Tag: insect

Spittlebugs In The Rosemary

Spittlebug, Spittlebug
Does whatever a Spittlebug does…

…like suck on the missus’ rosemary bush and make little foamy things to hide its sorry-ass nymphy self.

There are spittlebugs in the rosemary. This is serious, at least according to the missus, but I looked into it. They make little foamy nests in the crooks of the stems to hide from predators and to keep from drying out, while they suck juices from the stems of the host plant. They are the nymph stage of froghoppers, and although they can do temporary damage to the host plant, they usually die off in a couple of weeks.

The nymph that I uncovered today was the shape of a small ladybug, about 1/16th of an inch long. It was black on the front and yellow on the rear – half and half. Treating the infestation means hitting the little foaming bastards with the hose, or just ignoring them.

To be truthful, that’s a TUBE Spittlebug in the picture. The spittlebug nymph that I examined today looks nothing like it. I’m sure I pissed him off when I got him on my fingernail to eyeball him, because the look he gave me back, well, let’s just say he wished he was bigger so he could kick my ass.

In any case, he got PWND big time, yet was released to foam again… somewhere else.

[Image found via teh google.]

My Dog Spot

Last night as I was doing my part to help fill up the local landfill, I spotted this little cute guy, obviously a stray. He was 1-3/4 inches long, and aside from twitching his antennae, wasn’t moving much. Since he was cold, I brought him in to warm up on the kitchen counter.

The missus wasn’t pleased. Bunkarina thought it was cool.

Haven’t seen one of these around in years. It’s a Potato Bug, more commonly known as a Jerusalem Cricket. They don’t prefer potatos, and they’re not native to Jerusalem, they don’t jump and they’re not crickets. They don’t chirp, but they do make mating sounds (listen here) that they “hear” with their feet.

If you spot a Potato Bug, be forewarned… they bite.

Logging Blogging

No Photoshopoopage here.  This is cutting edge, wave of the future stuff.  I already posted it here, and there’s no reason that you folks should be left out of the loop.  Check it out:

No clear-cutting, only culling of old timbers, without the logging roads.  Ingenious, but slow and expensive.

[Image from here, video from here.]