We get a lot of bugs climbing the walls of our house. This is probably the most common sight.
I think this is a carolina grasshopper, but I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure it would make a tasty treat for this wall climber.
The praying mantis is one of my favorites. I like they way they turn their heads to follow you, maybe trying to decide if they could take you down.
I saw this little green anole on the wall outside the front door.
These little lizards are not as common here as the blue-tailed skink, and neither is as common as they were before the cat population boomed. This one will be safe as long as he stays on the wall.
I saw a walking stick but I didn’t get a photo of it. It wasn’t the cool blue of the one Pablo saw.
And imagine, these are just the ones we happen to see. What uncounted number and variety there must be.
I also watch for things crawling up walls. Now’s the time for the Neoscona orb weaver spiders (cousins to Charlotte) to become big and put up beautiful webs everywhere: on my clotheslines on the back deck, way up in the trees, and across the paths. They usually gather the webs up and take them down in the early morning, so no prob. But they are pretty large spiders.
We also have the anole and skink problems with cats, although we’ve severely limited the cats’ outside access in the last year or two.
Pablo — I sometimes look at the large number of bugs I see somewhere around the house (grasshoppers, spiders, scorpions) and then realize the huge numbers that must be in all the other areas I don’t see. Countless, indeed.
Wayne — I have been limiting my walks to the roads lately to get more distance and because the paths I used to walk are so overgrown I can’t get into them any more, so I don’t see the spider webs as much as I used to. But I still run into them in the yard sometimes.
Pretty little anole. This has been a year of lizards and wheel bugs here. I welcome the first and have read that the latter indicate a balanced environment, but since a wheel bug nailed and scared me early in the season, I’m wary of them. Our Argiope population, promising at first, dwindled to none. Should I blame the wheel bugs? They have no problem navigating webs. I’m looking forward to seeing – and running into – Neoscona lead lines stretching across such surprising distances. Oh, and we had more than 30 black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars on one fennel. I never found a chrysalis but hope that’s due to poor observation powers.
I had no idea that the anole’s range extended as far north as where you’re living, Mark. I thought they were mostly confined to peninsular Florida and further south. I noticed a walking stick (green) in my garden last week; they’re fairly uncommon here in the northern Piedmont, so they’re always a treat to see. Did you know that the preying mantis is alien, likely introduced from Japan?
I thought they had traced its introduction to Europe?
Minnie — I have seen wheel bugs. I had the vague notion that they ate insects, but your comment prodded me to actually read about them. Thanks for that.
Scott — I did not realize that the praying mantis is introduced. It’s amazing how something like that can spread so far and wide that it seems like it must have been there forever.
My brother got a couple of great shots of a mantis lounging on a rose:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202868425894818&set=pcb.10202868426454832&type=1&theater
Wonderful sightings there! We don’t see many insects here in our little rental. We do have a lot of spiders and spider webs everywhere, though. I have never seen an anole. That’s quite a cute little critter. Makes me wonder what kind of herp life is here on north coast. I’m going to have to take a look online.
Oh I just remembered, we do have a ridiculous amount of ants. I think we are under attack from Argentina ants. Crazy hungry little monsters!
Ridger — I tried clicking on the link but got a message that it was unavailable or that I didn’t have permission to see that page.
Robin — I’ve heard of Argentine ants. I read part of a paper that said that fire ants were arch-enemies of the Argentine ant. Based on what I’ve read about the Argentine ant, I’m not sure which I would prefer to see here.