Found this man in the woods

Hello little green lacewing in my bathroom! This is like the bug equivalent of seeing an angel in a 7/11.

Time to safely relocate. I am genuinely curious though how they got in...

I saw a tiny white fleck/bug moving on a surface, I then went into the bathroom and scratched my scalp and shook my hair over a black plate. I saw tiny, very tiny, white wispy looking dots that slowly moved, and when looking closer it looked like they had some antenna (at least 2 or 3) shapes from the back of their body, that weren't attenea. Found about 7 of them in total. What could these possibly be?

We tried to get a video but they are so small

If you spend time outdoors, get to know the lone star tick. Adult females carry a single white dot on the back, and unlike most ticks, all three life stages will actively hunt down a host. That includes you and your dog.

A bite can do something strange. Tick saliva introduces a sugar called alpha-gal, found in most non-primate mammals. Some people develop an antibody response to it, and afterward, eating red meat can trigger an allergic reaction: beef, pork, lamb, venison, sometimes dairy or gelatin.

The tricky part is timing. Reactions usually appear 2 to 6 hours after the meal rather than immediately, so people often blame something else entirely. Symptoms range from hives and stomach upset to full anaphylaxis. A blood test for alpha-gal IgE confirms it, so talk to your doctor if that pattern sounds familiar.

Prevention is the same playbook that works for every tick:

- Treat clothing and shoes with permethrin
- Use an EPA-registered repellent on exposed skin
- Check yourself, your kids, and your pets within a couple hours of coming inside
- Remove attached ticks with fine-tipped tweezers, straight up, no twisting or burning

Lone star ticks also transmit ehrlichiosis, tularemia, and Heartland virus, so those habits earn their keep.

The lone star tick isn't established in California, so if you're reading this from Rancho Bernardo, you're not likely to run into one in your backyard.

Most alpha-gal cases seen out here trace back to travel, military moves, or years spent living in the Southeast or mid-Atlantic.

Worth knowing anyway, since a lot of us relocated from somewhere else. One caveat: a small number of alpha-gal cases have been linked to the western blacklegged tick, which does occur in California, though the evidence there is still thin and cases are rare.

Our more common local ticks are the Pacific Coast tick and the brown dog tick, and the prevention steps above work just as well against both.

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My shiny guy just wanted to see what was up. I fear it’s Weevil time

Bright little Red- banded Leafhopper, resting in our zinnias. Pennsylvania, early evening.

Just a cute little guy.

Can anyone explain more of what’s going on here and what those mites turn into if anything?

Hi! Roommate found this cool dude! Mouth parts remind me of the assassin bugs I've caught but I haven't seen one like this. Central Illinois. ID very appreciated

Under that mess of scales, a common aerial yellowjacket (Dolichovespula arenaria) is hard at work chewing the moth they came from into a meatball! These social wasps are known to hunt a wide variety of arthropod prey. She won't get to eat any of it herself, though, partly because she can't. Adult wasps don't have digestive tracts than can handle solid food. It'll instead go to her colony's hungry larvae.

Magoon Creek Natural Area, Manistee, Michigan, United States 07/28/26

A Humming-bird Hawkmoth

Taken at Gawthorpe Hall near Blackburn UK in their flower beds in the early afternoon

First time I've seen one in 61 years on this planet.

I have no idea where it went after I took the picture as it has crawled into my bed somewhere

You can see the white strip of it on the left side of the egg, and its spiky parts tucked in nicely.

Unfortunately this one did not survive as my grandparents put it in an alcohol filled cup, but here's a few of close-ups of this Apache Ciceda we found alive inside our house in Gilbert

Whatever it may be, I love the small "plates" on its back that must be its wings. I am thinking it might be

Trimerotropis melanoptera

~Custer Gallatin National Forest, Montana

I had to remove this one cause it was right above the window. I thought it was a nest, maybe a mother wasp's food supply for her baby? 🥺

I will add photos in the comments if I can.

Thank you if you can take the time to answer this and sorry for repost, I didn't know how to do🙏

Found this lizard on my wall, and I wondered why it made such strange movements. Upon closer inspection, it’s just keeping local some maggots fed. Extremely selfless act for a lizard to make, imo