I’m beginning to think that maybe Donna of Wind Kisses might be a secret sister to me. I love her challenge to us this week! Last week it was bilingual 3rd graders, this week it was Kindergarteners (70 in all) who sang this song with me:
“Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen
Head, thorax abdomen, abdomen
Two antennae, four wings and six legs
And don’t forget the exoskeleton!”
OR
“Cabeza, tórax, abdomen, abdomen
Cabeza, tórax, abdomen, abdomen
Dos antenas, cuatro alas y seis patas
Y tambien el exoesqueleto!”
So, which of you Lens-Artists have a dung beetle in your photo archives? This specimen was living on the prairies of South Dakota. Could be elk or buffalo dung it was rolling around into a perfect sphere. I wish I had video to show you how he rolled it with his back legs until the slope’s gravity pulled him up over the top, facing skyward. Fascinating!
Another beetle. Ladybugs feature in nursery rhymes and seem pretty harmless, but my middle daughter discovered at Girl Scout camp that they bite, and so grew to be somewhat afraid of them, especially when some meaner girls threatened to fill her sleeping bag with them.
Okay, I’ll post some of the more glamorous bugs that everyone loves.
…and I’ll post some things that aren’t bugs just to see if you’ll jump.
scillagrace 
oh gosh, I could have done without the bat. lol. now I am going to have nightmares. lol.
Sisters, could be. I WILL be teaching my grandkids your song as they will be with me for the next two weeks. I absolutely love it and no doubt there will be a lot of others humming along with that one. Clever. The butterflies did indeed put a smile on my face. So delicate and glamorous. Like I said, just seem to generate those smiles. Thank you for that.
I am glad you included the tarantula. Had a few photos, but not the quality I wanted. Yours was perfect, Priscilla. Tarantulas are so interesting and so docile in the wild. I am not necessarily a spider lover, by any means, but I do love to watch the tarantulas on a trailhead if we run into them.
I think my favorites this week are the coneflower with the yellow butterfly and the ladybug. No. I didn’t know they bite.
Loved all of this. Thanks for your fun post!!!!!!
Thanks, Donna, for a wonderful opportunity in this challenge! I’m not really sorry about the bat – this one was a Flying Fox, an ambassador at a lecture I attended. Bats are also pollinators….of cashews, agave, and chocolate, among other things. The little brown bats eat their body weight in mosquitos every night. I loved seeing bats emerge for their nightly forage for food and water at Carlsbad Caverns…a beautiful ribbon of flight that went out toward the sunset on the horizon made up of hundreds of thousands. It was a sacred moment!
lol. I agree. They are so important. I too admit to falling in love with them eat Carlsbad Caverns and I felt so lucky there were there. It does feel sacred. We sat at the amphitheater for the longest time just mesmerized at how nature works. Thank you so much for this, Priscilla.
Wow 😯 such a wonderful post 🌹🙏👍 beautiful flowers , awesome bird, so many lovely variety of butterflies, so poisonous snake, rare colour of snail (first time viewing ) hanging
bat and so excellent your poem by a great Author imagination with wind chill so love to
Read👍😍 have a great travels and Best wishes 🌹🙏💕🥰💐
Thank you!
Most welcome dear friend 🌹🙏❤️🌹
Great post for this challenge Priscilla! Loved the bat and dung beetle. You also have a great assortment of butterflies.
Thanks, Anne!
These are all great pictures Priscilla, especially the butterflies. And, I certainly wasn’t expecting to see a bat – ugh!
Bats are so unloved…but they’re so important and beneficial! Sigh. Thanks for visiting, Sylvia!
Lovely butterfly and moth shots. I too am unafraid of bugs and critters that others fear, and I often say much the same thing, “they were here long before we were!”
Thanks, Lindy, for your kind words and for speaking up for the unloved critters!
Ha! Great post! Buggy! Love the butterflies. Scary things, less so. 🙂
Thanks, John!
Lots of lovely insects (that beetle on the carrot flower is superb, but maybe not for the gardener). And you’ve manged to stretch things all the way to mammals! That’s going out on a limb, isn’t it? Even if it is the tree of life 🙂
Yeah, but mammals with wings! How amazing is that! It’s all amazing on the tree of Life. 🙂
I’ve seen dung beetles but never taken a photo of one. They’re definitely needed and underappreciated, just like vultures. 🙂 I especially like the butterflies but I also like bats because they eat mosquitos. We thought about having a bat house in our yard in Ohio but never pulled the trigger.
janet
Our bat box on the west side of the house absolutely baked in the heat wave last year. Little dehydrated bats fell out onto the patio. Very sad. It happened with a lot of birds, too. I’m pulling for all the critters who are suffering with these climate extremes!
Beautiful collection of butterflies and I was ok with all other minus the bat… oh, that bat…!
Poor bat! So misunderstood. 😦
Beautiful images this week Priscilla! Loved that butterfly on the field of flowers especially! The dung beetle, not so much LOL.
Thanks, Tina!
Splendid shots for this challenge, Scillagrace! I love the butterflies!
Thanks, Sue!