Fun-a-day Bugs

 This past January,  I made a wire and bead insect every day (approximately) for the whole month. Some days I forgot or didn't have time, and others days I made a few all at once, but the final product was 30 funny little buggies. It was for Boston fun-a-day, and the insects were displayed together at the end of April in the fun-a-day yearly art show, at the Aviary Gallery.

Photos of each are shown below, along with them all in the display case (an actual entomology drawer).

Wildlife of the Florida panhandle

The pitcher plants in Florida are found in longleaf pine savannas in the Apalachicola National Forest. In the photo above you can see the tall Sarracenia flava pitchers, surrounded by sticky carnivorous sundews, catching the late morning light.

 Sarracenia minor is beautiful, with colorful stained-glass-window translucent sections of the leaf. Insects fly inside and are tricked by the light coming through the back of the pitcher, which makes it more difficult to find a way out.

 Sarracenia leucophylla is more rare in this region, and has striking red and white coloration.

 While excitedly approaching a rare species, I almost stepped on this giant cottonmouth (water moccasin), who reared up and hissed at me. The fattest part of its body was about as big as my thigh, and I was all alone, on deserted dirt roads, with no cell phone service or snake bite kit. Luckily it left me alone.

Creatures seem to love perching on the tall Sarracenia flava pitchers. The most adorable tiny frog basked in the sun atop one, and many large green spiders used the outlooks as a place to catch unsuspecting butterflies, right out of the air.