(Dead) June Bug In July

Found a June bug on the pavement that had been partly crushed (I had to blur out its spilled-out innards;  it was just gross).  I guess June bugs are pretty much the same everywhere -- it looked just like the ones I remember from back in California.

Bug On A Leaf

Some type of tiger beetle, I think.

 

3 Insects In 3 Days

All shot in and around the very busy plaza above the neighborhood subway station.

A pretty moth

A grasshopper;  I was afraid it might get stepped on, but after my third attempt to capture it, it flew off

And a mantis with a bum leg -- and it's missing part of its right antenna!

Picking Up From Last Year...

I returned from my "walk" a little past five o'clock (actually, I was out exploring in an unfamiliar neighborhood an hour's ride away) I heard a loud chorus of cicadas and started looking for what I hoped would be there;  and yes, this time I wasn't disappointed -- the guards hadn't beaten me to it!  

Here is what twenty-two nymph shells look like in my palm:

And after I had them laid out to dry out from the rain:

One of the shells was clinging to a tree next to an adult cicada.  I tried to pick it up as well, and it flew up and grabbed onto me.  Cute, no?  Look at those plump little thighs -- reminds me of frog legs^^

Related posts:  What To Do, What To Do...;  What To Do, What To Do... Pt. 2;  Cicada x 2

A Truly Weird Coincidence

It's the Fourth of July!  I was going out when I spotted this stinkbug next to the elevator.  I looked at it close, and realized it was missing most of its right antenna.

Which reminded me of this stag beetle from EXACTLY two years ago, July 4, 2023.  This guy was missing his right antenna.

And while looking up the post, I realized that EXACTLY one year later, on July 4, 2024, while touring JinGwanSa temple I came upon this beetle clinging to a lotus blossom.  And it was missing its right antenna, too!  Is the cosmos trying to send me some kind of message?  Spooky.

Related posts:  Stag Beetle;  Ambiguous Beetle; Blood Comes Back For A Visit; The Very Next Dream Log Entry

Third Time's The Charm

For the third time this summer, I found a cicada sitting on the bug screen this morning -- but this one was on the inside!  How it got around the screen, I have no idea.  It really must be charmed.  Anyway, those fat little "thighs" are kind of cute.

Cicada x 2

Maybe my half-in-jest effort to make friends with the noisy little buggers (ha, see what I did there?) is actually succeeding -- this individual was very "tame" and stayed on my hand for a long time.  If I'd had both hands free I would have given it a more proper stroking, just like with a cat or dog.

After watching the short clip I brought out my fossil cicada in amber for comparison, and to the casual eye it doesn't look like there has been much obvious change in cicada-kind since however many millennia or eons have passed since this unfortunate specimen became trapped in rosin.  I guess that, like sharks, cicadas became so good at what they do that there was little need to change.

What To Do, What To Do...

O.K., so I've got hoarder-ish inclinations.  I did have a vague idea before about using a few of these cicada nymph shells in a wall sculpture;  I gave up on that plan because it proved difficult to implement for various reasons, but I still kept collecting the shells.  Now I've got almost three dozen of these buggers (see what I did there?^).  At one point there actually were an even three dozen, but I accidentally damaged a couple and had to discard them.  Now I don't know what to do with them, except that I don't want to throw them out.

'Tis The Season

And now back in the present, another friendly insect; taken yesterday.

July is the main month for monsoon rains in Korea.  Right now the southern half of the country is beiing battered with record amounts of rain, with floods and mudslides and accidents.  Up here in the north though, so far the rain has been minimal.  How is this even possible in this small country?  Well, anyway, I went for a long walk along the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul yesterday - braving the heat and the humidity - and was rewarded with this pretty sight.

June Bug in July

A lucky shot taken on this very date, six years ago.  I like June bugs.  They are one of those select bugs/insects that I can deal with without a sense of revulsion.  Maybe in this case it's because they are big and stocky and so approach the lower limit of mammal- and bird-hood?  Perhaps.

Stag Beetle

Came across this guy just chillin', just like that, in front of my door.  I have no idea how or why a stag beetle would be found 11 stories up a mountain of concrete and steel, but there you are.

Anyway, so I gathered him up and took him inside, and placed him in a glass container.  He seemed pretty feeble, and I had this vague impression that he was near death, and I would soon have a cool addition to my hoardery.  Except he was fine a day later, and I had to admit I was keeping a creature prisoner, waiting for it to die.  It was such a repellent realization, I actually felt evil.  I had to let him go.

A Very Colorful Bug

Ran across this pretty creature while out walking the other day.  Maybe the bright colors are a warning to stay away?  Which may well mean that this little fellow is dangerous.  But it's interesting how the colors are asymmetrical -- maybe it was the result of an injury; that would explain why it was crawling along so slowly on the sidewalk.

Pseudo-Mimicry

('QUASI-MIMICRY'?  'FAUX-MIMICRY'?  ANYWAY...)

One of my favorite insects (this individual was residing in Japan a few years ago).

And a faux-insect from the other day (right outside my office here in Downey, California).

It should be noted here that I almost stepped on that second object while out walking, and it was only at the last instant I noticed it and turned my foot to avoid smashing it flat.  Only then did I realize it was not a bug, but a piece of plant detritus.  One might say it 'survived' because of its accidental resemblance to a living creature.

Which reminded me of a wonderful bit of satirical speculation from Charles Fort, the American iconoclast who spent decades of his life uncovering strange and odd events that were reported in newspapers, then quickly forgotten because they were 'absurd' and did not fit conventional views of the world.  In regard to the evolution of leaf insects, Fort first presented the conventional evolutionary hypothesis -- that once upon a time some species of insect came into being that accidentally somewhat resembled leaves;  that they were more likely to escape being eaten by birds because of this accidental mimicry, and so surviving disproportionately, they passed on their resemblance to their offspring.  And of those offspring, the ones that resembled leaves still better survived disproportionately to pass on their greater resemblance, and so on.

He then imagined that creatures from some other world who happened to visit Earth after the extinction of humanity, upon seeing paintings in art galleries, might well suppose that once upon a time some canvases that were randomly daubed on with paint appeared.  That, of those canvases, the ones that just happened to resemble real objects were protected, and so on until paintings that exactly resembled people and objects came into being, all without conscious intention by painters.

An intriguing piece of thoughtful humor -- but of course, Fort lived and worked before the flowering of Abstract Expressionism in the mid-20 century.  Abstract paintings do not depend on protective mimicry to survive.