Tag: insect

Posted on in Birds

Amazing Insect Images

You have to see these photographs.

I am very aware that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of emails making the rounds, not to mention blogs and other websites, all with cute or unbelievable photographs in them. This is not one of those.

Well-known photographer Igor Siwanowicz is in a class by himself. If I can manage to create photographs half as incredible as his are, I will consider myself an unbridled success.

The above link takes you to just 60 of his close-ups of insects and other small creatures. Each one is a work of art. Please take the time to look. You’ll be so glad you did.

Posted on in Birds

Mormon Crickets

mormon-cricket_sinkscanyon_20090808_lah_8837“What is that huge, weird bug in the road? And what is it doing?”

We were hiking along a dirt track in Sinks Canyon, Wyoming (a totally gorgeous place, by the way), when we came across a large insect I didn’t recognize. I should have. A bit of research revealed that it was a Mormon Cricket (Anabrus simplex), and not only are they common, but at times they’re so abundant that their voracious appetites consume the landscape!

They do look sort of “cricket-y,” but Mormon crickets are actually shieldbacked katydids, also known as long-horned grasshoppers (family Tettigoniidae, subfamily Decticinae). They are found all over western North America, preferring sagebrush/grass rangeland similar to the place we found this one.

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