Found any neat bugs recently? We have 5 acres where I've lived since 1977 but still find at least a few new species every year I've never noticed before! Some neat mud daubers (spelling?) were on the house doing no harm. He let them alone for months but then my killer father murdered them this weekend.

I found some wood cockroaches, and small millipedes. And a katydid that makes you deaf when it sings!

My favorite backyard bug here in Mountain View, CA is the green fig beetle. They're about an inch wide, an inch and a half long, and bright metalic green. Hilariously clumsy fliers, they bump into all sorts of things.

The grubs are quite large -- a couple of inches long, normally curved into a C shape. When placed on the surface, they uncurl and crawl away on their backs, with their legs pointing skyward. A bunch of the grubs live in our compost pit, though I seldom see the adult beetle. None so far this summer.

Update on 3-Sep-2005: Here's the URL for a short silent movie I made of
the grubs, if anybody is curious what they are like:
The Grub of the Green Fig Beetle

I saw some bug on my porch tonight that I've never seen before. It kind of looked like an aquatic larval beetle but it was on land. It curled its butt over its head when I came near. Its head had larval beetle pincers but this was an adult something. The cat started playing with it, and it flew off. I have no idea what it is. I'm surprised to still find new animals all the time!

Could have been a rove beetle they look really hairy and brown.

It may have been a diving beetle.

It's been almost a year since I saw that strange bug. I just looked at photos of rove beetles. I can't remember the bug clearly enough to say if it was that or not but can't rule it out. It was not a diving beetle larvae or adult (which look like regular beetles). It did look like the larvae but they cannot fly.

Strangely, today I looked in the pool cover which is full of water because one of my green frogs went up there (couldn't get him out). It's full of beetle larvae! Not only that, but some were walking out of the water! I didn't know they could do that! Some of course had dried up in the process though. Most of the larvae were driving around under the yucky water, hopefully keeping the mosquito larvae levels down until the cover comes off! What I saw last year wasn't one of them because it flew and was big.