One Nice Bug Per Day @onenicebugperday - Tumblr Blog

Asks and submissions are now CLOSED!

I am on a temporary hiatus for personal reasons. I’ll still occasionally reblog things, but daily nice bugs and submissions will be on hold for a while.

Please DO NOT INSTANT MESSAGE ME bugs to ID when submissions are closed. You can send them just for fun, though.

Check out my FAQ for answers to general questions in the meantime.

Thank you!

ieafy

In the night

#bug art #praying mantis art

artifacts-and-arthropods

Daddy Long-Legs: unlike spiders, these arachnids can eat solid food, and they have an omnivorous diet that includes mushrooms, berries, and seeds, along with invertebrate prey

Harvestmen, otherwise known as daddy long-legs (not to be confused with the cellar spiders of family Pholcidae, which are also described as daddy long-legs) bear a striking resemblance to spiders, but they actually belong to a separate order of arachnids known as Opiliones. These strange-looking creatures have eight legs, but only two eyes, and their body segments are largely fused together, giving the body a noticeably rounded, pill-like appearance.

Above: Metagryne bicolumnata, commonly known as the bunny harvestman

There are roughly 6,700 known species of harvestman, but researchers estimate that a total of more than 10,000 species may currently exist. Their physical features vary greatly from one species to the next; some harvestmen have crab-like claws, spikes, thorny legs, elongated bodies, colorful features, or cryptic markings. Most of them are equipped with long, spindly legs, but there are some that have shorter, stockier limbs instead.

Above: Megabunus diadema and two unidentified species from family Sclerosomatidae

Unlike spiders, harvestmen have an omnivorous diet that includes fungi, fruit pulp, seeds, pollen, lichen, algae, and invertebrate prey, and they are capable of consuming solid food, whereas spiders are typically carnivorous and feed only on fluids.

Above: a harvestman from genus Chasenella munching on a mushroom-cap

As this article explains:

Harvestmen consume mushrooms, fruit pulp, seeds, and seed appendages more frequently than spiders probably because they are “solid food feeders," which means they can ingest solid tissues by biting off small pieces. In turn, spiders are “fluid feeders” and feed on vegetable matter most frequently in the form of fluids (e.g. nectar, stigmatic exudate, plant sap, and honey dew) rather than fungal or plant tissues.

Above: genus Marthana

When given a choice between fresh fruit or invertebrate prey, some harvestmen actually prefer the fruit:

Schaus et al. carried out a feeding trial in which the Neotropical harvestman Erginulus clavotibialis was given a choice between fresh pineapple and live invertebrate prey. This harvestman demonstrated a distinct preference for fruit over the invertebrate prey.

Above: Dentobunus quadridentatus

Harvestmen are also much more social than spiders, and the males of some species have been known to engage in paternal care, which is a trait that rarely occurs among arthropods:

Single fatherhood is the rarest form of parental care in nature. Still, males are often the sole caretakers of progeny among a number of species of daddy long-legs, also known as harvestmen. In these species, fathers are exclusively responsible for guarding eggs that females lay on the undersides of leaves; the males remain on the eggs nearly constantly for months.

Above: several harvestman eggs and a young hatchling

When threatened, harvestmen often bob up and down erratically in an effort to confuse their attackers. They also have several other defense mechanisms, including pungent, foul-tasting secretions, the ability to "play dead," and autotomy, which is the ability to discard one or more of their own limbs in order to escape from predators.

Above: the photo at the top shows an unidentified harvestman from family Cosmetidae, while the photo on the bottom shows a species from genus Gnomulus

Harvestmen are completely harmless to humans. Their mouthparts are far too small to penetrate human skin, and contrary to popular belief, they do not have the "world's deadliest venom" -- in fact, they don't produce any venom at all.

Above: genus Obidosus

Sources & More Info:

BioOne: Fungus and Fruit Consumption by Harvestmen and Spiders: the Vegetarian Side of Two Predominantly Predaceous Arachnid Groups

Laboratory of Arthropod Behavior and Evolution: Harvestmen

Argo Biology: Citizen Science Reveals How Devoted Harvestman Dads Evolved Again and Again

NBC: Daddy Long-Legs Paternal Care Pays off in Longer Life, More Sex

PLOS One: Paternal Care Decreases Foraging Activity, but Does Not Impose Survival Costs to Caring Males in a Neotropical Arachnid

Gulo in Nature: Are Daddy Long-Legs Venemous?

iNaturalist: Harvestmen

#bugs #arachnids #daddy long legs #opiliones #harvestman #long post

Coral tree moth, Agathodes ostentalis, Crambidae

Photographed in Luzon, Philippines by Frank Deschandol // Instagram

Shared with permission; do not remove credit or re-post!

#animals #curators on tumblr #insects #bugs #moth #coral tree moth #crambid snout moth #crambidae #one nice bug

shapeoftheday

restless spirits

#gif #bug art #butterfly art

jagalart

#bug art #centipede art

mollyvega

This little lady is a rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda). Her name is Pelia🩷💛🩷

Study

#bugs #insects #moth #oooo lovely lichen mimic

plaguedocboi

I miss my leeches for all the normal pet reasons but I also miss being able to use them as a one-hit death blow to end stupid conversations. Whenever I defend the ecological importance of parasites someone will inevitably crawl up and go “well I bet you wouldn’t feel that way if you had them” and oooooo boy let me tell you. It was so fun to hit back with “I DO” and then whip out my phone and show them 30 pictures of my fucking Worms

tobi-the-minnow

What were your leeches named?? Please i need to know please please tell me about your leeches oh my god

plaguedocboi

Wormitha, Burrito, Chungus, Chocolate Chip and Squish Baby. I collectively called them The Squish Squad

#bug story #leech #i love them

nemfrog

A bee meets a beetle on a rose petal. The Adventures of Maya the Bee. 1922. Frontispiece. Illustrated by Homer Boss.

Internet Archive

#bug art #bee art #beetle art

apolladay

What would you rather find living in your attic/basement/spare room?

1000 cockroaches

One man

Voting ended onJul 9

If you don't have one of those, imagine that you do.

ex0skeletal-undead

Okay but we need more info there are so many variables here.

Is the guy chill and just needs a comfy place to sleep? Will he just leave if I ask nicely or at least help pay rent and tidy up? Or is he planning to wear my skin as a suit? If yes do we have to fight to the death?

What type of cockroaches? German? Not ideal, super hard to get rid of. Smoky brown? Kinda chill, mostly wanna be outside, maybe I have a moisture problem. Madagascan hissing? Slightly concerned about where they came from but excited about my 1000 new pets.

What would you rather find living in your basement/attic/spare room?

Man who wants to wear your skin as a suit, have to fight him

Man who is pretty chill, will leave if asked

1000 German cockroaches, gotta call pest control

1000 smoky brown cockroaches, gotta address your moisture issue

1000 Madagascan hissing cockroaches, very cute

Voting ended onJul 5

#poll #gonna skew these results towards the bugs

shailion

Found this little gal on my soda can, luckily i looked before sipping.

She was in a bit of soda but she cleaned herself off and started wandering around on my hand before i put her outside.

#insects #bugs #wasp #she's perfect

onenicebugperday

Yes, your fireworks are harming wildlife

Trigger warning for graphic descriptions of injured and dead wildlife.

When a fireworks display occurs near a wild bird roost, the birds simultaneously explode into the night skies in utter panic, which can lead to huge numbers of deaths, usually because these birds either smash their skulls or break their necks as the result of flying into trees, fences, billboards, houses and other solid objects that they cannot see in the gloom and ensuing chaos.

Many of the startled birds who take flight fly at much higher altitudes and for much longer durations than they’re used to to escape the noise, which is energetically costly and physiologically stressful.

Small birds and bats can be knocked from the air and killed by the sonic shock. In 2010, 40 dead sparrows were discovered dead under a roost in a nature reserve after a local fireworks display. The manager of the reserve witnessed a tawny owl fluttering and convulsing on the ground after a particularly loud explosion. It died shortly after.

In Arkansas in 2010, some 5,000 red-winged blackbirds, European starlings, common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds suffered blunt-force trauma after colliding with cars, trees and buildings, an ornithologist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission would tell National Geographic.

In 2008, federal officials showed that seabirds in the northern California town of Gualala abandoned their nests after a fireworks show, leaving their eggs vulnerable to predators.

Each year in Austin, Texas, the Congress Bridge bats can be seen fleeing the fireworks display en masse on weather radar, and emergences from their roost diminish noticeably in the days following the Fourth.

In 2018, the Galapagos banned the sale and use of pyrotechnics. According to the BBC, conservationists said that fireworks caused elevated heart rates, trembling and anxiety in many animals.

The threat to wildlife doesn’t stop at startling lights and sounds; fireworks also have the potential of starting wildfires, directly affecting wildlife and destroying essential habitat. Litter from firecrackers, bottle rockets and other explosives can be choking hazards for wildlife and may be toxic if ingested.

So what do you do if you want to watch fireworks responsibly? Experts say municipalities are more likely to be aware of these dangers than private consumers. Their best advice is to stick to the shows put on by professionals and local governments, which tend to follow guidelines put forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among others, about animal safety.

The National Audubon Society offers similar guidelines: “Commercial fireworks are concentrated in one location, rather than in several locations at once, which is what often happens in neighborhoods. This allows birds to take off and land again in a ‘safer’ location rather than continuing to flee noises coming at them from all directions.”

(Sources: x x x x x)

onenicebugperday

Yearly reminder :)

#i almost forgot :)#4th of july #fireworks