If you’ve seen this week’s adorable mini-Muppet of a crawly in real life, you are one lucky Oregonian.Meet the warm-chevroned moth (Tortricidia Testacea), also known as the early button slug moth.That second name may sound weird, but their teeny, tiny ‘pillars really look like “What if a slug were a[Read More…]

One thing we’ve learned in our Crawlies journey together is that every carnivorous or omnivorous critter loves to dine on a nice juicy aphid.Aphids are like the Gummy Bears of the arthropod and bird world. In fact, an aphid by any other name would taste as sweet; they exude honeydew[Read More…]

Continued from June 19 Part IIMoving on to moths: Pictured are three male wandering tiger moths. While our two tan fellows are the typical color, our orangey-orange male is rare.There are many species of moth who can rock a range of colors and some whose colors are consistent but have[Read More…]

Female Anna’s hummingbird, frog, female house finches, Emma’s dancer damselfly, moths Color me a Crawlies Rainbow: Part IOne thing we’ve learned on our Crawlies journey so far is that it can be tricky to ID many of our local critters. Whether arthropods, amphibians or birds, nature likes to keep things[Read More…]

Molorchus longicollis longhorn This week’s crawly put the “long” in “longhorn beetle.” Meet the Molorchus longicollis longhorn, a small but special bitty-bit of a beetle.How small is he? How do we know he’s a he?Our pictured Mr. is one-quarter of an inch in length. We know he’s a he because[Read More…]

Tricolored blackbird (Agelaius tricolor) This week’s crawly probably looks quite familiar at a glance. Look again though. There are two different species of bird in our nifty collage photo.It’s highly likely you are familiar with the top bird. Heck, this time of year you probably see them daily.The bottom bird[Read More…]

Hybotid dance fly (Family Hybotidae) This week’s crawly does everything Fred Astaire did, backwards and in high heels.Meet the hybotid dance fly (Family Hybotidae).As you can see, there’s quite a variety of hybotids available for your dancing and pest controlling needs. In fact, there are approximately 300 species of hybotid[Read More…]

Short-horned click beetle (Danosoma brevicorne) This week’s crawly is positively clicktastic! Meet the short-horned click beetle (Danosoma brevicorne).Not only are brevicornes decked out in sparkly Halloween colors year-round, but they are big! Well, big as click beetles go. Most click beetles top out at just over one-quarter of an inch;[Read More…]

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in all their stages: Egg, caterpillar, green chrysallis, clear chrysallis and adult. With May being “first month to spot a monarch” month and Shady Cove becoming a Mayor’s Monarch City, this week we’re going to revisit those iconic orange butterflies.Hopefully you’ve met a monarch in real[Read More…]

Trichopoda pennipes feather-legged fly This week’s crawly will help you squash a pesty problem. Meet the Trichopoda pennipes feather-legged fly.Trichos (as we’ll call them) are parasitoids of several families of true bugs (Hemiptera).Quick refresher: “Parasitoid” means that the young of the tricos eat their “host”; in the case of tricos[Read More…]