Things I most commonly have to explain on insect identification groups:
It’s not a “baby fly,” it’s just a small fly. Insects don’t get wings until they’re done growing, so all winged insects are adults of their species.
Wasps ARE pollinators as important as bees, which are just a kind of wasp anyway.
All wasps that can sting you keep their stinger retracted inside and the stinger is never longer than maybe an eyelash. If something appears to have a HUGE STINGER sticking out, that’s a harmless egg-laying tube.
Ticks are eight-legged arachnids and a type of mite
Ticks can’t jump
Fleas can’t fly
There are no flying arachnids
There are many more types of arachnid than spiders, mites and scorpions
All spiders are venomous with few exceptions but almost no spider venom is dangerous to humans, “is this venomous?” isn’t a question with real significance
In North America the only spiders with dangerous venom are the widow and recluse and both are exaggerated. Nobody in America has ever died of a widow bite to our knowledge and recluse bites are not normally serious with only a couple suspected deaths.
That’s a wolf spider, not a recluse
Only female ants, bees and wasps can sting
If an ant is male it has wings, with very few exceptions.
Most cockroaches are non-pests, that is a wood roach that accidentally wandered inside and not the end of the world
The pest roaches aren’t the end of the world either. Only the german roach causes major infestations and none are really a health hazard.
Silverfish and house centipedes are completely different things.
House centipedes are your friends
Biting and stinging are completely different things.
“kissing bugs” are an unusual freak variety of assassin bug that feeds on our blood and can spread disease. No other assassin bug can do this.
Pretty much only ants, some bees, some wasps, and termites have “queens”
Mantises don’t actually normally eat each other after mating and neither do widow spiders
“Camel spiders” have no interest in attacking people at all
Most scorpions aren’t really dangerous either
Australian insects and spiders are also no big deal, with their absolute deadliest still having only a dozen known kills in a century.
Those “ugly black things all over your plants” are young ladybugs eating the aphids that were actually harming your plants.
Most plants are actually fine being eaten by insects anyway, it’s nature and you don’t have to intervene until the plant is obviously suffering. A few holes in your petals are not worth spending money to poison the environment, come on.
That’s a tick, not a bed bug
That’s a flea, not a bed bug
That’s a carpet beetle, not a bed bug
That’s a pantry beetle, not a bed bug
That’s a spider beetle, not a bed bug
That’s a moth, not a bed bug
That’s a cockroach, not a bed bug
That’s a weevil, not a bed bug
That’s a stink bug, not a bed bug
That’s a roly poly not a bed bug you’ve got to just be doing this on purpose at this point
Bed bugs don’t actually nest in your bed but inside of the walls, floors and furniture in hard, narrow spaces, even power outlets
Nothing store-bought or “DIY” will exterminate bed bugs, sorry
Absolutely nothing, I mean it, don’t push this
“Ultrasonic” sound devices don’t really repel ANY insect.
Neither do those plastic bands or tags
Neither do essential oils
I thought this was going to be like a top 5
It’s not that these are “stupid” questions but that it’s really frustrating how low all scientific literacy is in basically every predominantly English-speaking country
Hey, if you still miss your pet that is okay. I don’t care if it is years later and you still cry because they were not there this morning to greet you in that one of a kind way they did. It isn’t trivial, it isn’t stupid, and you are not weak.
•buy toys/dolls/crayons
•play with Legos
•play old videogames/dress up games
•weave friendship bracelets
•watch cartoons
•use stickers
•draw pics of your favorite characters
If it makes you feel nice, do it.
Don’t even worry about what other people think, because it doesn’t matter–if it brings you happiness, it’s not “ridiculous”, or “immature”.
You deserve to enjoy yourself.
Let me share with you what I consider to be the most important less I’ve learned in my adult life:
“Growing up doesn’t mean you can’t have Zebra Cakes. Growing up simply means that, if you want to have Zebra Cakes, you buy them for yourself.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Bear?” Well, let me explain. For those of you who live outside of the US, this is a Zebra Cake:
It’s a little pre-packaged snack cake that is horribly cheap and junky and really not that great, but it is like manna from heaven to me. I fucking love these things. When I was a little kid growing up, my mom bought Zebra Cakes but once in a blue moon. They were intended to be put in mine and my siblings’ school lunches, but my brother and I would eat them whenever we wanted, so Mom just didn’t see the point. (They also used to be kind of expensive, at least for our family’s budget.) Needless to say, the coveted Zebra Cakes were a luxury for me, and were one of the tastes of my childhood.
Fast forward to my college years. I was living in an apartment with three other people, doing my own shopping and cooking. I was in the grocery store, picking up some stuff, and I happened to walk past a display of snack cakes. Among them were several boxes of Zebra Cakes.
I paused at this, chuckling to myself. Oh man. Zebra Cakes. I haven’t had those in years. I loved those when I was a kid. I reminisced happily and thought about how much I missed the taste of Zebra Cakes, then started to walk away.
And then I stopped dead.
Because I had realized that there was literally nothing stopping me from buying a box of Zebra Cakes. There was nothing stopping me from buying ten boxes of Zebra Cakes. If I wanted Zebra Cakes, I could have goddamn Zebra Cakes, because it was my money and my decision to make.
I put two boxes in my cart (they were 2 for $5) and never looked back.
Here’s the secret I learned that day: The idea of something being “just for kids” is, by and large, bullshit. What you do on your own adult free time with your own adult money is, by its very nature, adult stuff. It’s like comedian Eddie Izzard (who frequently performed his routines in drag) once said when someone asked about him wearing ‘women’s clothes’: “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.”
I am 25 years old, and yesterday I bought myself a shark lunchbox. Look at it. Look at how awesome my lunchbox is.
Was this lunchbox intended to by bought for and used by a child? Yes. The tag said it was for ages 3 and up. But it was bought by and will be used by an adult, and anyone who thinks that’s wrong is probably just jealous that they don’t have the self-confidence to rock a shark lunchbox at 25.
So like. Being “mature” and “an adult” doesn’t mean you have to completely abandon the things that made you happy when you were younger. It just means that you may have to approach them in a different way.
“you can criticize the flaws in a series and discuss where it went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. it’s fine to express how disappointed or angry you are at how something turned out”
and
“nobody is obligated to redo their material just because it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. starting petitions over redoing it is a waste of time and impossible to expect from big name productions. go write some fanfic like a normal person, or just disengage from the series entirely if it’s making you that unhappy”
A rare giant hellbender salamander found dead because some hiker’s rock-stacking collapsed on her.
I didn’t even know rock stacking was a thing until this year but there are many ways it disrupts the environment.
*Ever since it caught on as a form of white hipster “meditation” there are actually so many hikers who stack rocks now as a hobby that it collectively pollutes streams with sediment that the rocks would otherwise be filtering and reduces the populations of countless organisms that grow and nest among said rocks.
ifesbob 