Insect hunting in rather chilly weather
Been staying up late trying to get some more observations and I have to say the last two nights have been rather interesting indeed. I have been keeping my kitchen light on at my house and have been able to get quite a few different kinds of insects and also quite a few spiders. Mostly everything I have found is quite small compared to the stuff I see in the summertime. Last night it was 58 degrees Fahrenheit and tonight it is a chilly 55. Still the number of insects and things I have been able to get is quite good. I have gotten a few flies, three species of Lacewing from what the reports tell me. I have also got a few spiders in the mix mostly crab spiders maybe a Garden Ghost Spider, and a few of the small house spiders and such. Tonight I found a few midges and also I have found some other things I am not sure what are. This will be quite interesting to see how many insects I will be able to find the remainder of the year. I am going to keep tabs and maybe even make a few charts of the best days I have had throughout and see if there is any particular time of winter when insects are the next to most comfortable. I know being ectothermic you need to be warm and what not. Right now it seems that I have been able to scope out a few good species. It is quite interesting. Normally it is pretty hard to get insects of many varieties up here. That is another thing I am going to look into and see what the most arthropod observations I get this year. I am quite curious to see what will be in store for me the rest of the year. Keep a chart on temp and insect count will be rather interesting. Just thought I would throw this out there. For all of you insect people keep an eye out. May not be too much but there are quite a few arthropods still out and about.
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I've been seeing more and more under logs too -- I think I may be focused on some snails this winter. :)
That would be a great idea. That would pretty interesting to look for. Might try that myself.
Here's your go-to list of snails found in DFW, Zach! :)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=57484&quality_grade=research&subview=grid&taxon_id=47114&view=species
Thanks Sam, I took a gander at it That Black Leatherleaf looks crazy. It almost looks like a very bland sea slug. That is wild. This is a lot more snails and slugs than I thought we had. I will keep an eye out of these. This will be most interesting. Going to need my trowel and a bucket I am going to sort through some leaf litter this season.
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