She’s probably hard to see, but there was a decent sized spider building her web over the koi pond at the local Japanese garden.
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Ooooh I gotta say that does look like a termite to me…
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That’s good to know! I’ve never seen one in the house before, and I’m not sure where it came from. Are there are common signs of a termite infestation I should be looking for?
Edit: my partner and I decided to get the house checked out. :))
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There are other things that kinda look like this too, so it might not be termites! But it might beeee
the big thing to look for is like your crawlspace under your house, if there’s a bunch of carved channels in the wood there and such.
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I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a termite in person, but that head looks distinctly termite-like from the nature documentaries I’ve seen, and googling photos of winged termites is even more incriminating. The thing that stands out to me is how far the wings appear to extend past the abdomen.
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Yah, that was certainly my gut reaction. but I’ve also been wrong before!! I don’t want to condemn some other sort of flying creature to termite heck. but yeah it really looks like a termite :3
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Termite heck, where there is no wood to munch on at all.
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I think I was wrong! She is not, I don’t think, a furrow orbweaver. I do believe she’s a grey cross spider. Still in the genus Larinioides though—“flying spiders.”
This species is also known as the bridge spider, as they are most commonly found on building structures like bridges near artificial light and a water source, and as luck would have it I happened upon another one on a bridge on my way to the mall yesterday.
So there. Bonus crane flies:
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Dear Diary,
Today I crunched up a wasp that was horning in on my shawarma in a pocket of the aluminum foil wrap and to even the scales I saved a wasp that was drowning in a neighbour’s rain gauge in the community garden by dumping it out onto the wooden edging. I am trying my best.
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No termite infestation in my home! The termite guy said this time of year getting one or two flying one inside is pretty common - mating season I guess?
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Phew!! But it was a termite I guess, so the mushi threat reigns supreme!
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Don’t have a picture, but I still remember to this day being out late at night in Northampton MA and seeing a large male dobsonfly as big as my hand and thinking it was the most grotesque and evil-looking insect I’d ever seen
Now I look up it’s larval form (apparently called a hellgrammite) and it’s just more proof that this thing is pure bad news. I guess since they aren’t in Japan, they won’t show up in any Japanese videogames, but I hope I can fight them someday in virtual form.
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Apparently it’s the females that bite, too!
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