FlowrBx
A Flickr Coincidence
Yesterday morning I viewed an excellent photo of a pair of strange looking insects by one of my contact's, Thomas23. My comment was that I had never seen anything like it before. Just a few minutes later, I was taking a photo of the same bug - but I did not realize it until I saw the shot on my PC monitor late last night. All I knew at the time that I shot it was that it was huge and unlike anything I had seen around here before.
Seems this is a "wheel bug", sometimes called an "assassin bug" because it is a monster in the insect world: "It has one of the most developed mouth parts among true bugs. Its beak arises from the anterior end of its long, tubular head and unfolds forward. The bug plunges its beak into its victim, holding them with its front legs. It then injects enzymes into the victim, paralyzing them and dissolving their insides, and proceeds to drain all of the victim's bodily fluids. The bite of a wheel bug is painful and may take months to heal (sometimes leaving a small scar), so caution is advised when handling them." - Wikipedia.
A Flickr Coincidence
Yesterday morning I viewed an excellent photo of a pair of strange looking insects by one of my contact's, Thomas23. My comment was that I had never seen anything like it before. Just a few minutes later, I was taking a photo of the same bug - but I did not realize it until I saw the shot on my PC monitor late last night. All I knew at the time that I shot it was that it was huge and unlike anything I had seen around here before.
Seems this is a "wheel bug", sometimes called an "assassin bug" because it is a monster in the insect world: "It has one of the most developed mouth parts among true bugs. Its beak arises from the anterior end of its long, tubular head and unfolds forward. The bug plunges its beak into its victim, holding them with its front legs. It then injects enzymes into the victim, paralyzing them and dissolving their insides, and proceeds to drain all of the victim's bodily fluids. The bite of a wheel bug is painful and may take months to heal (sometimes leaving a small scar), so caution is advised when handling them." - Wikipedia.