Northerlyy - Terminally Insane About Animals. It's Contagious.

Large Lace-border Moth (Scopula limboundata) (Top) and Dot-lined Wave (Idaea tacturata) (Bottom), taken May 20, 2025, in Georgia, US

At a glance, two quite similar looking moths! When put next to each other or under the experienced eye, though, they can be quite easily differentiated. S. limboundata has a creamy overall coloration, while I. tacturata is more white and brown. I. tacturata is also noticeably smaller when they're not cropped to be the same size lol. They do, however, have the same general pattern, even with the same dark dots on each of their wings! You can see, though, that I. tacturata has dots down its abdomen that S. limboundata lacks. Regardless of their similarities and differences, both are very striking moths!

A reminder: if you were taught that mosquitoes in general are useless to the environment and could be eliminated “without consequence”, then you were taught incorrectly. People still regularly comment this silly notion on my posts with absolute confidence. Our goal is reducing risk to humans, NOT eliminating the dangerous animal altogether.

You don’t have to like irritating, gross, or dangerous animals (most people do not), but if you are ever arguing for the extinction of an entire animal species try to remember the natural world is unfathomably complex in ways none of us can predict.

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata), taken May 27, 2024, in Georgia, US

Nature's police, fittingly blue-colored! Sometimes the jays will sound the alarm to get everyone to leave the feeders so they get VIP access to all the seeds. Sometimes the jay alarm call is actually a starling, and all of the birds get double-tricked!

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), male, taken February 25, 2025, in Georgia, US

Bald!!!!! The spring molt has taken him... Every spring all of the cardinals become bald, and it is both pathetic and wonderful. This guy has started a bit early, so he's the odd man out of the bunch until they all follow!

when u are holding a hammer everything looks like a nail -> when u are holding a point and shoot camera every sight looks incomparably ephemerally beautiful

Still a bit too early in the year for my mothing sheet to be as busy as I'd like, but I've still gotten a handful of interesting visitors

Ichneumonid Wasps(Family Ichneumonidae), Genus Raphia Ornate Tiger Moth(Apantesis ornata), Genus Eteobalea Genus Cameraria, White-lined Sphinx(Hyles lineata) Marbled Oak Dagger(Acronicta marmorata), Leaf Blotch Miner Moths(Family Gracillariidae) Two-spotted Leafhopper(Sophonia orientalis), Zale Moths(Genus Zale)

Nosy Pill Woodlice (Armadillidium nasatum), taken February 26, 2025, in Georgia, US

A nice pill bug family of four, living the life underneath a log I flipped. They didn't do much, but I suppose I too would be stiff with terror if a giant flipped my dark, unmoving house over and exposed me to the elements! I put them back after I was done, and they probably went right back to whatever conversation they were having before I interrupted them, so no harm no foul!

Pale Green Assassin Bug (Zelus luridus), taken April 20, 2025, in Georgia, US

Behold: an adept assassin! This is the earliest I've seen an adult of this species—usually I only find nymphs until around July. Whether that's because there are less adults or because they're too good at camouflage I do not know! Assassin bugs move slowly and strike their prey with their proboscis, injecting paralyzing venom and sucking the juices out of their prey, similarly to spiders. Because they have venom, their "bites" can be quite painful, but are generally harmless and quite rare. I can't imagine they're any more likely to bite than spiders, and I handle spiders safely regularly, so I'd say they're safe to hold as long as you're respectful!

Versute Sharpshooters (Graphocephala versuta), taken October 15, 2023, in Georgia, US

Some beautiful "red morph" versute sharpshooters looking all snug in some leaves! These photos were taken in their favorite little patch of plants—tall with long, tightly packed leaves for good protection and lots of surface area. I always find lots of G. versuta in there, though I often find G. coccinea (Red-banded Leafhopper) and many other assorted species of leafhoppers in the patch as well!

i'm trying to write about The Wonders Of Nature again and it's like...such a Big thing that has a strangle hold on peoples brains its hard to articulate it powerfully enough to break down that barrier.

Essentially trying to say, "There is so much stuff in the natural world that is so beautiful and so cool it puts anything your imagination could come up with to shame. And I don't just mean in a remote jungle reserve somewhere, I mean where YOU live. HOME."

but it's just hard to convey the Intensity of it. cause im not exaggerating when I say that the coolness and fantastic beauty of the world so far exceeds the access most people have to information and experience of it, that starting to learn can provoke this kind of defensive reaction or even like. automatic dismissal or blindness to these experiences when they DO happen.

At least it happened to me. I remember when i was a kid a purple passionflower grew in our yard and i automatically assumed it was someone's weird garden plant that had escaped, rather than a wild plant that was growing naturally in its habitat.

it just kind of breaks the logic of the world I guess? why, in a world where purple passionflower grows by itself, would the landscape be a razed, sterilized wasteland of turfgrass maintained by homeowners that destroy every unfamiliar weed like theyre fighting off a zombie apocalypse