Showing posts with label insect eggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insect eggs. Show all posts

Monday, November 03, 2014

Another puzzler

I discovered these little white capsules on the outside of my bedroom window. I don't know what they are.

About half the size of a grain of rice.

These were taken from the inside, through double panes, while it poured rain outside. The window is relatively sheltered, so the white capsules were just damp.

I went outside to check, and they looked the same from that side. But I was getting wet, so I took no photos.

There were several clumps, all with those little cyan spots in them. They have the texture, to look at, of bird poop. Formed pellets of bird poop.

What do you think? Insect eggs? Bleached snail poop? The beginnings of a stealthy invasion of interstellar pod creatures?

#UPDATE: I went out and brought a clump in. It detached itself from the glass with only a touch. (That goes against insect eggs, which would be glued down.)

In spite of the heavy rain, they felt barely damp. They crumbled easily.

I looked at them under the microscope. The little cyan specks are still there, and the white mass has a bit of sparkle, like sugar crystals.

Crumbled, they are the same all the way through. The crumbs look fluffy, sort of like my sugar substitute, the kind you spoon into your coffee, not the packet stuff.

There is no odour that I could detect.

I vote for snail poop, bleached. I've never seen white snail poop before. I wonder what they've been eating.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Eggs in barrels

This pretty stink bug was busy laying her eggs on a wall by the beach.

She's probably a Banasa dimidiata, also called the Banasa stink bug.

The name, "dimidiata" means "divided in half", referring, so some say, to the pattern on the pronotum (the front part of the thorax). And they're called stink bugs because of the offensive odour they emit when they're disturbed. A repugnatorial odour, it's called, produced by the repugnatorial glands.

They are found across Canada and the US, and are common in the Pacific Northwest. They feed on a variety of plants, including small fruits and berries.

Another photo, with the barrels of eggs in sort-of focus.

Zooming in on those barrels. Aren't they cute?





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