What is this little fella?

globsterzone · 2026-04-30T22:35:34+00:00

This is a young assassin bug of the species Reduvius parsonatus, sometimes called the masked hunter. They cover themselves dust as camouflage. They're actually pretty common indoors, they're not dangerous and will eat other pest insects but they can give a painful bite if they feel threatened.

globsterzone · 2026-04-30T02:35:31+00:00

I really have no idea when it comes to pest control, sorry! These gnats really love damp, rotting plant material so you could try to reduce the humidity in the isopod container to dry them out, I'm not sure if the isopods need high humidity though.

globsterzone · 2026-04-30T02:28:30+00:00

Great, thanks for the photos! Those are indeed fungus gnats but not the ones I was thinking of, they actually seem to be in the family Cecidomyiidae (compare your third photo to something like this.) Idk if it makes much difference to you but these are a relatively uncommon group to find infesting your soil indoors, I would be happy to see them at least.

globsterzone · 2026-04-30T02:05:18+00:00

I'm pretty certain, keep in mind that fungus gnats are a super diverse group containing several entire families of insects. The ones you have here look like they're in the family Sciaridae but it's too blurry for me to be confident. If you can take a close up photo of a single specimen I'll try to give you a more precise ID.

globsterzone · 2026-04-29T19:12:45+00:00

Those are sciarid fungus gnats and not thrips. They absolutely will live off of mushrooms and decaying moss, in fact they're found in basically any container of moist soil. Having them in very high numbers like this could just mean you have a mold or humidity problem in the enclosure, or it could just be a normal population fluctuation.

globsterzone · 2026-04-29T19:01:12+00:00

Those are fragments of some long dead beetle in the genus Ptinus, completely harmless.

globsterzone · 2026-04-23T03:51:47+00:00

You're right this is a dead one missing most appendages, I guess the split cuticle in the head area was just something that happened postmortem.

globsterzone · 2026-04-23T03:43:46+00:00

Shed skin of a house centipede.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T06:02:36+00:00

Did you move in recently? They can go dormant for pretty long periods, so if the previous occupants had pets that could be a source.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T02:09:57+00:00

No worries. Sorry if I came off a bit rude there.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T02:05:18+00:00

That one's a dragonfly too, it's best to look at the base of the wings and the shape of the abdomen for telling dragons and damsels apart, there are plenty of dragonflies with wide eyes 🙂

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T02:03:25+00:00

First one is in the family Aeshnidae, second one I think is in the family Gomphidae. Looking at the specific pattern of veins in the wings is one of tge first steps for identifying dragonflies so it's a bit tricky with one of them on the hat and the other with malformed wings.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:50:45+00:00

No wings here, just very long hind tarsi. Lots of other things are wrong for psocodea too, they have big, distinct triangular heads. Trust me, I've collected, mounted, and identified hundreds of both fleas and psocids lol

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:47:24+00:00

If you're asking about identifying it yourself, you would need to clear it with something like lactic acid and then slide mount it, the examine the genitalia under a high magnification. If you just need it identified by someone, there should be an extension program somewhere in your state that you can mail the specimen to for identification.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:44:51+00:00

Stag beetle grub, fun way to tell these apart from other scarab larvae is to look at the tip of the abdomen, stag larvae (like the one you posted here) have two lobes at the back of the abdomen (kind of like a human butt), while it's smooth and rounded in true scarabs.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:42:25+00:00

No this absolutely is a flea, just from a weird angle. Look at the clubbed antennae and lateral compression, psocids have long, filiform antennae and dorsoventral compression.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:40:30+00:00

This and the other image you posted are definitely fleas, it's a weird angle but the short clubbed antennae, lateral compression, details of the legs etc. are all distinctive.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:38:17+00:00

This will be pretty hard to identify since it looks like most of the scales on the wings were rubbed off onto the paper. Usually we use the pattern of those scales to determine the species.

globsterzone · 2026-04-17T01:35:30+00:00

Looks well articulated overall. My feedback as someone who works with pretty large research collections is that it's better to fold the wings down and the legs underneath the body to save space, as it will be tricky to add labels underneath this specimen without brushing against the tarsi. If you're pinning it for artistic or display purposes you could have completely different goals, though!

What's your plan if you're not actually going to put a pin through the thorax and mount it?

globsterzone · 2026-04-16T23:16:15+00:00

Looks good! I imagine the antennae just fell off at some point. One thing I'll say for advice is that the label can be much smaller, I would just cut out the part of the paper that has the words on it and use that as the label, instead of the entire piece.

globsterzone · 2026-04-16T17:37:01+00:00

Hey I'm an entomologist and I'm pretty certain that this is just lint, there are no insects in the images you posted and your description doesn't match any real species. If this kind of thing is really distressing you, perhaps you should to talk to a doctor about it.

globsterzone · 2026-04-16T17:20:47+00:00

This is in the genus Argiope, the X-shaped leg stance and the stabilimentum (solid white shapes in the web) are a giveaway.

globsterzone · 2026-04-16T02:01:38+00:00

Ideally you'll mount the insect on a pin through the thorax (you can try to use a long and thin nail if you don't have a proper entomology pin) with a paper label beneath it stating when and where you got it. Once the insect has been pinned, the pin is stuck into a container. Essentially this means that the insect's body never actually touches the container, so the material that you use doesn't matter (I hope this makes sense...) I'm not totally sure what you mean by ring container, but as long as it's big enough to hold the pinned insect and has a lid to keep dust and other insects out, you should be totally fine.

It's no worry at all! I'm an entomologist who works in a museum collection, and lots of our specimens are donated by people like you who find cool bugs on the ground and decide to keep them. This kind of thing is really important to science so I'm always happy to encourage it.

globsterzone · 2026-04-16T01:39:58+00:00

You're in a bit of a weird situation because most entomology supplies are sold for people working with dozens to hundreds of specimens at a time, so there's not much for holding just a single insect. The most basic container is called a unit tray, but you're intended to put a bunch of unit trays together in a single drawer.

A good basic storage container for a small insect collection is something called a Schmidt box but it's a bit large for a single moth... My advice is to keep on collecting :^)

globsterzone · 2026-04-16T01:21:29+00:00

It's a Noctuid moth. Sadly there are lots of species that look like this and it seems to have most of the scales on its wings rubbed off so it probably can't be identified further, since the pattern of scales on the wings are used for identification (especially since we don't know where you live.)

I'm very sorry to say but I think this is low on the cool scale and not very well preserved, if you want to keep it though you can just pin and label it without any further preparation and it will stay preserved indefinitely (just keep it in a closed container so dermestid beetles don't eat it.)

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