Been There, Done That

Making a living off your hobby is a sure way to ruin your hobby. Plus you’ll have to hang out with and suck up to, Booblicans. That’s what all these fools don’t realize. That’s also why Crumby is pleased that hardly anyone makes money, much less a living, off insect photography. I mean, like who wants to see pictures of bugs. Bugs are, for heaven’s sake, vermin. But given that fact, if you want to espy pictures of bugs, you get a camera and take the pictures of the bugs yourself. But you shouldn’t expect anyone else to be interested in your bug pictures. Well some other goofy bug lovers might be interested. But not so interested they would pay you. Why the heck would they?

Oh! Crumby almost forgot. Exterminators might buy your bug pictures. Then, you would be getting rich off exterminating bugs. The Goddess will love you fer that, fer sure. Remember! What She gives, She can take back.

Crumby, on the other hand, takes pictures of bugs because he can’t sight identify lots of the bugs at the CB yet. So he takes their pictures. Then he compares his pictures to similar pictures he finds on the internet. Would Crumby pay for those internet pictures? Probably not. But Crumby would pay for good keys to the vermin of these parts. That way, with good keys, Crumby could eliminate the boring necessity of photo comparisons on the internet.

Or how about this. Post your key on the internet. And charge a fee for using the key. Mercy! Crumby just realized how horrible using a key on the clock on the internet would be. What a nightmare?

OK dude. Welcome to my dichotomous key site. All my keys are guaranteed to be just as good as the Amaranthus key in C&J. Yes. My keys are quick and easy. That’s why I charge by the hour. Most of the time, my keys work so well you will have your bug’s identity figured out in a minute or two. Say whut! If you don’t figure it out in a minute or maybe nanosecond or two, that’s user error. And hey buddy, user error costs more.

Yes sir. I guarantee, my buggy friends, that by employing a simple dichotomous key, you shall ultimately, in no time at all, discover the identity of your bug, that was hitherto unknown to you. That’s right. No more sps in your folders. No more miscellaneous files. No more frass. All you need beware of is, user error.

In reality though, a good key to the paper wasps of these parts would be nice. Maybe a good key could resolve the mysterious identity of the red paper wasp that occurs at the CB. According to the identified nest location (clothesline poles), the CB red paper wasps are Polistes perplexus. But the pictures Crumby has, indicate no black at all on the cephalothorax, generally indicating Polistes carolinus. Are the perplexus in these parts entirely red? Do we have both kinds? Will Crumby have to go back and edit all the posts featuring carolinus (two) and then admit he was wrong. Nyah, nyah. Crumby does not know what the heck his red paper wasp(s) actually is, are? Dang.

Sons O’ Bitches

At this very nonce, thousands, if not hundreds, of tall goldenrods are fixing to bloom at the CB. Crumby is, consequently, very happy and very busy. Because the goldenrods attract a great many insects. And Crumby is at his very happiest when espying a good many new insects amid a great many insects. Like Crumby was thinking, This may be the happiest time ever. I get to espy all this new stuff without ever leaving the yard. It’s like the miracle Jesus promised but never delivered on.

Anyway, suddenly Crumby noticed that one of the green lynx spiders, not Fatty, had caught a very interesting fly. Since the picture of the fly we are talking about is an out of focus (OOF) load of crap, Crumby shall have to describe this particular fly, employing a thousand words or less.

It is a large fly, about an inch long from the tip of the snout to its sphincter. Uh. OK. Everything else you can maybe espy on your own. You may espy, for example, using your imagination, that it has yellow feet or perhaps yellow socks.

Because all the pictures came out OOF, Crumby decided that the spider needed to give that particular large fly to Crumby. You have had that fly long enough. Turn it a loose, Crumby ordered.

No, says the spider. I aint done with this particular fly.

All righty then, says Crumby, you have sucked all the juice out of that dern fly and I want the rest of it. Give it to me, or I shall employ my tweezers on it.

No, no, no. You may not have my delicious fly.

Crumby was shocked by the strength and tenacity of that dang spider. No matter how Crumby tugged on the tweezers the spider would not let go of its fly. Plus, soon as Crumby lost his tweezer grip, that spider zoomed off at super-sonic speed, towing its fly along. Crumby gave up, temporarily.

I shall come back later, spider, when you have dropped that particular fly.

Crumby came back later. There sat the spider with a new victim a Scolia dubia. Crumby looked and looked under the spider perch, but could not find the fly. Sadly, a decent picture of that particular fly is now unlikely. Sons o' bitches!

Hugely important addendum: Maybe an extra large feather-legged fly with bright yellow feet. Are there really only six species of North American Trichopoda?

Good Advice

First Mary, (Karl’s third wife) then Prissy, (Karl’s saddle mare) warned, Karl you are too stoned to ride a horse. But Karl was also too stoned to heed good advice. Away they both went, bareback, Prissy and Karl trotting along at a good pace. Suddenly though, Karl bounced himself entirely off his mount. And the sad truth is, Karl landed on his hands first, thus spraining both arms from the tips of his fingers to his smelly pits. It was hours before the finger janglies eased up.

Yes. Mercy! Karl, had been doing fairly well before he fell off Prissy. He was exercising regularly, avoiding binge whiskey slurps, dieting. But now, Karl was injured. He could not work. He could not exercise. The fact is, he couldn’t even eat and drink because his hands were so jangled and his arms so sore. He couldn’t even grip or lift even a pork chop or a pint to his trembling, feeble lips. Plus, Karl felt sorry for himself.

Something had to be done. But Mary was too busy with her regular schedule to constantly look after Karl, catering to his every pathetic whim or need. Mary needed help. And as it turns out, there was a boy in the neighborhood who needed a part time job. Now this particular boy (Donny) was a short bus rider, but trainable. So Karl had Donny trained up in no time.

What were Donny’s duties? Easy that, Donny needed to raise glasses or mugs to Karl’s lips plus feed Karl. Donny was also, unbeknownst to Mary, supposed to roll Karl’s cigarettes. But Mary told Rayetta, I can’t even tell you Rayetta, how aggravated I was with Karl teaching that boy to roll cigarettes. Goodness! Our entire stash was smoked up and they set fire to the table cloth. The fire department came out. Boo-hoo-hoo.

There, there Mary!

Anyhow, Karl’s personal health or hygiene progress that he had accomplished through dieting, sobriety and exercise was totally shot during that period or phase of his life. Yes. He went backwards to fat, drugged and helpless. So Crumby’s good advice to old people is, watch out for injuries because injuries can totally foul up whatever good intentions or plans you may have. Injuries are, maybe, the greatest of all the potential threats to your healthy lifestyle.

Big Bluestem

Crumby is pretty sure the CB has the most big bluestem in these parts. At this very nonce, some of the big bluestem is showing off its anthers.

Man! Crumby Hates It When He Does That

Since Crumby is exceptionally average and average individuals make mistakes, Crumby must also make mistakes. Mercy! But when Crumby makes a mistake, he’s liable to put it on the internet for the Goddess plus the entire disinterested world to look at or espy. Which is precisely what happened with the Glyptina episode. Merciful heavens and me oh my.

Oh well. It’s a good thing Ray captured this red and black beetle at work yesterday. Ray put this little beetle in a pill bottle and brought it home. Then we attempted to take its picture.

The methodology for taking its picture was, Crumby gets the camera ready. Ray opens pill bottle. Beetle crawls out. Beetle is on the move so Crumby has to take its picture while the beetle is in motion, always a challenge for the E330. Beetle flies off.

This is the only picture we got. There's plenty of reflection cause the flash was set too high. But, while fixing to identify this beetle, we discovered Crumby’s big faux pas on the Glyptina blog entry. No, no, no! Not Glyptina!

Why’s the red and black beetle good? Well. While we were looking at leaf beetle pictures to compare our red and black beetle with, we noticed that we had two pictures of the same beetle species, only the two pictures of the beetles had two scientific names at variance with one another. So if we had not been studying up on the red and black beetle, we would not have found that atrocious, almost criminal, evil, scum-sucking error.

We are not hazarding a guess on the species of this particular red and black beetle. However, its so colorful, seems like everyone should know what it is. On the other hand, it’s little, only about 5mm.

Ray’s Flies

Ray is one of the few extant humans who has ever been in love with a particular fly. Of course, some entomologists that specialize in flies may love flies, but not, ordinarily, a specific fly. The same goes for exterminators. Exterminators love those flies because the flies mean work. Those flies put food on the exterminator’s table. Those flies send the exterminator’s kids to college or dancing classes maybe.

No other human besides Ray has loved a fly for a great long while. Plus, before Ray, the last true fly lover, Mider, may not have even been human. That’s right. Mider only appeared in human form and therefore was a humanoid, not entirely human. So when push comes to shove, Ray may be the only actual human that has unreservedly been in love with an actual, individual fly. How about that? It’s nice for Crumby to have a unique individual for a bosom companion.

Today’s episode of Ray’s flies features Zelus renardii piercing one of our unknown specie, feather-legged dance flies with its long, hard proboscis. Mercy!

Yes. Our unknown feather-legged dance flies are fixing to be back in great numbers or hoards. They intend to take advantage of the bumper crop of tall goldenrod. Here they are on a cultivar onion from Mexico.

Also, there's that fly that includes bug exudate in its diet. Well, it looks like the bug exudate eating fly, anyway?

Rayetta’s Butterflies - Species #81 Documented for CB

Well now. The new butterfly species are not exactly coming thick and fast. Yet they are temporarily getting bigger.

This morning I was out with Crumby watching him kill the camera batteries on turtle beetles or whatever. Give me that camera Crumby! Correct. I suddenly espied this beautiful butterfly, but Crumby had the camera. I had to actually take the camera away from Crumby before I could get this one picture. You see, the flash batteries were almost exhausted from terrapin beetle misfires.

The common name of the newest documented CB butterfly is two-tailed swallowtail. That's two tails per rear wing, four total, thus multicaudata.

A Shocking Green Lynx Spider Picture

Goodness! Now that Fatty has her egg sac, she is no longer eating up the neighborhood’s insects. Yet nearby, another green lynx female has set up shop. Apparently, the tops of Maximilian sunflower stalks are great, green lynx spider habitat. But what is shocking here is the dang flies. Just espy all those dern flies would you, all over that unlucky bug, (Acanthocephala femorata). Crumby does not know what kind of flies those are yet. But those are the same flies that also got on Fatty’s mantis.

Goodness gracious! Do some especially miserable flies specialize on the fresh corpses or perhaps merely paralyzed bodies of large spider victims? Goodness gracious sakes alive!

Super Important Addendum!

Crumby just went back and reviewed all his green lynx spider with food item pictures. The only ones that feature flies are bugs. That is, the flies only get on the bugs that the spiders catch. Crumby was mistaken about flies on the mantis. Repeat. Flies were not on the mantis when Fatty had it or after she dropped it.

And actually, the only bugs Crumby has pictures of with flies are large. leaf-footed bugs like Leptoglossus and Acanthocephala. So apparently these flies are commensal with the spiders only when they like what the spiders are eating. By the way, the bug genera we are talking about presently are apparently rather stinky.

Which fetches Crumby up at the conclusion that these flies are members of the Family Milichiidae. How about that, a family of diptera in which the family name features four is. That’s four for the Crumby Ovate.

Crumby Would Starve if He Photographed Pompilidae for Food

OK Crumby. There’s a spider wasp loose in the backyard. You need to go take its picture. Once you get an acceptable picture, and the spider wasp has been properly identified, you can have some supper.

Mercy whines Crumby. I shall starve to death. I’ll never get a decent picture. Those spider wasps are too quick for me. They never rare up out of the vegetation long enough to get a clean shot. Oh my Goddess! I’m already starving plus wasting away. I’m already skin and bones. Skin and bones!

Yes. Few would be able to handle the kind of stress a spider wasp photographer might experience. Especially if the spider wasp photographer was paid in food. What has the world come to that such horror can even be imagined? Why it’s a worse concept than wedding photography. Way worse.

Anyway, Crumby has spent weeks fixing to get a picture of this here Pepsis menechma. And the funny thing is, Crumby knew this was Pepsis menechma before he even got a picture. That’s because this species is practically the only wasp with a black body and yellow antennae. Easy to glimpse, not so easy to get a picture.

The common name for Pepsis is tarantula hawks. But the CB has no tarantulas maybe. So what does this Pepsis eat. Not Fatty. Better steer clear of fatty.

Another bug Crumby would starve to death on is tortoise beetles. The CB has a bumper crop of Ipomopsis trichocarpa this year. Consequently, since the tortoise beetles like their morning glory, we have some of them too. But they are even more elusive than the dang spider wasps. Way more elusive. Ugh! Crumby may have to sweep and catch some. Ugh! Oongawa!

More Camera Talk

So. Imagine you own a major second-tier digital camera company. And you decide that the camera system you produce should have macro capabilities. So you produce two short focal length macro lenses and two macro flash setups. Neither of the macro flash setups will attach to the shorter and cheaper macro lens. Which by the way, is the only actual 1:1 macro lens of the twain you produced. Furthermore, the only way you can attach the flashes to the longer, short pseudo-macro lens, is via a special adapter. Flash! The FR-1 flash adapter ring retails for $79.99. Flash! I bet we can sell plenty of those.

What lenses do the macro flash setups natively fit? Easy that, they fit standard zooms which lack macro capability and are not even especially close focusing. Ha! But the macro flash setups do actually fit on the zooms. Can’t have that! So when the zooms are upgraded, you make sure that the upgraded lens versions no longer accommodate the macro flash setups. Genius! Now nothing works together or ever will.

Flash! Jeez Louise!

Fatty No More

Crumby reckons the praying mantis may have been Fatty’s last big meal. Crumby also reckons that Fatty’s boyfriend was the penultimate meal. At any rate, see how nice and slim Fatty looks now. And what’s that? Oh my! Fatty is a good mom. She’s guarding her egg sac. Crumby seems to recall that assassin bugs get baby green lynx spiders.

Camera Talk

But first, here is one of a multitude of newly documented CB bugs or vermin. This may be a Psorophora species, a large male mosquito sometimes referenced as an elephant mosquito.

Crumby’s camera is old for a dslr, old and decrepit. Already, the rubber grip has fallen off. These days that aforementioned rubber grip resides in a drawer. No more shall it adorn the camera, alas. But the camera works fine, maybe better, without the grip which was always partly unglued, even when the camera was new.

So Crumby has been considering what might be important features in a potential new camera. Here’s what Crumby thinks might be important for his kind of photography; photos of the tiny and/or far away.

1. All the pixels money can buy. More pixels means an average amateur photographer can crop more. Sharp crops are good for bringing in the tiny or far away. Real good.

2. A macro flash system that can actually and conveniently attach to a variety of macro lenses designed for the camera body.

3. Crumby has found that with his current pitiful set up, he tends to almost always employ flash these days. However, shooting mostly flash goes through a great many batteries. So higher ISO capabilities (the higher the better) to maybe cut down on some of the flash shooting would be helpful.

4. Reliable autofocus in case Crumby ever needs to focus on a moving object.

5. Crumby needs an optical viewfinder for manual focus. Oddly, Crumby found the much maligned E 330 viewfinder was generally good enough for bugs, close up with a fairly fast lens on.

6. Crumby needs either in lens or in body stabilization maybe.

7. A level would be nice.

The above picture has some problems. Plus, Crumby had one shot at the particular illustrated bug and essentially missed the shot. That said, the shot may be OK for documentation purposes, since anyone could easily discern it’s a particular kind of fly from the picture.

However, any and all of the first six camera attributes listed above would have made the shot more likely to turn out better or way better, Crumby’s effort remaining constant. That’s right. With a camera doing all the above, plus a level, Crumby could have taken a better picture more easily.

So Crumby is anticipating fixing to get a new camera before the upcoming spring. Such an optimistic outlook assumes Crumby shall survive the many upcoming ordeals which traditionally plague the brave yet uncomplaining Ovate through the fall and winter seasons plus that particularly wicked holiday, Baby Demon Mammon Day.

That would be a twist or turn of fate. What if something actually good happened on Baby Demon Mammon Day? What if Crumby got a new camera on that very day. How strange or fantastic would that be?

OK. Now Crumby needs to decide which camera brand and model best meets his peculiar needs at a reasonable cost.


Oh! Another camera attribute Crumby desises is the ability of the camera to adjust itself to a lens for focusing purpose.

Fatty’s Breakfast

Due to a heavy dew, Crumby was late visiting Fatty this morning. That’s because if you get your feet wet first off, they may remain wet all day. Too miserable for man or beast!

By the time Crumby did get to visit with Fatty, she had already finished off this big mantis and was taking a nap. The breakfast scraps, possibly Mantis religiosa, with all the juices sucked out were all that remained, hanging from Fatty's perch, upside down. Mercy! Crumby is wondering if he should maybe keep the pets away from Fatty. Yikes! Maybe Fatty likes Druid Ovates.

Crazy Times, Crazy!

Course, some might reason that for the crazy, all times are crazy times.

At the CB, on the other hand, the population of adult Polistes exclamans has reached maybe a tousand or perhaps two tousand individuals. On the front porch alone, maybe a tousand or more, sport about or rest leisurely.

Move slowly. Move deliberately. No loud hollering or wild gesticulating. Wear plenty of loose fitting, dull colored garments. Wear a hat. Or, go out through the garage.

There Crumby was, fixing to get some mighty good pictures of this particular caterpillar. Suddenly, a Polistes exclamans flew out of nowhere and attacked this caterpillar. The both of them, caterpillar and wasp, tumbled into the tall grass beneath the caterpillar’s perch on the prairie agalinis.

Crumby nosed around for the twain of them, but after a short while, only the wasp emerged. The wasp flew off. Maybe it had a mouthful of caterpillar. Maybe not.

Turns out, this portrait depicts part of a common buckeye caterpillar. It’s the only picture Crumby could get, thanks be to that dern wasp. Yet the dang wasps need to watch out too. They better watch out for Fatty. She got one of the Polistes exclamans yesterday. It’s a photo documented fact. Yet considering the vast numbers of the wasp species, Polistes exclamans, it’s a wonder she hasn’t et many more of them.

Consider this too. The CB has been pecan webworm free this year, entirely. Maybe it’s all due to the wasps. Yes. Those wasps may have eaten up all the webworms before they could get going.

Meantime, the CB may be enjoying a plague of grasshoppers. Yes indeedy do. The famous migratory grasshopper (Melanoplus sanguinipes), that dreadful devourer of like a jillion Mormon pioneer babies, has descended, plague like, on the CB maybe. Maybe, just assuming Crumby has identified the grasshopper species we are presently discussing, correctly.

Yes. This could be the very grasshopper that has gorged itself upon unattended Mormon toddlers from coast to coast. Why does it feast on Mormon babies only, eschewing the tots of other faiths? Nobody knows. Where are the seagulls when we really need them? Nobody knows.

The Courtship of Fatty

Many may recall that Fatty is a lady, green lynx spider. Here we espy Fatty sucking another black and yellow mud dauber dry. Another!

Yes. Fatty is always hungry. Too hungry to drop her wasp, allowing the little male, gonad with legs, to sneak up. However, soon as Fatty finished off the wasp, she chased her potential fornication buddy off. She scared him so badly he sped to another stem, far away and higher up. Goodness! There he sits at this very nonce, pondering the possibilities.

Prairie Agalinis from Hades

Crumby is hoping (there’s always hope) that prairie agalinis is parthenogenic and shall snuff out the speargrass in these parts. Yes. So an average home owner decides to eradicate the KR, does eradicate the KR, then speargrass takes over from the pitiful, weak sister, sad sack, useless, cultivar buffalograss that the average home owner laid out to replace the KR. Did you purchase buffalograss sod? Sucker! Mercy!

OK. Speargrass is not anywhere near as big an ecological disaster as the nearly inert KR or as hopelessly useless as a pathetic buffalograss cultivar. On the other hand, those spears are plenty obnoxious. Crumby, during speargrass season, took to wearing cowboy boots with his pants tucked in the tops, figuring to blunt those terrible spear tips. Course, cowboy boots are incredibly dangerous unless you are on a horse, pony or other equine type beast of burden. For pedestrian travel, cowboy boots are unsafe at any speed. The fact is, you can twist your ankle standing still.

For example, Crumby recently traveled a ways off. The particular spot Crumby fetched up at is famous for stickers (Cenchrus). There too, Crumby wore cowboy boots with his Wranglers tucked into the tops. And course, Crumby tripped and fell from the terrible height those boots afford, barking his shin on a giant boulder while almost getting some stickers in his palms. Have you ever tripped up in a sticker patch and got stickers in your palms? It’s like stigmata or maybe worse.

OK. The purpose of this particular topic is to allow for the discussion of the liabilities an average home owner may encounter from having excess grass on the property. Crumby feels like the CB may now have excess grass. Correct. The herbivores can’t keep up with all the grass. Consequently, we need to employ parthenogenic dicots as an aid to grass affliction.

Crumby vaguely may remember that prairie agalinis (Agalinis heterophylla) is parthenogenic which means the dang agalinis could kill off some of the dern speargrass maybe. But also, when the agalinis gets this thick, it could maybe smother the speargrass. Also, the prairie agalinis is fine with the bees, whereas, nothing much likes speargrass.

Meantime, Crumby needs to apologize to the Hurricane Goddess. For practically forever, Crumby has been highly critical of hurricanes. The fact is, Crumby is the actual source of the famous ironic saying, Hurricane, No Rain. Yet the last twain hurricanes have brought much needed rain to these parts. So here’s to the beautiful Hurricane Goddess. As soon as it dries out around here, Crumby shall burn some speargrass up in Her honor.

Crumby Travels Off A Ways

Saturday, Crumby braved the wicked highways, heading for darker skies. Watch out for those Blancos, Crumby. Yet the Blancos were too slow or Crumby was too swift. Who knows which?

On the way back, Crumby needed to visit Ms. Murphy at a certain Exxon gas station that has its comfort station around in back. You may want to go there yourself. Yes. You can seek comfort or Ms. Murphy. Fret not over a purchase. That’s right. If Ms. Murphy is inside the gas station you may feel obliged to purchase a Jolly Rancher or two for appearance sake. But not if the facilities are around back.

Handy! Not only did Crumby get to visit Ms. Murphy. Not only did Crumby pass on the Jolly Ranchers. But Crumby found a great moth or muth inhabiting a window sill of the facility.

Yes. But Crumby forgot to pack a camera. What was Crumby to do? Well. There was only one solution, catch and release. Crumby constructed a temporary jail cell for the moth or muth out of tablet paper. Not Big Chief tablet paper, but an adult type of tablet paper.

Then Crumby brought the moth back to the CB where he took its picture. Then after the picture taking session concluded, Crumby left the moth, which acted sickly, to its own devices, path to progress or maybe heaven.

Eacles imperialis, which some may know as Basilona imperialis, is a large silk moth.

What’s Spermolepis inermis good fer?

Well. The leaves routinely provide nourishment for swallowtail caterpillars. While the fruits are eaten by these here bugs, Trichopepla semivitatta. Yes. Crumby picked out this picture of this particular style of bug because it also shows half of a Spermolepis inermis fruit above the bug. This bug may eat that fruit or one just like it.

Many may wonder why this particular bug appears to be in a container. Well. Crumby put it in there. He put it in the container because these type or style of bugs normally hang upside down on the plant, thus making taking pictures of them almost impossible. But the downside of putting the bug in the container is, the camera flash does not reach into the container. No. Crumby lacks a fancy macro flash that would easily illuminate even the darkest of stygian orifices or holes where the sun don’t shine. So that’s why the picture is a tad soft and noisy, poor lighting.

Never fear though. Crumby has better pictures.

OK. You can not make these bugs go topsides on the plant stems by poking them. If you poke them, they drop off the stem. Once they drop off, you may never find them again unless they dropped off into your container. Plus, your finger where you poked them will stink for a week. (Again, Crumby can not over-emphasize the importance of a good tweezer if you mess with true bugs of the Order Hemiptera). But, if you sort of gently twist the plant stems around 180 degrees, then the bug is on top of the stem and you can take its picture. However, a picture of this bug on top of a stem is a cheat. It’s a lie because this particular bug never sits that way in nature. So you know those type photographs, if you espy them, are fakes, cheats, phony, capitalist-roader type photographs.

Good Goddess! Identifying true bugs in these parts is sure easy thanks to austinbug.com. If you like true bugs, you can learn plenty about true bugs at that site. Er. Also, isn’t there an HBO TV show known as True Bugs? It’s all about hemip suckers!

Pugnax

There went Crumby. All right. Crumby was going along in the back yard, minding his own business and the business of the green lynx spider that Crumby has nicknamed, Fatty, when he espied this bug. This particular bug and a similar bug were both lying prone or inert in the crevices of Maximilian sunflower leaves situated under Fatty’s perch. Crumby, espying the forlorn victims of the terrible fat spider decided to collect a corpse. That way, he could take its picture in such posture that identification of the corpse or dead body would then be easier than if it was left on the leaf. Sabby?

Turns out, this slender bug body or corpse belonged to a rice stinkbug (Oebalus pugnax). Plus, the other dead one is also Oebalus pugnax. That makes two, Oebalus pugnax. You might guess by now that Crumby likes to spell, Oebalus pugnax. The fact is, Crumby likes it so much, he may change his own personal name or appellation from Crumby to Oebalus pugnax.

Who came up with the great name, Oebalus pugnax? Well, that honor goes to Johann C. Fabricius. Fabricius (not a bad handle either) named a great many bugs, especially beetles.

OK. Besides the twain Oebalus pugnax, Fatty, during the preceeding 48 hours has sucked dry and discarded a large moth, a leaf-footed bug, Leptoglossus oppositus, and a glassy winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis.

Poor Oebalus pugnax, has its tiny soul fled to a better place or spot, or not. Do insects go to heaven? Crumby used to wonder about that during his miserable Christian past. You may see yourself that if heaven’s pearly gates are open to pets, then, since some people keep insects as pets, those insect pets should get in. That’s why serious Christians don’t allow anybody into heaven besides white people. You have got to draw the line somewhere.

One more thing. Stinkbugs are called stinkbugs for a good reason. Thus, Crumby, aka Oebalus pugnax, recommends tweezers as a useful tool or combo simple machine for handling a typical stinkbug.

A Robber Fly Adventure

Crumby is slightly nervous when it comes to robber flies. That’s because Crumby read somewhere that a large robber fly, if carelessly handled, or maybe fooled with, can inflict a painful bite or stab wound with its beak or mouthparts.

This robber fly, an Efferia maybe, and large or big, was sitting around minding its own business when Crumby espied it. Crumby decided to take its picture. Yet at that particular time, Crumby had the 35mm macro on the camera. So to get a picture with that lens, Crumby had to get close. Real close.

In that kind of situation, Crumby resorts to live view. With live view, an average amateur photographer may focus while holding the camera out away from his face. Yes. In other words, the camera may be moved close to the dangerous bug while the photographer’s noggin stays a ways back.

Course, manual focusing at arm’s length is sort of difficult. But it is possible with a little lens like the 35mm. And of course, you also have to be able to see the lcd screen well enough to focus. This time, Crumby could twirl the lens and see the lcd so he got the shot.

Also on the camera, besides the 35mm lens, on the occasion that this picture we are presently discussing was clicked, is a little ghost over the pop-up flash. Crumby calls it a ghost because it looks like a ghost. Yes. It’s a bit of cotton cloth cut from a dress shirt that Crumby drapes over the pop-up flash and attaches to the base of the flash with a rubber band. It’s like a flash diffuser but looks exactly like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

OK. So right after this robber got its picture took, it hops over and lands on Casper' head. There it sat, not a foot from Crumby’s noggin on top of Casper. Hold it, thought Crumby. This dern bug if fixing to stab me in the noggin. It could put my dang eye out.

But the robber did nothing of the sort. It just sat awhile, eyeball to eyeball. How do you like me in your face, buddy? Then, off it flew a short distance, on to another grape leaf.