Strange insects...

Recently I've been encountering 'strange' insects. The reason I say 'strange' is that I have never in my 23 years of living in England's North West encountered these creatures.

Firstly I encountered a 'black' wasp. (11:11) I was packing musical instruments into the back of a car when this black wasp kind of fell helplessly onto the grill of an amplifier. I came to the conclusion that it was dying and watched it flail about and fall to the ground. The wasp looked EXACTLY like this -



I encountered a similar wasp a few days later on a bus when the damn thing landed in my hair. I brushed it out and it landed on my lap - again it looked EXACTLY like the above image. Are black wasps common now? I've never seen, or heard of one before.

The other bizarre critter was in my bathroom the other day. It was a VERY small rectangular-bodied thing. Here comes an appalling Photoshop impression -



It looked at me and then crawled out of the window. Strange.

So yeah, some strange things can be found in Lancashire. These are just insects that I’ve witnessed, I have many friends who have also witnessed similar oddities. Any idea what these things are?

Its Global warming and all of that, its causing a huge amount of new creatures that have never been seen in England to breed and their populations are exploding.

I was reading about it on a website about a week ago, it has gotten to the point were Wallabies (or however you spell it :/) to live here in England, they escaped from a zoo and are now breeding and its getting out of control. The one that I found most shocking is that a Great White Shark was been spotted off a coast, I cant remember the part of England but hey, if it can happen once.. it can happen again..

Here is a page on the North American black wasp. They live in the central and eastern US, which gets mighty cold in winter. Perhaps these are the ones you saw, and it's possible they got there the way other insects get around the world: by stowing away in luggage on airplanes.

is that rectangular critter an earwig?

if not, what length was it? did it have a segmented body? how many legs did it have, i can't tell if it's 6 or 8 from the picture? what colour was it?

If the variations on the wasps body in the picture you show are yellow, that's what we call a yellow jacket here in Texas. Sting like bloody hell too! I have to agree with pieman on the earwig suggestion about the other one.

Aha -- I found your wasp, it's a native of England:

The Mournful Wasp (Pemphredon lugubris)

Apparently you have several black wasp species in England. I found references also to the Horned Black Wasp (Passaloecus corniger), the Little Black Wasp (Pemphredon lethifer), the Melancholy Black Wasp (Diodontus tristis), the Minute Black Wasp (Diodontus minutus), and the Pale Footed Black Wasp (Psenulus pallipes).

Originally posted by Opulisum
Its Global warming and all of that, its causing a huge amount of new creatures that have never been seen in England to breed and their populations are exploding.

It does make a lot of sense. Do you recall the Daddy Longleg (crane fly) explosion last autumn? You couldn't move for the things... not seen any this year though.

Originally posted by pieman
is that rectangular critter an earwig?

if not, what length was it? did it have a segmented body? how many legs did it have, i can't tell if it's 6 or 8 from the picture? what colour was it?

Definitely wasn't an earwig, it was a few millimetres in length at the most. Its body wasn't segmented and it had either 6 or 8 legs. Colour wise I'm not sure, looked pretty damn transparent actually. I'd say a very very light brown.

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Aha -- I found your wasp, it's a native of England:

The Mournful Wasp (Pemphredon lugubris)

Apparently you have several black wasp species in England.

Hmm, strange I've never encountered or heard of the thing before but it appears it is quite common. Well that just leaves the rectangular thing...! Thanks for all the help!

You wanna see a real weird insect check these out, they come from my state and I never even saw one till about 5 years ago.

www.abc.net.au...

Now I see them all over the place.

reply to post by mazzroth


Now THAT, is just lovely. And where do you think this thing came from?

reply to post by MajorMalfunction


Lovely, I better go get my fly swat.

More on topic an african wasp flew into my car window a few weeks back, in the cold northwest town of Nelson, in Lancashire. What was that doing here??

Mole Cricket?



Walking Stick? (Stick Bug)



Perhaps an Earwig Nymph?



You said it wasn't segmented, did it looks beetle like? Did it have wings? Long legs? Short Legs? Any markings? (stripes dots etc?) Did it have compound eyes? How long where the antenna? If it had 8 legs its an arachnid and therefore we are searching in the wrong places.

As for the wasp, it could we worse! It could be one of these. (Killer Bee)


Seeing as you are in the UK and there is a lot of traffic from the states I'll throw this out there. Could the wasp have been a Mud Dauber?



Or perhaps another American bug, the yellow jacket.



[edit on 13-8-2009 by DaMod]

reply to post by mazzroth



Tried the link, Mazzroth, but it's unavailable


BUT .. glad to see this thread (Flagged :up) and your post.

We're in Sydney. Last year and the year before, we had insects I've never seen before in more than double the time you cited.

They are big things, sort of waspish, perhaps an inch to an inch and a half in old measurements. They are black. They have an irridescence on their back .. an irridescent blue-ish colour. They make a buzz as they fly past you. They don't have a tapered body the way the old fashioned Aussie wasps do. These new things are chunkier, no waist.

I don't know what they feed on. They fly around a lot, around trees .. all types of trees. And hover over the lawn. I haven't seen them feeding on anything. A couple fell into the big fountain we have out the front. I meant to photograph them and try to find out what they are, but didn't. This year I will.

When I was a kid, we were out and about all the time. If these things had been around then, I would have seen them. I've been a keen gardener all my life .. I would have seen them. I've never seen them before, nor has my husband.

There's another new one too. It's a miniature fly. It's so small, it looks like a sandfly and that's what I thought they were at first. Then I saw one perched on the top of someone's coffee cup. And sandflies don't do that .. they bite for blood, don't go for coffee. So I caught one and had a good look at it. It was a mini-fly .. like a tiny housefly. Yet so small, they can fit in through the fly-screen mesh. We had literally dozens, maybe hundreds of them, inside the house. They don't seem to grow any bigger. They arrived all of a sudden. No unusual weather ... APART from the usual Chemtrails. I suspect they are being 'dropped' in the Chemtrails.

Last winter, mid-winter, we had loads of mosquitoes -- they just arrived, out of nowhere. Where did they come from ? Again, I think they're dropping them with the Chemtrails. The news regularly claims dengue fever, malaria and other diseases are 'spreading'. I think the frankenstein lab-idiots are trying to help that 'spread'.

I don't care how many people tell me I'm stupid. Who was it said mosquitoes had uses .. Bill Gates, wasn't it ? And didn't Clinton say something similar ?

Tiny flies that can fit through insect mesh ... what a perfect way to deliver diseases. Mosquitos, same thing. They could drop them in embryo stage or maybe they're in suspended animation until they land where it's warmer, like on the ground. I suspect they're experimenting with delivery methods. The plans could include spread of infectious diseases, decimation of crops, interruption of target insects breeding cycles, etc.

[edit on 13-8-2009 by St Vaast]

Originally posted by thebox


The other bizarre critter was in my bathroom the other day. It was a VERY small rectangular-bodied thing. Here comes an appalling Photoshop impression -

It looked at me and then crawled out of the window. Strange.

So yeah, some strange things can be found in Lancashire. These are just insects that I’ve witnessed, I have many friends who have also witnessed similar oddities. Any idea what these things are?

That looks to me like it might be a silverfish bug. Google images for it...

Originally posted by WhiteMagicWoman
That looks to me like it might be a silverfish bug. Google images for it...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a12c210bc793.jpg[/atsimg]

Sounds like a silverfish to me too.
They used to be everywhere when I was growing up. Mostly in bath tubs!