Insects and other littles

I know not everyone loves creepy crawlies! However, insects and other small creatures are fascinating to us, especially to Sol, who has a very keen interest and love for all creatures small. He spends lots of the day immersed in nature, observing insects and he dreams of these loves of his. I often hear him, in his sleep, talking of snails and wasps and moths and click beetles and whatever other creature has interested him that day...his thoughts dwell so intently on smallies. The last two days have been all about grasshoppers and crickets. Competitions on who can catch the most, the fastest catcher, the best strategy, and an observation tank set up with crickets chirruping during the night which pleases our Sol very much.

My camera is okay for general snaps but it really isn't easy photographing small objects with that camera. We keep a journal of our insect discoveries- picture, identified, common traits - that sort of thing - so each must be photographed and they must wait patiently for me to get a reasonable shot! Sometimes, it takes ages to get a decent, clear picture.

Here are some that have been an interest recently.


Long horn beetle - this one was beautiful!


Another type of long horn beetle.


Garden chafer.


Spittle bugs - larvae of leafhoppers.


These seem to be the small butterflies that emerged from those wonderful tent webs I posted about a while back.

Pond life - another fascination. The boys spend ages gazing into these, observing and identifying all the tiny little life forms - daphnia, cyclops, hydra, water beetles...


Our common newt.


And the highlight of all - TRIOPS!
Sometimes called dinosaur shrimps. We bought one of those kits and we have hatched only one triop, but what a loved triop she is! Triops are considered to be a living fossil because they have barely changed in the last 70 million years, exactly matching their ancient fossils. Triops longicaudatus is one of the oldest animal species still in existence and we have one. And this YouTube clip tells you all about triops and Noah think this is just the coolest song about!