Big Black Beetle with Mites

My Grandpa Dierks found this beetle in the grass. He picked it up and it didn't bite him. It's the biggest beetle I have ever seen. It had big jaws and a little horn on it. I thought I saw little red dots on it's face when I put it in the jar. Today we took it out of the jar so my Mom could take pictures of it and then we saw a bunch of mites on it. The beetle looked like it was bothered by the mites. But then we found out that the mites don't actually harm the beetle, they're just along for the ride.

Caterpillar Guest Post by Karina

 

My sister found this caterpillar and is going to tell you about it.

I found it on my Maya's road. It was crawling around and it was about to crawl in the grass. Maya gave me a jar and it crawled on my thumb and then I bent my thumb on the jar to get it off into the jar. The jar had sticks and dirt in it. We put some leaves in the jar. 

This morning the leaves were all gone. I put my leaf in from the backyard (this morning) and it gobbled up a big circle. I think it will turn into a black swallowtail because it is black.  It is so black and fluffy, it's head is yellow. And when I touched my brother's caterpillar it feeled like it was dead and then it crawled. And then my caterpillar had a stick and a little stick and then it crawled on the big stick to the tippy top. Like my in the morning the dandelion leaves I had the then I got the my own leaves in the backyard and then it gobbled up a big big big circle and then it looked like it was, ummmm.

I'll let you know what happens with the caterpillar.

Spider in my Bug Playground

 
My sister saw a spider that I think is a crab spider. It was on the wall by the table in the dining room. I caught it by trapping it in my bug playground. So far it has made three webs. Two are in the jungle gym and one is in the twisty slide. I think he broke it to get out (of the web).

I'm going to try feeding him either an ant or a small cricket. Sometimes when I see him crawling around he crawls on the walls and the ceiling. The climbing wall is perfect for him. And he was the first creature to go through the tube in the bug playground. You can see him in the tube in the picture above.