Entymological Moi

WARNING INSECT PICTURE FOLLOWS!



So I'm sitting at my computer this morning, as usual, writing code for the searchers 2.0 website, when Jon comes in and says, "Do you want to see something weird?" I said, "Is it disturbing?" He said, "It might be."

dread...

I follow him out back. He points at the big, woody rosemary bush in our brick planter. It's covered with white fluff. I look closely. It's foamy fluff.

We don't know what the heck it can be, but it doesn't look good. We've had a problem with black widows in that area in the past, but this year, perhaps because it's been so dry, we haven't seen any. It reminds us of what the pond looks like when fish spawn- you get the idea? I thought if all these foamy sacs hatch we're going to be in a plague of bugs. I used to have insect fear. I've gotten over it, mostly...

Jon left me in charge of solving this . He was suddenly quite busy. Where to start? I opened a guide book I bought long ago, "Insects of the Los Angeles Basin." (I was really into nature guides for awhile!) Somehow I found what they were: Spittle Bugs!!



But as you can see they don't actually spit, um, no... Anyway, I chopped the rosemary bush way way back and put all the stems in the green can, with a heavy lid on top. Just hope no one opens that can before trash day and lets loose the plague of spittles.

It made for a less than lovely Saturday.