Catocala cara

My dad was the only one brave enough to guess the species of my costume in the last post, and he was right! Catocala cara, the Darling Underwing, was the inspiration for my Halloween costume this year. For the party I went to last night I kept it rather simple, tonight I'm going to add antennae and perhaps some more detail on the fore-wings.

The base was a dress from the thrift store, arm warmers were from a shirt also from the thrift store, the fleece fabric I already had on hand.

It feels great to be sewing again.

Boo

Working on my halloween costume... can you guess what I'm going to be?

I'm back!

Hello again! Life is crazy (as I had predicted), and my Etsy shop has finally reopened.
I will not be taking new custom orders until I sort out all the ones that have piled up the past few months.

A lot has been going on since I moved here - amazing Arizona trip, classes, seminars, insect collecting, TAing, making friends, driving around CT, giving my first talk at a herpetology conference in Canada, and staying at my office til all hours of the night.

Things have been happening with my artwork, too, even though my shop has been closed.
My marker drawings have been featured in two shows at the Zzyzx gallery of natural science in Los Angeles, and three of my plush beetles are currently at the "Plush You!" show at the Schmancy toy gallery in Seattle.

I will attempt to update with photos, science tidbits and plush adventures.
(The katydid pictured was captured at a nearby park)

Moving

Life has been crazy lately, and it's about to get even crazier.

Moving into my new apartment in CT tomorrow.
Signed up for classes.
Tickets booked for my week long trip to Arizona.
Signed up to TA an intro biology course.

I probably won't get a chance to blog for a while...

It's been a great summer!

What's cuter than a baby spider?

Yesterday I checked on the jumping spider momma and her egg sac, and found a few babies starting to crawl out of her silk enclosure. I used tweezers to pull apart some of the silk, and found it full of little wiggling spiderlings! The mother was not pleased at being disturbed, and looked considerably thin. I don't think she ate anything while guarding her eggs, though I did put plenty of appropriately sized prey in the cage.
I removed the silk covering completely, and brought the spiderlings and their mother out to the herb garden behind our house. This area is always teeming with insects, and hopefully will provide enough prey and shelter for these little ones.
Oh, and the answer to the title of this post?
A whole pile of baby spiders.

Success!

On 7/18, my white-dotted prominent emerged from its pupa. You actually can't see the white spots very well, but they're there. I love the tuft of hairs on top of the thorax, looks rather like a mohawk.
It was quite fun rearing this individual from an early instar caterpillar up through adulthood - hopefully now it will continue to have a successful life out in the wild.

Mr. Toad's new suit

My latest article has been published in Kaatskill Life magazine (the "Kaatskill Kritters" section is always written by either my father or myself, and we do all our own photography):
I love how they cropped my photo of the toad - what a face! Funny how toads always look grumpy. The next issue should have my article about sea monkeys/brine shrimp. My pieces are all only a page long, and meant for a very general audience. I am usually quite tempted to go into more detail, but I think people would rather have more useful information than be dazzled by taxonomy.

Kaatskill Life is a great local magazine, if any of you live in the Catskills of NY or surrounding counties, I'd give it a whirl. Subscription rate is $19 per year for four quarterly magazines. I've also seen them in plenty of shops.

Ambushed!

It's a good thing those neighbor boys keep coming over, they always end up finding something I have overlooked.

Look what one of them found today, after I had passed by a patch of queen anne's lace flowers without examining them: one of my favorite insects, the ambush bug (Phymata erosa).
As you can see, she's been put in an enclosure and given some flies to eat. She caught this one after about half an hour.

I did not realize they would be out this early, there is no goldenrod yet, which is where I usually find them. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled now. It's always neat to find ambush bugs in the wild and watch their behaviors - mating, competing for mates/territory, catching prey and sucking it dry... I've seen an ambush bug with a bumble bee in its grip before! They are quite adept at ambushing prey - hence their name.

A moth... already?

Remember those camouflaged loopers? And the one that made a pupa?
Well that did not last long, only a bit over a week later, here is the moth:
I had never seen such a beautiful little green moth before. Wingspan was about 2cm.
The adults are referred to as the "wavy-lined emerald", which is certainly an apt description.
And thankfully now I can regain use of that large critter-keeper cage the pupa was hogging.

Sticky

Sticky the stick insect... real original, eh? Anyone want to come up with a better name?
The boys brought over a little northern walking stick (Diapheromera femorata) they had found in their yard.
Considering the years I had spent at the Lyman museum caring for their stick insects, I knew just what to do. An enclosure was quickly set up with paper towels, a few branches, a vial of water with a hole in the cap to place oak leaves, and a little water dish.

He/she has already eaten a few big chunks out of an oak leaf. I'm definitely keeping this little guy for a while.