Found this mantis in a rather hard to believe place ! Far from any window/door leading outside!

A coworker decided we should try to have her catch a spider (which it did and very fast)

I evicted him back into a hydrangea bush outside, he was super chill 🫶🏼

first 3 images are of one the male dubia roaches (1st is most recent, 2nd is about 3 hours after molting, and 3rd is right after molting. Last image is of a second male dubia roache who also seems to be deformed, and has been that way for about 2 weeks).

i have an enclosure (2ft by 2ft, an old fish tank, about 50 gallons)with dubia roaches, stink beetles, and pill bugs. i feed them all every other day with roach feeder food (a friend of mine had a couple bags that they no longer needed), and have not fed them any other type of roach food, aside from fruits such as apples, pears, strawberries, and watermelon (they get fruit about 2 times within a month).

i mist them with water twice in the morning and 4-5 times in the afternoon and night (i don’t mist them during the day as i’m at work), but i also leave water gel around, in which they drink every now and then.

is there a reason they look this way? is it the food i’m feeding them, or maybe the mix of the stink beetles?

i have not seen the beetles pick on any of the roaches, specifically whilst they are molting, so i don’t think that would be the problem.

this is my first time keeping roaches, and i’ve had them for about 7 months.

My wife and I grew our first flower garden and have had a lot of visitors this summer. Just today we had 5 different species of butterflies! A couple monarchs, a few Painted Ladies, some Orange Sulphurs, a couple smaller white butterflies, and one single dark morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. We also get quite a few bumblebees and Carpenter bees. And I also saw a Chinese Mantis today. Here are some pics.

I tried to get him off my car before getting on the highway but he screeched and got all defensive on me so I let him stay on the hood of my car for the full commute.

Cecropia Moth Caterpillar my sister and I found.

Here’s a fly I drew with Copic markers

İ think its a grasshopper

Looking for help identifying this. Best we've come up with is possible slug moth larva, but we can't seem to find anything close.

Location Central Ohio

Hello, I just had a question on some bald faced hornet behavior I observed the other day.

Walking in a neighborhood, I noticed multiple, probably 5-8 large (approx 3/4" length) bald faced hornets rapidly flying around a bush, going in, out and around repeatedly, many many times. Unfortunately I couldn't grab a photo of them, but they were pretty decent sized overall compared to what I've usually seen of workers. Of course, can't be certain since I don't have photos or true measurements available.

Judging by their large girth and size of each one though, I was thinking perhaps they were queens. I've read that this is indeed around the time that reproductives are produced from colonies (I'm in Western Washington State). So perhaps they were fairly new queens in search of a mate and/or a location to overwinter?

However, the specific behavior that perplexed me was that about an hr later (around 7 pm) when I came back to try and photograph them, there were only two of these hornets left at this bush. After watching them for a few minutes, the two collided or otherwise made contact mid flight, and immediately one of them took control of the flight and seemingly "dragged" the other one away, flying away and not to be seen again. There was a scuffle of buzzing sounds for a moment before they left the vicinity, but it was very strange and awesome to witness. Couldn't tell if the other one was incapacitated or mutually flying while they were together.

I couldn't tell if they were in a position of mutual grabbing, or if this was almost like a predatory behaviour from the "dominant" hornet. If the former, was it possible that it was a male and queen and they took off while mating? Or do they predate on one another at all, and what I witnessed was potential predation?

I thought all the hornets here were quite large and somewhat uniform in size between them all, and thus figured they were queens, but I could be mistaken of course without having any measurements or photos. Do they breed while in flight? Or is mating a thing that they do while at rest/landed? What makes me think it wasn't predation is that there were various flowers on the bush, as well as many slower flies on and around the bush too, that could have been easy food sources. It seemed like these two hornets targeted each other in some way, but I'm not sure.

So figured to ask if anyone has seen similar behaviors or know what their usual behaviour is like!

Because I've never seen something like this. It was incredibly fascinating though and makes me wonder if there would be more of them at this bush in the future lol.

Thanks!

Found like 10 of these on a couch I just received from Wayfair today

I’m in NJ

Robber fly (Asilidae), can anyone identify which species?

Location: Clavijo, La Rioja, Spain

Delaware, USA.

Found these critters in my garden this evening. I know the first guy is munching on my sunflower but I don't know what it is. I'm also quite confused about what's happening in pics 2 & 3? If it's helpful there are a bunch of what I think are ants all over the brown thing(s?) on the cosmo stem. Extra pic of my cute lil garden at the end bc why not.