The European Hobo Spider (Eratigena agrestis) is an arachnid in the Agelenidae family of funnel web spiders.
The European Hobo Spider varies in appearance. It has a light-brown body, and eight legs. Its two front legs are longer than its other legs. Its abdomen has a V-shaped pattern down the middle.
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The Red-Tailed Black Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) is an insect in the Apidae family of bees.
The Red-Tailed Black Bumblebee has a black body with orange at the end of its abdomen. The male has a yellow ruff around its neckline and often yellow markings on its face. Its body has fluffy hairs. It has a rounded head with short antennae.
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The Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum) is an insect in the Coenagrionidae family of dragonflies and damselflies. It is also known as the Common Bluet or the Northern Bluet.
The Common Blue Damselfly has a long, thin, cylindrical beige to cream body with a light-blue head and a light-blue bulbous tail. Its wings are long and translucent. The male is blue with black markings, and the female can be varied in colour.
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The 22-Spot Ladybird Beetle (Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata) is a small insect in the Coccinellidae family of ladybird beetles and ladybugs. It is a coccinellid beetle.
The 22-Spot Ladybird Beetle has yellow elytra (two wing cases) with 22 black spots. Its pronotum is yellow with 5 black spots. Its shiny body is oval-shaped and slightly domed. Its wings are hidden underneath the wing cases. It has black compound eyes. Its antennae are light-brown and slightly thickened at the ends. Its neck shield has white spots and usually covers its head. It has little black legs.
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The European Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa iris) is an insect in the Apidae family of carpenter bees.
The European Carpenter Bee is all black with a shiny abdomen. It is not a Bumblebee, because a Bumblebee has a hairy body. It has short mouthparts.Its wings are translucent. The male does not have a stinger. The female has a stinger, but she is not aggressive.
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What do the feet of the Grasshopper look like?
The Grasshopper, Cricket, and Locust are insects in the Orthoptera order and the Caelifera suborder, with thousands of different species. Most of them are in the Acridoidea superfamily of grasshoppers and locusts. They are all herbivorous, eating grass and vegetation.
They have six legs with receptors on each leg that can detect movement and vibrations as well as temperature.
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The Silk Moth (Bombyx mori) is an insect in the Bombycidae family of silk moths.
The Silk Moth has a heavy, bristly body and small wings. It is fair to light brown with thin dark bands across its body. Its wings are cream-coloured. It is not capable of sustained flight – it is only airborne for a short time.
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What is a pollinator?
A pollinator is an animal that carries pollen from a male flower to a female flower to fertilize the plant so that more can grow.
Most people know that bees are pollinators. Bees carry the yellow pollen from flower to flower. But not all bees are pollinators. And pollinators include other animals.
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The Golden Ground Beetle (Carabus auratus) is an insect in the Carabidae family of ground beetles.
The Golden Ground Beetle is iridescent gold to golden-brown and green on its head, thorax, and abdomen. It is flightless, even though it has wings. The wings are hidden under the elytra (wing casings). Its legs, antennae, and mouth parts are orange.
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The Shrill Carder Bee (Bombus sylvarum) is an insect in the Apidae family of bumblebees. It is also known as the Knapweed Carder Bee.
The Shrill Carder Bee is mostly pale-yellow-grey with a black band on it thorax and two black bands on its abdomen. It has an orange tip to its abdomen. Its body has fluffy hairs. It has a rounded head with short antennae.
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The European Mallow Skipper Butterfly (Carcharodus alceae alceae) is an insect in the Hesperiidae family of skippers.
The European Mallow Skipper has pinkish-brown forewings (front wngs) with brown markings. Its hindwings (back wings) are brown to grey-brown. The male does not have hair tufts on the underside of its forewings. It has a brown body, legs, and antennae.
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Plan Bee is a national genetic improvement program for bees. It uses innovative breeding technologies to transform the performance of Honey Bees in Australia.
Dr. Nadine Chapman from the University of Sydney is Plan Bee’s lead researcher. The BEE molecular laboratory and bee house at the university actually stands for Behaviour, Ecology, and Evolution.
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The Green Rose Chafer (Cetonia aurata) is an insect in the Scarabaeidae family of beetles.
The Green Rose Chafer can be metallic green, bronze, copper, violet, grey, or blue-black. It has a metallic green V-shaped area between its wing cases (elytra), called a scutellum. Its underside is a coppery-brown colour.
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The European Pine Sawfly (Neodiprion sertifer) is an insect in the Diprionidae family of sawflies. It is also known as the Red Pine Sawfly.
The European Pine Sawfly male is deep black with black feathered antennae. The female has a reddish thorax and black abdomen, with simple antennae.
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The Mournful Spider (Pardosa lugubris) is an arachnid (eight-legged invertebrate) in the Lycosidae family of wolf spiders.
The Mournful Spider is light-brown mottled with darker-brown markings. It has eight eyes arranged in three rows; two of the eyes are large and prominent. Unlike most spiders, it has excellent eyesight.
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The Buzzing Spider (Anyphaena accentuata) is an arachnid (eight-legged invertebrate) in the Anyphaenidae family of spiders.
The Buzzing Spider is light-brown to greyish-brown with darker markings on its abdomen. Its thorax is darker than its abdomen. It legs are darker near is body and become paler toward the tips. It has a pair of antennae.
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The Pine Ladybird Beetle (Exochomus quadripustulatus) is a small insect in the Coccinellidae family of ladybird beetles and ladybugs. It is a coccinellid beetle. It is also known as the Pine Lady Beetle.
The Pine Ladybird Beetle has black elytra (two wing cases) with two large reddish-orange comma-shaped spots and two smaller red round spots near its tail. Therefore, it has four medium-to-large spots in total. Its shiny body is oval-shaped and slightly domed. Its wings are hidden underneath the wing cases.
It has black compound eyes. Its antennae are light-brown and slightly thickened at the ends. Its neck shield has white spots and usually covers its head. It has little black legs.
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The Dark-Edged Bee Fly (Bombylius major) is an insect in the Bombyliidae family of flies. It is also known as the Large Bee Fly or the Large Humblefly.
The Dark-Edged Bee Fly is the similar size and shape of a Bumblebee (Bombus sp.), but its body is more triangular. It is dark-coloured with a brown hairy thorax and abdomen. It has translucent wings with a dark-brown edge. When it rests, its wings are spread out. Bumblebees have two pairs of wings, but the Dark-Edged Bee Fly has only one pair of wngs.
Its long, grey proboscis (nose) looks like a stinger or sword on the top of its head. Its proboscis is always straight (like a unicorn horn) because it cannot curl or retract it. Butterflies, for example, can roll up their proboscis. The Dark-Edged Bee Fly has long legs. It has short antennae. Unlike a bee, it does not have a stinger.
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The Turkish Crane Fly (Prionocera turcica) is a large insect in the Tipulidae family of crane flies.
The Turkish Crane Fly looks like a giant mosquito. It has six very long, thin, fragile legs. The legs easily drop off and re-grow. It has a large pair of translucent wings. Its segmented abdomen is long and grey. The male has a swollen tip on the end of his abdomen and the female has an ovipositor at the end of her abdomen, which is a tube to lay eggs.
The Turkish Crane Fly has black segmented antennae. Its nose, called a snout or a rostrum, has a beak-like tip, and the apical segment is long and protruded. Its compound eyes are large and dark.
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The European Drone Fly (Eristalis arbustorum) is a common and widespread insect in the Syrphidae family of hoverflies. It is a syrphid. It is also known as the Hoverfly.
It is a bee mimic, because it looks like a bee, such as a Honey Bee.
The European Drone Fly is bee-like with yellow and orange or reddish markings. It has a distinctive marking on its thorax. It has six legs, a pair of wings, and large brown-haired eyes.
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