bradleyallf's Favourites

Brampton, Peel Region, ON
Update... Ephestia kuehniella is the best choice.

Original comments...
Update... M. subtetricella may be a better choice...

Can't find a fit for this yet. A reach perhaps but something like 05951 – Laetilia myersella?
Just one pic here... mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=595...

Legs included, it was about 3 cm long. I found it in a large pastry mixing bowl that had been left out overnight. The sides of the bowl were slippery with butter, and the spider appeared unable to climb out on its own. I eventually released it outside.

Tiny red dot observed crawling around my bathroom sink as I went to brush my teeth last night. Looked like a spider mite or something similar to me, and iNat seems to agree. I checked my houseplants and don't see any mites on them so maybe this is a predatory one rather than a plant sucker. Comparing with BugGuide pictures, it seems to be most similar to this: https://bugguide.net/node/view/868276/bgimage

This beastie was tiny and hard to get pictures of with indoor lighting. First picture is a focus stack of several images to improve clarity.

Northern or Southern? Sadly, it got into the house and the cats got it. It's not dead, yet. It doesn't look like it's going to recover, but I put it outside on a catnip plant just in case.

UPDATE: Found a male in the house a week later. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/91920357

Should I look for egg cases?

We found this wasp sitting on the inside of our sliding glass door, near the bottom where all the nose prints decorate the glass. It was about 13 mm long not including the antennae. It was surprisingly patient about having a large camera only a couple of inches away.

Some of the color differences are due to adjusting the white balance on our led lights.

No idea if this is a fungus, a bacteria, a slime mold, or what. All I know is I forgot to put the leftover beet/lentil soup back in the fridge before leaving for a week in France, and I came home to... whatever this is. 🤐

Found in the waterfilter of a indoor pet water fountain, the small LED light provided light on the filter. These are very small unicellular, non-flagellate coccoid algae with 2-4, parietal (along wall) chloroplasts in each cell, with pyrenoid in each chloroplast (I think), and are unicellular but aggregated. There might be mucilage, I think so based on the dark field photos. They are very small, see photo of 4 cells in darkfield from 60x, uncropped (I have yet to figure out the scale for the images). I cannot see any cell wall ornamentation. What might this be? (Not Coccomyxa, since it is more than one chloroplast per cell.)

I found this Springtail in my bathtub. It had been accidentally brought in on a moist bucket that we use to dump shower water on our compost (to reduce waste).

Photo 7 shows a size comparison to my thumb.

4 species were present.

Should I be upset that a spider wasp somehow found its way into my house and found a spider to kill? And that it was found on a bed (not mine, thankfully), presumably looking for a nesting spot to stash its spider and lay its eggs? Mostly I was excited about the photo op, though.