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FireGryphon
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What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:12 pm

Just caught this tiny guy crawling on the wall, so I caught him in a plastic bag for ID:

Image


You can see about as much detail with this cropped iPhone pic as I can with the naked eye: a round, shiny, red abdomen, dark or black head/thorax, and yellow legs. He's very small, maybe an 1/8", tops. Any ideas?

EDIT: Location is Washington, DC, but I just hiked up by the MD/VA/WV convergence, so he could have hitched a ride home from there.
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JohnC
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:00 pm

Some kind of tick with your blood inside? :wink:
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ronch
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:02 pm

It's the invasion of the Mutant Firebuggers!!!

(Seriously, I find this specie here interesting. Don't know what it is, though, sorry. If only Google accepts pictures in its search box.)
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ronch
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:07 pm

By the way, can you please post a clearer photo?
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kvndoom
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:11 pm

Get a better picture!

And how many legs? 6 or 8? That's always a good start!
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Captain Ned
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:12 pm

Yeah, because with 8 legs it's no longer an insect.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Star Brood
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:32 pm

I can just imagine aliens landing on earth, catching humans at random, wondering what they are, and putting them in airless vacuums to study.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:40 pm

Star Brood wrote:
I can just imagine aliens landing on earth, catching humans at random, wondering what they are, and putting them in airless vacuums to study.

A trope of Golden Age sci-fi (i.e. the 1940s).
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:41 pm

It looks like 6 legs with two leg-like things that it uses as feelers. Not sure if those qualify as legs or antennae. I'd love to get a better picture, but this thing is very small and I lack a macro lens.
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GokuSS2
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 8:02 pm

Can you take a pic with a magnifying glass?

Can Try this site.
http://www.insectidentification.org/
 
Forge
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:27 pm

The picture isn't much, but the only thing that site gives back that could be close is a pretty badass semi-flightless wasp:

http://www.insectidentification.org/ins ... Cow-Killer

Probably should stick a finger in the bag, agitate the hell out of the bug, and see if it stings or bites. That would be a big aid to identification. ;)
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:38 pm

Is it a chigger?
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Captain Ned
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:38 pm

Forge wrote:
Probably should stick a finger in the bag, agitate the hell out of the bug, and see if it stings or bites. That would be a big aid to identification. ;)

You volunteering the finger?
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Forge
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 10:56 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Forge wrote:
Probably should stick a finger in the bag, agitate the hell out of the bug, and see if it stings or bites. That would be a big aid to identification. ;)

You volunteering the finger?


Only if the bug makes a housecall, if that happens, my spirit of scientific inquiry would demand it, sure.
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Captain Ned
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 10:58 pm

Forge wrote:
Only if the bug makes a housecall, if that happens, my spirit of scientific inquiry would demand it, sure.

Ah. This is where the Lysol can and the grill lighter come into my way of thinking.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Forge
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:01 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Forge wrote:
Only if the bug makes a housecall, if that happens, my spirit of scientific inquiry would demand it, sure.

Ah. This is where the Lysol can and the grill lighter come into my way of thinking.


You're going to do a spectrographic analysis? Keep in mind that IDing it was the original intention.
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Captain Ned
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Re: What is this insect?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:12 pm

Forge wrote:
You're going to do a spectrographic analysis? Keep in mind that IDing it was the original intention.

I'm perfectly friendly towards bugs/arachnids that can do me no harm or damage (tent caterpillars excepted). If they can hurt me, I claim a right of preemption through superior fire(heh)power.

Besides, my best source for bug data, a couple I've known for 25 years who are both PhDs in entomology (and of course work in the pesticide business), aren't usually available for the instant cellphone camera consultation.
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vargis14
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Re: What is this insect?

Tue Aug 20, 2013 2:12 am

Some kind of weevil maybe? Try to get a better pic.

yep if it has 8 legs and 2 body parts,head, abdomen it is a arachnid/spider....3 body parts. ,head, thorax and abdomen the its a insect.

Now Arthropod would cover both amd most anything with a exoskeleton ....whoo hoo discovery channel and nat geo rock :wink: cant forget Nova when i was very young.
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Diplomacy42
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Re: What is this insect?

Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:10 am

Based on the size, its most likely a juvenile which makes IDing it nearly impossible.
I personally think that it is a spider (best guess http://www.insectidentification.org/ins ... rab-Spider)

1) spiders have 2 bodyparts a head and an abdomin. I don't see a thorax.

2) a spider's legs will erupt from the smaller bodypart (the head)

3) you found it on a wall, its not an ant and doesn't have wings. thats not a smoking gun, but I definitely smell sulfur.

4) it is brightly colored, which is uncommon among non-predatory insects

5) I don't think my crab-spider is a bad guess really... at least based on the photo. crab spiders don't use webs, they hunt basically like crabs do, which also means walking funny and waving their front feet around like antenne.

6) chigger is also a perfectly acceptable (if a little boring) answer. i feel like its too big for that though.
 
ronch
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Re: What is this insect?

Tue Aug 20, 2013 12:00 pm

I think it's a Techreportus Backporchus Mysterious Insecticus.
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Lucky Jack Aubrey
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Re: What is this insect?

Tue Aug 20, 2013 2:16 pm

Too big for a chigger, methinks. Chiggers are almost microscopic.
 
paulWTAMU
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Re: What is this insect?

Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:37 pm

I can't make out enough detail with the photo to even start, sorry :( I oculdn't get very far--if lucky down to a general class (i.e. spider, tick, whatever) but with this photo I'm not even really able to do that
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uni-mitation
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Re: What is this insect?

Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:57 pm

Bunch of amateurs!

That is why we have the NSA!

Hey look, it is Ayman Al-Zawahiri!

This photo confirms it that he is at a very posh suburbia place within our midst!

(NSA analyst, please, take custody of specimen, no warrant required)
 
gigafinger
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 7:35 am

I found a pseudoscorpion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscorpion) one time. I was freaked out because I never seen anything like it before. Actually, I've never seen one since.
 
ronch
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:43 am

A bit off topic.. I myself am quite fascinated with insects these days. Most of them are quite unsightly. Here's a Wikipedia image showing different kinds of arachnids. Gives me the heebie jeebies..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Arachnida.jpg

And here's a weird arachnid class called Amblypygi. Weird. Just weird. And creepy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblypygi

So many aliens living on earth.
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 9:05 am

A few years ago I found one of these in my house. We'd never seen one before then, and were all going "WTF...?"
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 9:13 am

ronch wrote:
If only Google accepts pictures in its search box.

Actually, it does: http://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AM ... 7&biw=1147

Unfortunately, I think the original is blurry enough that the results aren't terribly useful. Unless that bug is actually a seagull in disguise. :lol:
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Forge
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 11:11 am

ronch wrote:
A bit off topic.. I myself am quite fascinated with insects these days. Most of them are quite unsightly. Here's a Wikipedia image showing different kinds of arachnids. Gives me the heebie jeebies..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Arachnida.jpg

And here's a weird arachnid class called Amblypygi. Weird. Just weird. And creepy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblypygi

So many aliens living on earth.


I am quite sure that arachnids consider you equally repulsive, with your squishy exterior and hidden skeleton, and only two eyes, both in the front, constantly shifting and slopping around in wet holes in your face. Between that and the noises, it's not hard to see why arachnids are clearly naturally superior, both physically and culturally.
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paulWTAMU
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 7:14 pm

You want creepy? Look up solfugids. Damn things give me the weelies.
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anotherengineer
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Re: What is this insect?

Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:28 pm

No idea,

and that's why I like the winter, no bugs period.
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