What's Your Favorite Bug Or Insect?

a big june bug with a shiny emerald green back.

I too love the praying mantis. They're so unique looking.

The assassin bug uses its straw-like mouth to inject prey with a toxin that liquifies their insides, which it then sucks it back up through its straw mouth. How creepy is that?!

Dead ones.

I love dragonflies--the gayest of all insects, and a Fin-de-Siecle, Art Nouveau fave.

The black witch moth (which is huge).

I think it's fascinating how nature has evolved a sense of the aesthetic.

What r5, Wilfred, said.

Dragon flies and bees.

The dragon fly because it’s just so beautiful and colorful, as well as moving like something resembling a stealth jet fighter.

The bee, because it has purpose and it’s purpose allows us to eat and have beauty by pollination of colorful flora.

Last night my kitten started freaking out at this one huge bug on the ceiling. She was frenetically meowing and her teeth were chattering away as she focused on this huge black spot. I thought it was a water bug at first glance, however, when I climbed on my bed in order to take a closer look with my glasses on, it was a HUGE spider. I mean, this fucker was huge! I felt bad, but I had to kill with a broom because I was terrified of it biting me or one of the pets in the house. I tried to reach it with a jar at first but it moved too fast, so I ran and grabbed the broom and crushed it. If that spider had made it down to the floor with my kitten? She would have attempted to play with it. A friend of mine lost her kitten from a spider bite, and that’s always fucked with me since.

Yes. I felt horrible but only for a few minutes. 🥺

Sorry. No hugs to certain bugs.

Ladybugs, bees, those cute little jumping spiders.

R8 where do you live that you have big poisonous spiders? If you are in the US the only thing that's "big" is a tarantula , then maybe a wolf spider.

Hate the big flying cockroaches we get in the warm months down here. I mean, I freak out and scream like a little girl. You can try and knock one off the wall and the fucker will actually fly towards you. The fuckers will stare you down just waggling their antennae at you like "WTF you gonna do about it?"

The Mourning Cloak Butterfly with its rich, velvety brown wings; so beautiful!

I hate all bugs with an all consuming passion, but I like ladybugs and butterflies. I'm coming around to moths and spiders, but only because I have heard that spiders are good luck.

I'm also coming around to bees, because they are essential to all plant life.

I love bees, those spiders that jump, ladybugs, praying mantis, and butterflies..

Has anyone ever noticed that ladybugs BITE!!!?? Numerous times when I put a ladybug on my finger you can feel the bite and the DRAW BLOOD.

And my favorite bees are carpenter bees (Probably because I don't own a house) The are the most intense and focused bees and they don't give a FUCK about humans or attacking you. Love those bees.

I've never noticed a ladybug biting R12.

R13- They do! And they draw blood! I swear!!

Its probably just me

I'm fond of arachnids - the spiders- especially the big garden spiders. Apparently this is something I inherited from my father. When I was in my teens, my father befriended an enormous garden spider who had built her web in the angle between the railing of the back step and a vertical post. To supplement her diet, he started feeding her flies that he had killed with a fly swatter. At first, she was rather tentative about it all, but very quickly she learned that he meant her no harm. She would shyly creep out of her corner and grasp her latest gift, then proceed to eat it. Soon, she stopped spinning or repairing her web and relied entirely on what he offered to her.

When the cold weather came, he made a wooden box for her, with one side made of glass, and air holes for ventilation. Flies were getting scarce, so we decided to try her with cat food. She ate it eagerly. We also kept a shallow dish of water in her enclosure. She lived like this for quite a long time. (Keep in mind that these spiders only live for a season, because they will succumb to cold weather and stop eating after they lay their eggs.)

Her box was in my bedroom. One night, I got up to pee, and noticed that the spider was dashing madly around her box. I watched her for a while, and finally, she crouched in a section of the box and laid her eggs. It was fascinating. The eggs came out like white speckled foam, and her abdomen got smaller and smaller. She crouched over her eggs and never ate again. After a couple of days, she died.

My father took the box and put it in the basement. When spring came, he put it outside under the back step, after removing the top. Eventually the eggs hatched, and produced a huge number of tiny spiderlings, who dispersed and no doubt populated our garden.

[quote]Its probably just me

R14 is apparently irresistible to the ladies.

Lance Bass

Anything which is touted as being good luck. I get them all and I get them all the time, though I did not see a Praying Mantis this year - I always touch them once when I see them. I - LOVE - DRAGON - FLIES!! I'll encounter them (one) and we'll just stare each other down as it hovers directly in front of my face. I was using the weed trimmer along a considerably long privacy fence when I noticed a baby dragon fly hovering at my elbow as I trimmed. It stayed next to me all the way down the length of the fence at my elbow for several minutes, and I thought it was a great experience - it was a baby! A Lady Bug landed on my right forefinger the last time I brought groceries in the house - I stuck finger and bug out the storm door and it flew away. Love when Butterflies float around me - special. Blah, blah, blah.

By contrast - I squashed a Spider the other day.....

R18 spiders in your house are a sign of good luck. Quit squashing them. Bad luck to kill them.

The Firefly. They even named an operetta after it! They're lovely to catch and release when you're a kid.

Also lady bugs and butterflies.

I like grasshoppers, or I used to until Ivanka Trump's face invaded my life.

I don't think I've ever seen a cricket but I hear them at night as they sing me to sleep.

The little Puerto Rican coquí frogs. Like crickets but more melodic.

R9 it's *venomous, not poisonous

[quote]They do! And they draw blood! I swear!!

Yes, R14, ladybugs bite. They also can release a discharge onto your skin which may burn you or raise a welt if you're allergic.

I love praying mantises, walking sticks and most especially DRAGON FLIES! I have hand fed an injured dragon fly before. it's wing was janky so I bought it in and hand fed it mosquitoes until its wing healed. you can actually hear them crunch the mosquitoes and flies like potato chips

I like cicadas: big, loud, and poignant. 17 years underground, and they don't even eat when they emerge. They just try to procreate.

Wooly bear caterpillars.

Wooly bear caterpillars.

What about those smaller, bright blue, dragonflies.

R29 I think those are Damselflies.

Butterflies, and the swallowtails are probably my favorite kind of butterfly - so huge and so glam! Trying to photograph them is an antidote to my job-related stress, concentrating my mind on something beautiful, innocent, and totally brainless undoes some of the stress, and I get some stunning photos out of it.

The other day, I saw a hummingbird chasing an Anise Swallowtail at a dahlia garden. You know what vicious little bastards hummingbirds are, spending 90% of their day trying to chase each other away from food sources? Well, apparently the swallowtail was large enough to trigger the hummingbird's "attack the competition" instincts, so it kept dive-bombing the butterfly the way it would another hummingbird. The butterfly didn't care, it would startle and flap for a moment, and then fly to another dahlia and get down to finishing lunch.

The Lady Bug, of course...

BUT, If the Black Widow were a Black Widower who had a handsome face, broad shoulders and back, six pack abs, magnificently muscular hindquarters, and sinewy legs, he could entice me to his web!

That is a lovely story R15. I had a large female garden spider on a web outside my front door. She was nocturnal and would come out in the early evening from the eaves and run to the center of her web. I actually timed her for a week and she came out at the exact same time to the minute each afternoon - only once was she about 5 minutes off her usual time. Apparently some spiders can tell time.

Honeybees are pretty fascinating because of how structured their colonies are and how integral they are to the food chain with pollination, plus how delicious honey is.

R32 the red hourglass tattoo just screams bad boy.

Leaf-hoppers are bizarre and beautiful

Stag Beetles are cool

I like this guy. He's not my top favorite though.

This one is from Belize, a Walker's moth.

Another fabulous grasshopper.

The orchid bee, from Central America.

Truly stunning.

I’ll help you catch him, Clarice.

The rosy maple moth

The orchid mantis looks like a flower.

Ghost mantises, that look like dried leaves.

I'm surprised nobody said the Madagascar hissing cockroach, the symbol of eldergays everywhere.

I saw a spider at the gym today hanging down on a web strand about 6 feet in the air. When I pointed it out to a staff member she just shrugged her shoulders. I didn't want her to kill it but how jaded can you be when you can't get tickled at the sight of a hanging spider.

Another insect I have a lot of on my property are rhinoceros beetles. I find them extremely interesting.

Mothra, of course

Not really a favorite but I have an affinity for Granddaddy long legs spiders which is so weird because all other spiders totally creep me out. Any other spider even gets close to me I totally freak out like a scared little girl, but I can let Granddaddy long legs crawl all over me and I am fine with it. I see any other spider and I will kill it, but not Granddaddy long legs.

Love these little guys. I had one that lived behind my computer that would play hide and seek with me. Totally inquisitive little creatures.

R50, I don't mind daddy long legs, either (what we call them here). I let them live in my house, they stay in one place and eat gnats and things. Harmless except they will create cobwebs.

I don't kill other spiders though, I catch and release. Got a big one this week.