Finds of the day

Last night Talie tried to get a picture of a cool looking spider...at least I think he's a spider. They are very common in our house. They have eight legs but their two front legs are much thicker and darker than their others and look like Praying mantid's legs. They are only a centimetre and a half long. I cannot find them anywhere on the web.

Back to last night...she had the camera right up close for a nice pic, when our friend decided to jump on the lens. This cause Talie to scream and throw the camera in the air. Unfortunately the camera landed on her, eliciting a second scream and Talie jumped up from the couch brushing her clothes furiously. We searched for a while and couldn't find our jumping friend....so no picture yet. In the morning I found him, dead, on the ground....I figure we scared him to death.

Talie took this picture...so apparently she has recovered from her trauma. That's her hand in the background. I had a hard time figuring it out but I believe I have found his name:
Eriophora transmarina














This is the shed skin of a cicada before becoming a flying life stage. They are all over the place right now. The pic I had up before was just a little one. They are out in force now and are much bigger. Crazy loud too!