on Friday, i roamed around the church parking lot with my camera, hoping to get a few shots of anything interesting. the wind was rather gusty that day and it apparently picked up a bug and flung it at me. the bug struck my shirt around the abdomen and clung on for dear life. naturally i brought my camera to bear, toggled the focus to macro and tried to get a good shot of it.
normally i'm pretty good with identifying animals, but this one completely eludes me. it defies any categorization of insect that i am familiar with. it is not a butterfly/moth, not a beetle, not a social insect, not a flier... i can only describe it as... a kiwi bug, on account of its resemblance to a kiwi bird.
it is about the size of a large housefly, but denser. its 6 legs (making it an insect) are rather muscular, like grasshopper legs, indicating some jumping ability. this might explain why it was on the wind in the first place. its carapace looks fairly sturdy with all its parts arranged very compactly. the eyes are relatively large in comparison to its head, suggesting that it relies mostly on sight to do its business. its business seems to have much to do with its huge red proboscis, from which some antennae seem to be attached. i initially believed it to be some sort of bloodsucker, but it doesn't appear to have the penetration power, nor the storage capacity. the drab colouring suggests that it is a tree dweller, so the proboscis could be for more benign use, such as sap sucking or nectar drinking.
through the course of writing this post, i did some digging around online based on the above information. there is no dedicated search engine to finding insects based on physical characteristics, so i had to search the hard way. i looked up "tree insects" can came upon a list of the most common types. a quick image search of the closest type yielded the answer i was looking for. the mystery kiwi bug pictured above is the pecan weevil. i knew all those hours spent reading The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew in grade 3 would pay off.
1 comment:
i was there when you took the picture :D nice camera, btw.
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