The Wasp

While waiting for the bus, another small visitor came into Mishy’s world.  It was a cloudy dreary day outside, so I decided to wait inside the bus shelter when suddenly I heard a loud buzzing sound! Yikes! A wasp!  At first glance, a wasp looks a lot like a bee, but there is one simple clue that will help you notice the difference right away.  It’s their tiny wasp-like waist, which bees don’t have.  Before the off chance of getting stung by this little critter, I pulled my camera out from my bag and began to move in very close to take some photos!  Another co-operative model and I’m telling you from the heart, these tiny creatures just love having their pictures taken.  As a firm believer that all living things have a purpose, I would never kill anything.  A wasp has benefits to life on the planet, maybe not on this day in the bus shelter with me, but at some point in his life he will do enough good to justify his existence here on planet earth!  For example in a farmer’s field, a wasp will eat caterpillars that would otherwise destroy his crops.  An aggressive and predatory wasp will also be found a lot between August and October eating food in the garbage containers!   The female wasp is the one to watch out for as she is the one with the stinger, but it’s the male wasp that starts the wasp colony by laying eggs!  That’s a switch!  He does that until there is enough wasps in the nest and then she will become more fertile to do it herself.  Now that’s what I call a great partnership! I guess the only problem is that their nest is made up of wood and mud, so it must be very difficult to keep clean!

Katydid So!

While visiting a friends house in the country, I came upon something most unusual.  This wasn't an ordinary country house mind you.  It had a fancy fridge big enough to step into, a stove as smooth as glass, a flat screen TV in every room, a large and shiny BBQ on the porch and an inviting Jacuzzi bubbling outside!  I spent a great deal of time opening and closing the screen doors to keep the moths outside that fluttered excitedly just by the porch light!  Just then, something flew in and whizzed by my ear!  I followed it into the kitchen where it made a rest stop on the counter!  Hurriedly I grabbed my camera, and took a few pictures and it wasn't shy either.  The closer I got the more it looked to me like a flying leaf? A quick discovery led me to beleaf ..sorry believe that it was a "Katydid" .. a funny name, but the stick insect gets the name from the mating sound that it makes when it rubs or scrapes its two front wings together.  But I really don't think it sounds like its saying "Katy-did"?? :) Maybe you can come up with something different! But in the meantime, this is the name it has.  A Katydid can grow up to 64 mm long.  It has 4 wings and when he or she sits down, they fold nicely.  You can usually find them eating leaves in the trees and since this house is surrounded by trees and shrubs, it would make sense to see them around here.  Just like the 'cicada' the female Katydid lays her eggs in crevices of twigs, and bark and then in the spring the eggs hatch a nymph which will molt and shed its covering until it becomes an adult in the summer!  As for the 'Katydid' on the kitchen counter? I gave him or her a piece of lettuce from the fridge and as it stepped onto the pad of paper, I leafed it alone to see another day...

Ew Stink Bug!

Well word must have gotten out about my new blog, because today at work, a bug slowly eased his way across my telephone wanting to get his face on my page! He moved at a snails pace, and at first glance I thought it was a cockroach! But cockroaches don't like the light and my office is as bright a room as any!  They also move so fast, whereas this little guy in Mishy's small world crawled around without a care in the world.  It turns out, I am the one in the dark when it comes to bugs!  Apparently according to some, this guy is quite common.  He's known as the "stink bug" and he's looking for shelter, mostly because he knows winter is coming soon.  If you see one, don't bother swatting or stepping on them (not that I would ever do that anyways! yuk!), but if you do you will soon find out why they get their name! Turns out stink bugs..stink.  Yes, they give off a very foul odor when crushed.  In fact, experts suggest using a vacuum to suck them up.  Personally, I would rather do what I did today, wait until they crawl onto my posty note and send them off outside again, but then they'll just make their way back inside.  Maybe they'll just find another place to hide in.  With the temperatures dropping in September and October, the Stink bug will be on the rise.  So be aware, and keep your eyes on the ground.

The leetle Beetle

 So there I was on the bus.  It was early in the morning, and you can see what day it was by the date on my newspaper...that's right.  Wednesday morning and the sun was beaming from the side windows making it quite difficult for me to read the news, so I laid the paper on my lap and in an instant, a flyer dropped down to take a look.  It was a beetle of course.  Why not?  Did you know that beetles as a species, take up over 25% of all known life forms?  In fact 40% of all insects species are ... beetles.  So it's no wonder that one of 400,000 species decided to land on my newspaper today!  But what kind of beetle was it?  Well that was the hard part in determining.  So after doing the best I could to narrow down the possibilities, I came up with 'the Scarab beetle' which is common in North America.  If you can do better than me, feel free to write me and I will post your name with your finding on my blog!  So now I had to put aside the paper, and find out more about the beetle.  It goes through stages much like most insects.  First the female lays the eggs from several dozen to several thousand, to the larvae stage (which can last for several years) and then the Pupa to Adult.  The adults lifespan can go from weeks or years depending on the species.  After a little more reading I find the scarab beetle specifically enjoys a diet of decaying organic matter, which include dung (poo) and with that I placed the newspaper by the window and set him free :)  

The Amazing Cicada!

 Just when you thought it was safe to go outside.. You may be on your bicycle going for a ride or hiding under a foot bridge for shelter under the rain when you spot one...you move in for a closer look.  Come on its okay, you're just curious!  
What is it? you wonder...should I get closer?  It's a Cicada.  They are benign to humans, so don't worry!  What that really means is they don't bite or sting, although they might mistake your arm for a tree limb! They are the longest living insects in the world!  With some species living up to 17 years before venturing out from underground in large numbers!  They spend years living on tree sap below the ground.  Cicadas are very noisy and somewhat like a cricket, they sing to attract a mate.  The male Cicada's song sounds somewhat like a 'clicking' sound which resonates from a hollow base of his abdomen.  The contractions of his stomach muscles will repeat this clicking and once he's won the heart of a female cicada, she makes slits in the bark of a twig, where she puts her eggs. Watch this little movie from my favorite story teller and photographer, David Attenborough who will show you the life cycle of the Cicada.


Click here to see The Amazing little Cicada!!

Freddy the Frog (a.k.a.Founder)

From his humble beginnings, Freddy entered the watering hole like some of his lucky buddies who survived as an egg then hatched and grew into a tadpole.  It took weeks and weeks of sticking himself onto whatever green flotation device that went by before Fred developed legs.  About 9 weeks he recalls, "I was getting sick of that boring diet of algae and was able to eat insects, dead though as they may be, and some plants.  Although I promised Lilly, I would leave her alone, if she would allow me to crash at her place once in while.  She agreed, and now we are the best of friends."  And so Freddy became larger still and after going through the awkward stage of resembling a miniature frog with a very long tail, he grew to be quite a dashing looking full grown frog.  Which you can see by the picture.  Although, some may disagree in our eyes, Freddy the Founder is quite the prince indeed.