This is our neighbor’s cat Chewy. He was a beautiful grey and white cat and used to hang out in our backyard every day, beg for treats, always be super social and taking naps outside our window. When I left the door open he’d feel comfortable enough to walk right in and make himself comfortable on our bed!
Saw these mating firebugs on concrete stairs in a public park in Southern Germany. They were pulling left-right-left and eventually moved from their spot to underneath the stairs.
Gotcha! This beautiful praying mantis drove me crazy. She was sitting on a fence as I was trying to take a picture but then she climbed onto my camera. I tried to have her sit on my hand but she kept going back to the camera. So I called to my daughter to bring another camera and as she’s climbing from camera to camera I finally got her! She does have a surprised look on her face! More praying mantis here.
This rock pigeon kept us company at the train station waiting for us to share our food with him. So we did him the favor and I got a picture for myself. The angle makes him look like he’s gigantic, but he was just your average pigeon size.
I have no idea what kind of spider this is. All I know about it is that it can jump! So this picture was taken with the one-arm-extended-please-don’t-jump-now-praying-technique 🙂
Well hello there! Almost walked into the web which was about 7 by 5 feet! It reached from the patio floor to the patio cover. According to a friend of mine this is one of about 1500 species of orb-weavers. They’re beneficial to us two-leggers.
Saw this beautiful brown pelican at the lagoon at UCSB, University of California Santa Barbara. The lagoon is partially fed by run through water from the marine biology department‘s tanks which use water from the ocean. There is probably quite some biodiversity going on in that water 😉
Unbeknownst to me I was getting very close to this grasshopper when I was checking for new growth on that potato bush branch – until I realized I was face-to-face with this guy! I’m glad I didn’t spook him off! It was a challenge getting good contrast and detail on this picture because of the lighting at dusk and the fact that he looked like a branch and was hard to see. And because after a few seconds he flew over me… Can you tell he only has one jumper leg?
Found this guy hanging out between the cacti. When I searched the web it came up as a Green Lynx Spider. Its body was translucent and the legs had spikes on them. There was no spiderweb. Normally I’m a bit scared of spiders, but this guy didn’t look like it was gonna jump (like the little hairy ones) so I got brave and took this picture 🙂
Another moth picture. What a delicate creature! If you know what kind this might be, please let me know in the comments.