Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Ambush Assassins

Out for a walk around Innovation Place at lunch time, I noticed a big bumblebee visiting a thistle flower. It didn't seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere so I pulled out my camera.

Bumblebee on thistle

Bumblebee on thistle

Looking closer, I saw there were several other bugs on the same flower. I took some photos and Seek later identified it as a Jagged Ambush Bug which is a kind of Assassin bug.

Jagged Ambush Bug ?

Jagged Ambush Bug ?

They are ambush predators like crab spiders, waiting on a flower and pouncing on visiting insects. If you look closely in the photo above you can see it has big front "claws" almost like a praying mantis.

Also like crab spiders, ambush bugs will take on prey bigger than themselves. But I think the bumblebee was a little too big. (The ambush bug is to the left of the bumblebee's head.)

jagged ambush bug and bumblebee on thistle

Although the little ZS100 does pretty well at closeups, it would have been nice to have the big camera and macro lens. Although even a phone does pretty well these days, like with these Woodland Skippers.

Woodland Skipper ?

No comments:

Post a Comment