I forgot a couple wildlife pictures. There were huge grasshoppers everywhere. There were almost as many tarantula hawks as there were butterflies. All of the wildlife wasn't on land. These are crayfish in the stream. Some crayfish were washed downstream during the rains and are migrating back upstream. Sometimes they have to cross rocks to get where they are going. They are dinner to many birds and raccoons when they are out of the water. dooley
your grasshoppers are BIG. I just bought my daughter a net today. she was trying to catch crayfish in the creek. Darn things got away too fast for her to catch.
We had to take the pictures fast. They just wouldn't stay still for us to get them otherwise. I thought these turned out well. Most were too blurry and were deleted. dooley
I forgot to tell you that it is a Tarantula Hawk. It's not a beetle, it's a huge wasp. They attack the tarantula spiders and lay their eggs in they huge body and when the eggs hatch the babies eat the tarantula. Gross, I know. We always try to kill them but I've never seen so many in one place. They generally do not bother people. I got close to this one and it didn't even fly away. dooley
Isn't biodiversity....well... diverse... It's so fascinating how every conceivable way to reproduce is being done by insects!
