BEES?

so i've mentioned in the past that while i don't go out of my way to catch bees, they often end up in the pest monitoring trap samples that i process for work. since i hate seeing cute animals go to waste i've made a project out of pinning and identifying them whenever possible. one of the more common bees that i see around this time of years are the tiny & shiny genus Ceratina:

(not my photos, but the rest in this post are mine)

(fun fact they're actually most closely related to the giant carpenter bees you're probably more familiar with)

okay so for reference here's a couple examples of standard male Ceratina faces:

kinda silly looking! but now check out this freak i found this week:

note that not only are the eyes nearly wrapping around the face but the ocelli are totally missing and the antennal insertions have merged into a weird giant pit in the middle of his face. sadly he's a little beat up and one of the antennae was broken off along with some leg parts.

but okay if you think that's weird, check out this NEXT guy:

what the fuck! that smaller antenna isn't broken off like the previous guy it's just... like that. i have absolutely no explanation for either of these oddities.

honestly Ceratina are so common that i'd almost gotten to the point of not bothering to keep them when they show up in my traps but i'm really glad i took a closer look and spotted these freaks. have not attempted to ID either to species yet.

[spiny-ant]

if it doesn’t freak you out too much, do you think you could do an ant with cordyceps stimboard…

July is close enough to Halloween I think

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[ex0skeletal-undead]

by stones.and_bones on Instagram

[blattodean]

dead cotinis sp.