more bugs

from various days-

Very tiny moth (it's on the bottom trim edge of my aquarium here) with wavy lines in different shades of nut-brown, like it pretends to be tree bark.

Another moth, quite a bit larger- maybe an inch?- caught it for a few minutes and then set outside. Bright coppery hue in some of the pattern, in the light. No idea of their identity. There are so many different brown-and-tan-and-gray moths.

Waiting to become a moth- cocoon of the tufted moth caterpillar we have in a bug house. Smallest one is still there, not moving- third one I don't know where it went. There's a tear in the mesh, perhaps it escaped... This cocoon is on the underside of the plastic lid, so a bit difficult to photograph.

Cicada. I swear they look and sound different than before- I don't remember the bold red/orange eyes from the last generation that emerged, and the raspy noise has a different note, too... I never saw these growing up; when I first moved to the east coast and saw an empty cicada skin on a tree it kind of freaked me out. But my kids think they are cool and slowly I am finding them less unpleasant.

We often find their wings on the ground- they are quite pretty with irridescent sheen.

I am noticing lots of leaf hoppers this year. Blue ones. Vivid green-and-red striped ones. Sneaky gray ones. Very triangular green ones- I think they are imitating a thorn on a stem. And this tiny is like a brown leaf- the veins in wings folded against the body and the notch over the head remind me of a very very small dead leaf.

Insect architecture: somebody was trying to set up housekeeping in a broken light fixture on our deck (now fixed). My husband says this is the nest of a mud-dauber wasp. We found no wasps, I don't think they were using it anymore.