The Petersen Herd

The Petersen Herd

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Insects (ok - more bugs)

Cicadas are seriously cool bugs. I mean they live in the ground for like 17 years and then they crawl out and do this:The girls found one outside that hadn't yet molted. We "bathed" it since it had been in the mud and then put it in a jar. I thought they only molted at night so I wasn't watching closely and wasn't worried about taking a "before" picture when Ksenya came running in frantic! It didn't take very long at all and reminded me very much of giving birth (sorry - but it did).
The cicada was so beautiful - really bright green and shiny and sparkly and had a beautiful pattern on his back.
I was also amazed at how long his wings finally stretched out to be. The disappointing part? They're only this pretty color for about a half hour and then they turn black and look really sickly. All that work - all that time and only a half hour of glory.
This is the spider that we think might be a brown recluse. The scary part? We caught it in our bathroom. The scarier part? We have caught 4 of them since.
This is a jumping spider we found on Brigham's carseat at the park. When I say jumping I mean it - he jumps and fast. Thankfully, he's now pinned so they'll be no more jumping!
And finally - a little perspective. I realize that I have enlarged the photos to make the bugs look huge so here's a group shot of all our "specimen's". Oh - and that's Ksenya's hand if that gives you a point of reference.

3 comments:

Holly said...

Ewwww!! I'm so creeped out! I don't know how you do it Toni!

Eli said...

So, this is the first time I have actually gotten Peter to look at a blog. Since he thinks he is an entgmologist, he diagnosed your spiders and you were right :(

Heath 'n Jeri said...

NIK! We talked about this....don't make me stop this car right now! I'll do it!