#westformiles

[onenicebugperday]

Dear Mr Nice Bug, I'm looking for some weirdly specific advice on species selection from the isopod-keepers in the audience.

I've recently started in the hobby with a culture of locally collected P. spinicornis. Partly it's as a test run before I set up my first bioactive enclosure... but partly it's to entertain the cats I live with, who LOVE critter-watching and will cluster around the bin for ages when the little guys are out and about. The new vivarium's primary inhabitant is a ball python so I have a fair range of options for his cleanup crew, and I'd like to get a species that's bold and active enough to be interesting to cats. If anyone has any suggestions for a total novice, I'd appreciate them!

I've only kept a couple species of isopods, so I'll let other people give some recommendations! I know lots of my followers keep isopods.

[brinconvenient]

So for the last few years, gardening just didn't happen for a variety of reasons and I'm really not interested in a repeat of that crap in '23. My first hard deadline is the 15th (plant order), so I guess the season's officially starting. Can you send the occasional "Hey kid, check the schedule" as I try to stay on top of it all this time?

Hey, kiddo! Today's a Monday, and I don't like making phone calls or placing orders or paying bills on weekends, so I tend to do a lot of that stuff on Mondays for some reason, so I thought I'd check in and let you know that today is a great day to place that seed order for your garden so that 2023 has a chance to be a year you garden the way you want.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

New in MB under the latest restrictions: I can eat on a patio with up to 3 different people from 3 different households every day for the next 4+ weeks. Designating more than one person to occasionally hang out in my yard over the same period? Forbidden, even though it's a larger space that allows much greater distancing and doesn't automatically involve maskless activity. I guess the problem is that it doesn't require me to spend any money...

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[onenicebugperday]

Thought you'd like to know about my sighting of a bug sighting/ID request on the local subreddit this morning! OP had posted a lovely big cat-faced orb-weaver ("Who is this and are they poisonous?") and the reaction was interesting.

First of all, the closest things to bug-hostile comments were along the lines of "Eat it and find out" (there were a number of poison vs. venom jokes, lol) and "Bro, she's eating a wasp. Give her a pay raise or I'm hiring her". (Sidebar: yeah, it's technically anti-vespid sentiment but it's also cheering for natural population control- even in a truly epic wasp year- so it gets a bit of a pass from me.) Secondly, most commenters showed up to give an ID and/or enthuse about cat-faced orb-weavers and/or tell OP not to get rid of this one. There were 35-40 people in the comments and at least a third of them were talking about how great cat-faced orb-weavers are in particular and sharing stories about the ones they have/have had around (my favourite was the one who was hand-fed houseflies and named Margaret). Some of them even posted their own pics, exactly like how pet photo posts tend to end up with other users sharing pics of their own pets in the comments. And someone who didn't know anything about the species said that they'd been badly scared by one once and reacted so fast that they'd gotten injured but now that they knew more, they were glad it was them who'd been hurt and not the spider (sort of impressive when it involves a trip to the ER for stitches).

The whole thing was just really nice to see. It was like I'd found a little slice of ONBPD in an unexpected spot :)

Yes, I've found the bug subreddits I frequent are all for the most part very bug-positive! Extremely refreshing :)

[onenicebugperday]

I met this large friend in a downy cherry bush the other week! Prunus tomentosa doesn't really have any pests that they might have been lurking in wait for, so maybe they were just admiring the fruit, lol.

A big pal! Just hanging out. Who wouldn’t love to rest in a fruit shrub? I know I would.

[onenicebugperday]

The other day I got the first 75% of a video title right while speed-reading New To You recs and for half a glorious second I was super excited to watch If Women Were Hornets. Sadly, it turned out that YouTube was suggesting a wanna-be 'comedic' take on communication in hetero relationships, not speculative biology exploring a universe where women are vespids....

I do think at least some women should be wasps instead, if they want to be. But still human sized. I think we'd all enjoy that.

[onenicebugperday]

Re: the term for exoskeletal recycling: I've just gotten a reply from my entomologist friend. Direct quote:

"You know, I've never heard a word for that. If I had to make up a word for it I'd call it exuviophagy. But I looked it up and it's not a word."

So it seems like A) this could be a weird gap in the field's terminology and B) you're not the only person whose mind went to 'exuviophagy' to fill that gap!

IT'S OFFICIAL we've created a new word

[onenicebugperday]

I was excited to see a YouTube video titled How All The Moths Got Their Names but confused at how a twelve-minute video was going to cover the topic. Then I realized that the word 'moths' actually contained an N as well, lol. Disappointing!

Booooooo tell me how every single moth got their name!!! Each individual. Like, this is Ronald, his parents named him after his uncle.