My Town Monday: San Diego bugs (+ 2 contests)

In the middle of all the festivities, it's time for a My Town Monday post! So, I am closeting myself and my laptop away from my noisy family to spend a little time putting together the post and hanging out with all of you.

This week features...bugs and creepy crawlies around San Diego County.

Bugs, Christmas, New Year's Eve? Don't even look for a connection. There isn't one!

My adorable critique partner, Kathy Krevat, found a bug in her backyard, emailed me a jpeg of said bug and asked if I could identify it. I happen to be doing some research on assassin bugs (also called kissing bugs) for Sherry's fourth mystery, i so don't do famous (Surprise, Editor Wendy! ;) ). And there's your twisty windy explanation for how this post came about.

Here are a few facts about some bugs in San Diego County:

*Watch out for black spiders with an hour glass shape on the abdomen. These are western black widows. The poison from a black widow's bite is five times more toxic than the poison from a rattlesnake bite.

*If you find a cobalt blue pillbug, you've spotted a pillbug with a virus (iridovirus). Researchers from the University of California at Riverside and at Berkeley are hot on the trail of this ill pillbug (intentional rhyme).

*We have four species of fireflies, but not one of them flashes light.

*In the summer, you'll find lots of large green beetles called figeaters or green fruit beetles. They have a loud buzz and fly around as though they've spent too much time at the local watering hole.

Here is Kathy's mystery bug. Can you identify it? Tell us anything about it?

Please pop over to the My Town Monday blog to see what others in the group are posting about. ALSO, I'LL NAME THE MYSTERIOUS BUG THERE.

And abruptly changing topics:

Random House gave Blogger Bookworm Readers a copy of i so don't do spooky and and an ARC to use in a giveaway. The details are here. Thank you to Bookworm Readers and Random House.

WHILE AT THE ORTHODONTIST, Child #4 stumbled upon a contest to win a copy of i so don't do spooky through the American Cheerleader magazine. Enter online here.



sources:
http://www.sdnhm.org/research/entomology/entofaq.html
http://www.kaweahoaks.com/html/assissin_bug.html