What I've Learned about Snails Recently

They are hermaphrodites.

One snail can parent 118 eggs (Thanks, Eilzabeth Tova Baily)

In an emergency, they can self-fertilize (again, thanks Baily)

In other words:

If there is one snail in your yard, you are already out numbered.

Keeping Marigolds Safe

I have these marigolds high up on a shelf to keep them out of reach of snails. So far, it's worked: The snails haven't eaten them.

Cabbage Moths

These are "only" Cabbage moths, the common, unwelcome, non-native pests one sees everywhere. Arent't they lovely?

Katydid

I am pretty sure this is a katydid. I wonder if it's an adolescent fork-tailed bush katydid? Maybe even the same one I saw in an earlier incarnation?

A Squirrel in a Palm Tree

Look who has decided to visit our palm tree.

I wonder, how long has s/he been there? Is this a new resident, or a visitor? Should I do anything about it? Could I do anything about it if I decided I wanted to?

Garden Critters III

I found this one sitting on my roses out front.

Asking at one of my favorite sites, bugguide, dug out the name. It's a nymph Scudderia furcata or Fork-tailed bush katydid. A bit of reading, and I found some katydids eat vegetation and some eat other katydids, so I was not sure--was this the eater of the rose, or the eater of the eater of the rose? A little more checking: My first thought was right. Fork-tailed bush katydids are vegetarians and sometimes cause problems in orange groves munching on the young oranges. So, the holes in the rose are, in fact, caused by the bug in question.

S/he is still out there, though, as far as I know. I have enough roses to spare, and it is a fascinating little jewel of a bug.

Also, I think that this picture, taken in October of last year, is probably the adult fork-tailed bush katydid.