I love my niece and nephew

[urbpan]

And they love bugs! (and other stuff)


My brother's children visited New England this summer, from Las Vegas.

Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches are old hat!




The whole family held the corn snake.





Then we went out to the crop fields--what are they picking?



Potato beetles!



When they came to my neighborhood, Duncan found a really big gypsy moth caterpillar!



Frankie liked it too.



They seemed to have a knack for finding big insects! You don't usually see big beetles like this in Boston!



Duncan worked hard at extricating a dinosaur from this pink rock, sawing away until the rock turned to dust.



See?



Ever-ready to discover nature in unusual places, they locate an insect in the aisle of Target!



They even found a rare Lorax, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Comments

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

From my observations of the hundreds of kids that we do outreaches for, young children aren't afraid of and actively enjoy looking at and touching the bugs. It's not until about the 3rd or 4th grade that the kids, particularly the girls, start to recoil and fear them. I'm not sure whether that's a reflection fo socialization, or just life experiences like finding earwigs in the bathroom or roaches in the pantry. Oftentimes, our most fearful patrons are parents or other adult chaperones.

bug icon

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

Frankie wants to know what kind of bug that is in your icon

Re: bug icon

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

It's an ermine moth, family Yponomeutidae. I took the picture in Dominica, West Indies. However, I know the family (and I'm pretty sure this species) is distributed throughout much of the continental US.

[zipotle.livejournal.com]

I don't like those caterpillars.
Yay for picking taterbugs!

What IS that giant beetle?


Supercute kids.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Near as I can tell, it's a ground beetle (family Carabidae)of some kind. We caught one last night, in the same place--it was flying in low, lazy circles--and earlier in the day we found another one. I've never seen them here before, now there's three in one month. Go figure.

Damn! those are some photogenic kids

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

Ah the benefits of superior genetic engineering and keeping them away from breakfast cereals with interesting prizes inside. Thanks for posting these. I've had it in the back of my mind to post some of the pics on my blog, but I haven't had a chance yet. We really enjoyed the visit.

Re: Damn! those are some photogenic kids

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

They are so beautiful that it's hard to believe that we're related.
I've got a bunch more pictures--too many to post--from Doc's disc and my camera. You saw the aquarium ones a few posts back?

Duncan and Frankie were a tremendous joy to have around. I hope Alexis and I can see them again very soon.

Yay!

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

It was fun! Come back soon or we'll descend upon your house like locusts.

[crunchywater.livejournal.com]

Awww those are such cute photos. Its cool to see kids that young appreciate nature and especially "creepy, nasty" things. ;P


My batch of hissers gave me 30+ babies yesterday. I am hopeing for some more females. A few of them got out the top of the cage, but luckily my kittens are good at finding things. haha.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

A few of them got out the top of the cage

This is why they're at urbpan's work and not in the house. Yikes!