Duskywing skipper butterflies (genus Erynnis) are generally light brown to black with light spots on the wings, and the group is notoriously difficult to tell apart. I am reasonably certain, after having compared images from each of the “juvenalis group” of extremely similar “little brown butterflies” on bugguide.net, that this is a Horace’s duskywing, Erynnis…
Author: Long Leggedy Beasties
Love Bug
If you live in the Gulf Coast, especially Florida, you’ve heard of the “love bug” (Plecia nearctica). They are small, relatively inoffensive flies, but due to their habit of locking together during reproduction (causing the joined pair to fly very erratically and slowly right around bumper-level), during their most amorous times of year they seem…
Twice-Stabbed Lady Beetle
Although the common names for this kind of tiny round beetle include “ladybird” and “ladybug”, the correct term is “lady beetle”. This is neither a bird nor a bug (“bugs” technically refers to an order of insects, of which the lady beetle is not a member). The common name (“twice-stabbed lady beetle”) actually refers to…
Anthrax Argyropygus
This half-inch black fly with half-black, half-transparent wings is a bee fly (family Bombyllidae), which, of course, mimics a bee. Some members of this family look even more like bees, with striped orange and black fuzzy abdomens; many seem to have followed this theme of black and/or silver “fur” instead. You can tell this is…
Scaphytopius Elegans
A beautiful little leafhopper with, alas, no common name, Scaphytopius elegans can be found all over the southern US, from Californa to Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. Adults are pale reddish brown with a wide cream or yellow midline stripe, striped eyes, a pale transverse stripe with black borders crossing the “nose” and going through…
Black-Winged Dahana
The black-winged dahana, Dahana atripennis, is an inch-long, primarily black moth with a red abdomen, orange head, iridescent blue thorax, and two yellow stripes on its black wings. As far as I can tell from photos on bugguide.net, both sexes have those long, attractive, black feathered antennae (or all photos on bigguide.net are of males!)….
Green Trig Cricket
This tiny beast, about 3mm long without, and 8mm long with, the antennae, is a nymph of a green trig cricket or green sword-tailed cricket, a member of the genus Cyrtoxipha. Cyrtoxipha means “curved sword”, and refers to the females’ ovipositor. “Trig” comes from the subfamily name for sword-tailed crickets, Trigonidiinae. This is either C….
Green-Striped Grasshopper
This is a nymph of the green-striped grasshopper, Chortophaga viridifasciata. The adults are…well, let’s say they’re variable in color, so this little one may be brown when it grows up, or green, or possibly a shade of neon pink with bright green wings (there are multiple subspecies, or possibly not, involved, and it’s all very…
Acanalonia Servillei
This charming little planthopper nymph is in the process of destroying the leaf of this succulent by sucking all the useful stuff out of the stem. As adults, Acanalonia servillei are charming little bright green wedges with a yellow dorsal stripe and red eyes; the nymphs are white, and look like they have brown eyeshadow….
Hamataliwa Grisea
Admission time here: I used to think that jumping spiders were the epitome of cuteness, but that was before I met my first lynx spider. This is Hamataliwa grisea, a tiny (1cm) lynx spider which suffers from a scandalous lack of common name. Bugguide.net contributors have called it a “bark lynx spider” and “not a…
Salvinia Stem-Borer
A small (1cm) white and brown mottled moth with an astonishingly close resemblance to its cousin, S. ecclesialis, the Salvinia stem-borer feeds on many types of aquatic plants, including water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) and, of course, Salvinia rotundfolia, a water fern. Since its caterpillars can do a lot of damage to those plants, even to…
Diaprepes Root Weevil
The gloriously iridescent diaprepes root weevil (Diaprepes abbreviatus) is, of course, an invasive species (native to the Caribbean) that infests crops — citrus, to be precise — and is therefore a pest, etc., etc. (I get so tired of reading that under every insect description! It’s not the weevil’s fault that it likes all the…
Three Spotted Skipper
Who knew? — searching for “small brown butterfly” is just as frustrating as searching for “small brown moth”. This particular small brown butterfly happens to be a three-spotted skipper, Cymaenes tripunctus, a grass skipper in the butterfly family Hesperiidae. It lives all over the Caribbean, and of course Florida because everything lives here. “Skipper” type…
Pine Woods Snake
When I moved my trash can to drag it to the curb, the biggest worm I had ever seen, ever was hiding underneath it! When I looked closer, the “worm” was actually a gorgeous pine woods snake, Rhadinaea flavilata. (Alternate names include the yellow-lipped snake and brown-headed snake.) Like most snakes, this one didn’t want…
Florida Leatherleaf Slug
I walk through my yard every morning pretending that our leaf piles are not full of these three-inch-long, flat slugs. I love slugs, but I’d prefer not to step on one! Florida leatherleaf slugs (Leidyula floridana), like other terrestrial slugs, eat fungi, decaying plant matter, and sometimes live plants. They are generally active in damp,…
Spiderling Plume Moth
Oh, how I love these little guys! This plume moth looks almost completely different from the other plume moth I recently posted — the ends of the forewings, the little poofs on the joints of the hind legs, the pattern on the abdomen — and yet they are both plume moths in the family Pterophoridae….