About

All photo cred here goes to my awesome wife.
Welcome to Freaky Friends Bugs! My name is Mike and I'm a biochemist and unofficial entomologist. I've been collecting and working with insects my whole life and want to share my love for these fascinating critters with everyone. You can often find me swinging a net around, turning over rocks and logs, and/or behind the lens of a camera.

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The Green Lynx Spider

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My first encounter with a green lynx spider was last November while visiting my in-laws in the DFW area in Texas. I spent a couple hours walking around Bob Jones Nature Center (which by the way, I definitely recommend visiting if you are ever in the area) looking for bugs to photograph, but I hadn't had much luck. On my way out, I stopped at a bush by the visitor center in a last attempt to find something interesting. I caught a flash of movement which turned out to be a beautiful katydid. After capturing a few shots of the katydid, I realized that my hand was mere inches from a rather large momma spider guarding her egg sac. I personally find spiders much more interesting than katydids so I left the katydid to photograph the spider. Momma spider didn't seem to mind me taking some pictures, but I couldn't resist using a piece of grass to disturb her to get her in a defensive posture. I later learned that green lynx spiders can squirt venom from their fangs towards any wou...
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Ladybugs and metamorphosis

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Many insects undergo what is known as complete metamorphosis, the technical term being  holometabolism . The larvae, or young, of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis are quite different than the adults. A familiar example are caterpillars and butterflies. A butterfly egg hatches into a caterpillar (the larval stage) which spends some time eating and growing. The caterpillar then creates a cocoon and becomes a pupae. It is during this pupal stage that the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly (the adult stage). Ants, bees, wasps, dragonflies, butterflies, flies, and beetles are some examples of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis.  Why complete metamorphosis arose is still a mystery, but entomologists have been able to identify a few of the advantages to undergoing complete metamorphosis. A decrease in competition . In biology, competition refers to an interaction between organisms that results in harm to each organism. For example, lets say the...
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Trashline Orb Weavers

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A trashline orb weaver found near Dallas, TX. Trashline orb weavers (genus Cyclosa) are quite fascinating little spiders. For starters, their abdomens are somewhat conical rather than rounded like most spiders. Secondly, and this is where they get their name, they line up debris in their webs in a vertical line and then sit somewhere in that line. This behavior is believed to make it harder for birds or other predators to find the spider in the web. A great view of the "trashline" in the web. I found this one up Hobble Creek Canyon in Utah. In the years I've been collecting bugs, I'd collected trashline orb weavers on several occasions. I found them interesting due to the shape of their abdomens, but I'd never bothered to figure out what kind of spider they were. Once I learned what these funny shaped spiders were, I all of a sudden started seeing them everywhere! Awareness of what these spiders were definitely led to an increased ability to find them...
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