Bugspotting

A few summers ago, in my old apartment, a dragonfly very similar to this one flew in through the kitchen window. It was large, about 3 to 4 inches long. My cat caught it. I finally managed to get it back out the window, worse for wear, I'm afraid, and I did not feel very confident of its chances for survival.

If I had known about http://www.odonatacentral.org, I would have looked it up and figured out what exactly was frantically flying around my kitchen. To this day, I feel bad about the poor thing.

There are quite a few bug i.d. sites. One of my favourites is http://www.whatsthatbug.com. Take a look at their Bug Love and Unnecessary Carnage pages. The people who run this site are very anti-bug killing, and so I am. Catch and release if you must, but insect murder is only excusable in cases of imminent death - for you, not the bug. And those cases are pretty rare, even in the tropics and places like Australia, where I grew up, and where the bugs are too large to kill with requiring a major clean-up operation afterwards, so why bother. Keep a glass jar on hand for catch and release purposes. Works a charm, it does.

Here's another good site: http://bugguide.net. With all these wonderful insect resources on the interwebs, there's no need to rush madly about with a tennis racket like Woody Allen in "Annie Hall". Bugs are charming and fascinating. Just look at this moth from Mexico: isn't this the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your entire, complete life?