I saw a lot of bugs in the back garden on Sunday. Here are some of them.
These are the larval stages of the Painted Lady butterfly. I found them on the borage plants in the yard. They spin little webs among the leaves where they live for a few weeks until they pupate and eventually emerge as adult butterflies. The little black spots in the web are caterpillar poop, which, like all insect droppings, is technically called frass.
Here is a later growth stage, or instar.
Here's a spider I found inside an upside-down flowerpot I was using as a perch for a small cactus. I think this is a false widow, Steatoda grossa.
Here's a wolf spider, who climbed up the wall after I watered the spearmint.
This wee beastie is a ladybug larva, crawling around in the spearmint. Ladybugs eat aphids, and they are welcome to every last one of them dining on my spearmint!
And in the evening, the spearmint was swarming with soldier beetles, probably going after aphids.
It's a fascinating little world.
.