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| Two Playing Hide-n-Seek |
Bugs in the southern half of the country are ginormous; I can bear witness to that. And plentiful. Whether it be giant cockroaches in Florida or one of many large spiders of AZ they are so much bigger than the northern part of the country. I see it as survival of the fittest here in the desert; while not plentiful the ones that survive thrive to giant status. One of the (many) reasons for the low survival, at least in my neighborhood, is maturity of the Praying Mantis. Again they’ve come out in full force around the house. To date I’ve noticed 1/2 a dozen of them over the last couple of weeks. Although some are likely duplicates—though they have been all over from front to side to patio to trees in the back. Either they get around or we’ve got a bunch of them; far more than same time last year. 2011 Mantis
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| Where’s Mantis? (#3) |
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| Watching me Carefully As I Walk Him To A Safe Place (#4) |
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| AZ Stripetail Clinging to My Wall |
Moving up the bug-chain are the Scorpions and Tarantulas. Yup, got both of those hanging around now as well. Just a couple weeks before the end of this year’s Monsoon (September 30) the University held a bug-fest of sorts. Unfortunately I missed it. I’ll have it on my calendar for next year as I’m pretty sure most of them live within a few yards of my front door.
