Insect Identification Fun

This morning Ethan was screaming at Kaedra's window. Despite what you may think, this is a pretty rare occurrence, so I went to see what was wrong. There was a large bug on the inside of the screen. Apparently it was really bothering Ethan. Emily said he yelled at it a lot yesterday, too.



So, being the good homeschool mommy that I am, we got a jar and collected it and tried to find it on the internet. My friend was supposed to send me an identification page about a week ago, but, being the busy homeschool mommy she is, she had forgotten. I quickly emailed her and my homeschool group to see if anyone had any good sites.

She started sending me sites right away (because she sits at her computer just waiting for my emails, y'know) About the third of fourth email she sent, my bug was on the FRONT PAGE!! Hallelujah!!! Not only that, but my bug was THE BUG OF THE MONTH!!!! What a treat! I mean, how much better could we get than that?

Now, it gets even better!! My friend, the same above mentioned friend, found the same bug (well probably a different individual bug, but the same kind), across town in her yard about a week ago! How cool is that! We both found this same, extremely weird bug!

So, here is a good pic of the bug. The scientific name is Arilus cristatus. And the common name is "Wheel Bug" a type of assassin bug. We will be adding this guy to our nature notebooks!

And, for your identification pleasure (and so I can find them all later) here are a list of identification sites that I found and my friend sent me:

Bug Guide
What's that Bug
Insect Identification
Insect Identifier