A sign of spring

Northern Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/264752274

Sometimes I stray away from my nature art to create comics (like this) more about current events. Read more on my latest blog post https://paulaborchardt.substack.com/p/its-time-for-another-comic

Yellow-legged Pachyiulus (Pachyiulus flavipes)

Muscleman tree ant (Podomyrma gratiosa), so called because the large femur makes her looks like she lifts!

today's confusing taxonomic terms:

Saturnaliidae , a clade of early branching saurpodomorph dinosaurs
Saturnalidae , a clade of radiolarians
Saturniidae , a clade of moths

#dinosaurs
#radiolarians
#moths
#insects
#arthropod
#protists
#reptile

come on, 4 inches is quite large for a scorpion. You didn't expect something the size of Xingjangtitan, did you?

https://www.livescience.com/animals/extinct-species/125-million-year-old-fossil-of-giant-venomous-scorpion-that-lived-alongside-dinosaurs-discovered-in-china

#fossils
#scorpions
#arthropod
#mesozoic

2025 in arthropod paleontology - aéPiot

#2025 #arthropod #paleontology #aéPiot

https://aepiot.com/?limit=1&language=en&query=2025+in+arthropod+paleontology

Now Bug of the Year is over, normal service can resume!

Here's an incredibly feathery velvet mite (Chyzeriidae) from New Zealand. These active predators wander the forest floor, looking for springtails to ambush and drink dry using their piercing mouthparts! Beautiful but deadly.

Yellow Garden Spider and guest.
(Argiope aurantia)

Chelifer sp.

I have a special love for Rhiscosomides meineri, this little millipede. I've been finding them a lot in my local area, and I was the first person to have a confirmed record of it on iNaturalist - I even got to submit the request to add the species to the database!

A little silver springtail, probably Lepidocyrtus.