How Many of These Insects Have You Seen

Puss Moth Caterpillar



With their soft bodies and high protein content, caterpillars are usually incredibly vulnerable. To fend off predators, they often resort to scare tactics. Sometimes it’s in the form of bright, flashy colors; sometimes it’s in the form of mimicry—looking or acting like another, more dangerous insect. The Puss Moth caterpillar opts for mimicry, forming a bizarre looking “face” that resembles a vertebrate face scary enough to send most curious predators the other way.
Dasychira Pudibunda Caterpillar

Also known as the Pale Tussock, the Dasychira Pudibunda is a moth native to Denmark. Its bright yellow caterpillars are covered in patches of spiky hair that resemble porcupine quills, and along the center of their back is another row of hair tufts, one on each segment of its body, culminating in a large black or brown spine at the rear end.

From a distance the caterpillar resembles a sponge, but up close, where you can actually see the double row of mandibles, it’s not quite so cuddly. Every now and then, Pale Tussock populations will explode, resulting in a carpet of these caterpillars covering the trees. In 1988, a wave of Pale Tussocks demolished 20 hectares of beech forest in Denmark.

Spiny Flower Mantis

Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi

Another incredible looking mantis, the Spiny Flower Mantis (Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi) is, again, a flower mantis, pulling its bizarre ornamentation from the appearance of a flower. This mantis is very small, measuring only 1.5 inches (38 mm) and is found in select locations in Southern Africa.

And like most mantids, the Spiny Flower Mantis is a voracious cannibal, and the older they get the more likely they will be to eat other mantids that come across their path. Another interesting fact is that the female’s egg sac can be nearly three time larger than its own body.

Scorpionfly

While this insect looks like the result of some bizarre genetic experiment that spliced a scorprion stinger onto a wasp, that “stinger” is actually something much more innocuous: the fly’s genitals.

Nevertheless, it makes for a bizarre looking creature. Scorpionflies, or mecoptera, can be found all over the world, and have been around since the Mesozoic age. In fact, they’re believed to have been the forerunners of most of our modern moths and butterflies, collectively grouped in the Lepidoptera order.

The Darth Vader Ant

The ant Cephalotes atratus is bigger than average, dresses all in black, wears a scary helmet, and appears to have super powers. It's called the Gliding Ant, but it resembles Darth Vader. This ant's super power was discovered in 2004 by Stephen P. Yavoniak as he was sitting high up in the rainforest canopy

Snake Caterpillar

Deilephila elpenor, known as the Elephant Hawk-moth, is a large moth of the Sphingidae family. The species is found throughout Britain and Ireland. 

The larva is about 75 millimetres (3.0 in) long and is green and brown in color. When startled, the caterpillar draws its trunk into its foremost body segment. This posture resembles a snake with a large head and four large eye-like patches. Caterpillars are preyed upon by birds, but these shy away (at least for some time) from caterpillars in “snake” pose. It is not known whether the birds believe that the caterpillar actually resembles a snake, or whether they are frightened by the sudden change of a familiar prey item into an unusual and boldly-patterned shape.

Ant-mimic Jumping Spider (Myrmarachne plataleoides)

Ant mimicry is mimicry of ants by other organisms. Ants are abundant all over the world, and predators that rely on vision to identify their prey such as birds and waspsnormally avoid them, either because they are unpalatable, or aggressive. Thus some other arthropods mimic ants to escape predation (protective mimicry). Conversely, some species (e.g. Zodariidae spiders) use their anatomical and behavioral ant mimicry to hunt ants (aggressive mimicry). Other cases are also known. The term myrmecomorphy or "myrmecomorphous" is also used to describe ant mimicry or an organism that uses ant mimicry.

Thorn Bug

The thorn bug is an occasional pest of ornamentals and fruit trees in southern Florida. During heavy infestations, nymphs and adults form dense clusters around the twigs, branches and even small tree trunks. 

Giant Water Bug

The Giant Water Bug is one of the largest insects in the U.S. and Canada. Giant water bugs are approximately 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) in length. Some species grow as long as 4 inches (10 cm). Because it often turns up under street lights and porch lights, it is also one of the most asked about insects. It is commonly mistaken for a beetle or even a cockroach. Alternate names include toe biter because they can deliver a nasty bite, and electric light bug because they are attracted to lights.