Preying mantis in NorCal, I’d never seen one in real life. They look super cool, I dunno if it was cold, or something else, but it seemed unable to move significantly. Nice for photos, not so much for its survivability, especially given its right in the middle of the trail. I even passed a NoBo 15 or so miles past who might be the one to spell its doom. Hope you can make it outta there little bug buddy!

This finger sized frog hanging out on a privy seat in ND, I usually avoid picking up little animals, but he was chilling out pretty hard and I wasn’t really looking to sit on him, or wait for him hop off on his own. I see a lot of toads, and hadn’t seen many frogs, atleast not since I was in the southern AT. Then they’d been mating, you could hear the frenzy of croaks for a quarter mile in either direction!

This big ol’ Beetle (?) was trying to roll this rock around ID, wasn’t making much progress, but I sat and watched him try for a few minutes. Kinda wonder why it was so intent on this little stone, probably something mundane, yet nefarious. 

Tiny Spider crawling around some asphalt near an earthen dam in OH, might’ve posted this one on the previous iteration of the blog, but it wasn’t till now that I noticed the the thin thread of silk being spun behind it.