Merry Christmas from the Home Bug Garden

The Dragonfly Woman has a nice post on what insects you might see on a white Christmas. The only one of those true insects that we have recorded in the Home Bug Garden, a winter stonefly in the family Taeniopterygidae, is from the day after the last frost on 5 May 2005. Although the Last Spring Frost has since moved closer and closer to the end of May (with a light frost on 1 June of this year) along with the snow, we like to think that we will some day see early springs and winter snowflies without snow again. Meanwhile, we really should start looking for ‘snow fleas’ (aka springtails, Collembola). With the snowpacks we have been getting, it is highly likely that lots of tiny arthropods are going about their business under the snow where temperatures may be hovering around freezing and that some of these will follow the tiny channels to the surface where they can offer us a bit of diversion over the long, long winter.

Meanwhile, on reviewing the HBG portfolio, it looks like the beetles are the bugs with the most Christmas colour, so here follows a small sampling of festive red, white, and green from over the years. We’d also like to wish all of our fellow bug bloggers, those obsessed few who have challenged the stereotype of blogs as cesspools of political invective and made each morning’s readings an uplifting experience, a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Among that long list, we’d especially like to thank Ted MacRae at Beetles in the Bush – our first visit each morning; The Bug Whisperer – our local hero, the multi-talented Adrian Thysse; the anonymous, always interesting, and often annoying Bug Girl’s Blog; and finally, the master of bug blogging, the one and only Myrmecos (aka Alex Wild). To each and all bug bloggers a joyous and interesting bug-filled New Year.