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By Amber, on December 4, 2011, at 8:07 pm This year for my birthday, my parents selected a few scarabs from my very long insect wishlist and had them professionally mounted! I have long dreamed of having an extensive collection of mounted insects, but for some reason I buy shoes instead. I’ve got a very long way to go on my collection, so for now these have been given a place of honor on the living room bookshelves.
The names are helpfully printed on a sticker on the back of the frame. Say hello to my little friends:
 Chrysina woodi, USA  Chalcosoma caucasus, Malaysia  Chrysophora chrysochlora female, Peru I could look at these all day! Thanks Mom & Dad!
By Amber, on June 23, 2011, at 11:00 pm Just a few snaps from macro-stalking in my parents’ yard last weekend!
By the way, if you read me at my actual site instead of a reader, you may have noticed that I am a little behind on 365 uploads. It seems that flickr’s psychic upload service is on the fritz, but I hear it’ll be fixed in a jiffy!
Oh, also? I am definitely my Toastmasters club’s new VPPR. Hooray! Looking at the list of the other new officers, I am confident that it is going to be a very good year.
By Amber, on June 2, 2011, at 10:08 pm An assortment of critters spotted around my parents’ house, starting with a curious squirrel:
A painted bunting:
A lizard hiding in a rockpile:
Those were cute and all, but things are about to get a lot less cuddly. Follow the jump if you dare. Continue reading Hill Country critters
By Amber, on March 29, 2011, at 10:00 pm This is the speech I gave tonight at Toastmasters, and the pictures I used. Links are (obviously) not my material; photos posted here are.
My grandfather always used to tell me I was a weird kid, because I had Barbies and Care Bears and My Little Pony, but I preferred to be outdoors, catching frogs and insects. In my bedroom I would pour over my field guides, identifying the species I’d seen and the ones I hoped to see. My parents thought I would go on to study entomology, and some days I wish I had. For now, my guest bedroom is a shrine to my fantasy life as a naturalist, with mounted insects and nature prints adorning the walls. Tonight I’ll be bringing a little of that fantasy to life, and telling you about three of my favorite insects.
To understand my favorite insect, we have to go back to the summer of 1987 in Northern Virginia. I was seven years old, and suddenly the summer air was abuzz with this sound. That’s the periodical cicada, sometimes called the 17-yr locust, though they belong to a different order than locusts. They have the longest lifecycle of any insect, spending most of it underground feeding on the roots of the tree where they were born, and because the many broods across the US emerge in different years, the six species making up the 13- and 17-year broods don’t get a chance to crossbreed. In 1987 the emergence of Brood X, the Great Eastern Brood, formed a carpet across my world, leaving little brown nymph molts clinging to every surface:
 Alien in appearance, smooth to the touch, and completely harmless, the adults fascinated and delighted me. When Brood X was due again in 2004 I was living in New Jersey, and I closely followed the Washington Post’s frenetic coverage of the anticipated emergence. It’s fair to say I was just as frenetic, but unfortunately they mostly gave my area a miss. However, a couple summers ago in Hill Country, I happened upon a late-night molt: 
The next insect I want to share with you is the firefly, also known as the lightning bug or glow worm, depending on where you grew up. Did you catch fireflies in a jar as a kid? I did, and I can’t think of summer without remembering chasing them all over the yard, catching them in a jar, then taking the into a dark bathroom to watch them flash. Unfortunately for kids growing up in the western half of the US, they are mostly stuck with non-luminous fireflies. There are over 2000 species of firefly, and while all of the nymphs are luminous, not all of the adults are. The ones that are flash in yellow, green, or red. To me, fireflies are definitely one of those feel-good insects that everyone kind of likes, like butterflies, but you might be surprised to know that they are vicious as larvae — they will hunt down slugs and eat them, and they’ve been seen ganging up on earthworms! One thing I never knew about fireflies until a couple years ago is that sometimes, huge groups of them flash synchronously. There are reports that they actually do this in a lot of places, but one of the largest, most stunning displays in the US can be seen every June in Elkmont, TN, in the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s become such a popular attraction that you have to arrive hours before dusk just to get through the line for the trolley that takes you to the viewing area. I haven’t had a chance to see if, but hopefully someday I will.
Finally, we come to the bee. To say bees are one of my favorite insects is oversimplification, since there are 20,000 species divided amongst nine families, but I suppose for me it would be a tie between the industrious honey bee, whose work I’m a big fan of, and the adorably rotund bumblebee. The department of agriculture estimates that bee pollination adds $15 billion annually in crop value, meaning that you can thank a bee for one in every three bites of food.
  Bumble bees are used commercially as specialty pollinators; the vibrational frequency of their buzzing releases pollen from certain plants like tomatoes. And did you know that half of the honey bees in the US are responsible for pollinating California’s almond crop? Honey bees aren’t even native to the US; they were brought here from Europe (I think I forgot to say that sentence!).
 As you may have heard, honey bees are facing a serious population decline known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Theories about the cause include parasites and pesticides. You can help protect the bee population, and ergo our food supply, but doing a few things: you can be judicious with your pesticide use and avoid spraying during mid-day when they are out and about, and you can encourage bee-friendly plants in your garden. As an aside, I was terrified of bees as a preschooler and identified ALL flying insects, including butterflies, as ‘stinging bees.’ Ironically, I was never stung by a bee until this past fall.
Having said all that, there are some insects with no redeeming value — bedbugs and fleas come to mind — but I hope I’ve given you a little appreciation for some pretty amazing insects. I wish you all a summer full of singing cicadas, flashing fireflies, and buzzing bees.
By Amber, on November 18, 2010, at 10:00 pm …and something in my favorite blue:
Now that we have been in this house for over two years, we are finally getting our bedroom set up as something other than box storage. I want to share the finished room here, but it’s not finished. It’s starting to come together nicely, however, so I thought I’d share a few of the elements that make it home.
We decided on dark furniture, and I wanted white lamps on the bedside tables. I wanted a single white decorative object next to my lamp, and I spent an afternoon scouring antique shops for the right one. I found tons of treasures, but not the right white object. Then I saw something in a display case that made me realize I’d had my object at home all along.
On my bedside table (OMG I have a bedside table! We had overturned moving boxes for two years):
The lamp is new, but the pelican is over 50 years old. My mom got it as a birthday present from a friend when she was five or six and it’s part of a set — pelican, donkey, and polar bear. I have no idea why those things should go together, but I have them all. The pelican and the donkey have a little strip of fur glued to them, but the pelican’s has seen better days. I say it adds to his charm. Regardless, I’m thrilled to have ended up using an antique from my family rather than from some stranger’s.
His tag reads: PETE, FLUFFY PELICAN — TAKE FROM ME, I’VE A MOUTHFULL OF ADVICE
Being who I am, you know there have to be some creepy crawlies someplace in the room:
The spider was invited for Halloween, but I believe he’s won year-round status on Mark’s bedside table. I wonder if I could find a tiny Santa hat.
Oh, and the object in the blue box? Something I have wanted for years and finally have a place for:
By Amber, on September 16, 2010, at 10:00 pm The Irish diplomats of the US, Southerners often have a nice way of saying things — like ‘bless your heart’ when they’d rather give you the finger. Or ‘palmetto bug‘ when they mean ‘the most enormous cockroach you’ll see outside of a zoo.’
Giant roaches are a fact of life down here in the subtropics. Mark keeps our house extremely clean (no small feat with me as his roommate), but we still see them once or twice a year. A couple nights ago Sweet Pea found one, and it was clearly the highlight of her life so far. It was either too dumb or too young to fly, so I let her chase it around until it became obvious that she had no idea what to do with the thing as it flailed on its back. I caught it under a glass where she eagerly inspected it until I decided it had been tortured enough, at which point I carried it downstairs and flung it over the fence into the vacant lot.
Yes, I know, it’s really not that large, but trust me — when they surprise you, they appear about five times their actual size! Click below for a video of Sweet Pea vs. the roach:
By Amber, on August 10, 2010, at 10:20 pm I got a package! Miss Jes sent me a few things, some or all of which she picked up when she went to St. Croix:
 I noticed that they misspelled ‘wonderful.’
 These earrings are made from butterfly wings! Don’t worry, the butterflies died peacefully in their sleep at the age of 92.
 Isn’t that pretty? It has a magnet on the back. It’s not going anywhere near the fridge — some people get a little too excited over there!*
Thanks, woman!
*I may or may not be talking about myself.
By Amber, on June 15, 2010, at 10:00 pm The obsession continues:
Diamonds and emeralds in a platinum and gold setting. Looks like maybe ruby eyes, but the listing doesn’t mention them. And it’s nearly my ring size — must be fate!
I’ll admit, it’s all a bit much. But I think I could make it work.
By Amber, on June 3, 2010, at 10:00 pm Here is the last batch of creepy crawlies from our Hill Country trip:
This little spider may be my favorite picture from the whole trip. He was hiding behind our porch lamp.
 Wait, nobody told me there are tarantulas in Hill Country!
 Oh. Nevermind.
By Amber, on May 27, 2010, at 10:00 pm You didn’t really think I was done posting insect pictures from the farm, did you?
Just one more set to come…
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