Flattened fauna of sidewalks - Part 3
In this installment, I have a series of arthropods seen dead on sidewalks, but not necessarily flattened. When I am out taking a walk, I tend to keep my eyes on the ground lest I miss something interesting; now it's becoming an obsession to search for dead animals on the sidewalks.
We start off with a daddy long-legs spider.
The next victim looks like a bee of some sort.
Followed by a grasshopper that may have gotten hit by something, a car perhaps.
Today's last victim is a squished bug that I photographed about a month ago. It was probably a casualty of human indifference to or dislike of things that crawl under our feet.
There were many similar looking live bugs running around on the sidewalk. I photographed one and posted its picture on BugGuide.net.
It got identified as Boisea trivittata (Eastern Boxelder Bug). It is indeed a true bug (Heteroptera).
Part 1
Part 2
To be continued...
5 comments:
I love this series.
Your second photo is not of a bee; it is a syrphid fly. (Two wings, for starters). I made the same mistake last week; here. (Fourth photo.)
BugGirl has started a series on "Things that aren't bees"; the first is about these flies.
The first "daddy long-legs" is actually a harvestman, or Opilione. It has only one body segment.
"Daddy long-legs" is a name attached to harvestmen where I come from, and different insects in other places. I've heard recently that what I call "crane flies", out East, they call "Daddy long-legs".
It's too bad, because it's a beautifully descriptive term for the harvestmen.
Daddy long legs are the gentlemen of the spider world: they've always impressed me.
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