Never had them as pets, but showed them often at the zoo, all sorts of creepy crawlies.

There are lots of nest parasites in the bird world. Brown-headed cowbirds are the ones I hate the most, because they're an introduced species. Cuckoos I can live with though. There's quite a few duck species that are nest parasites as well.

I hear ya. Isn't the Asian Beetle an introduced species of insects? They were really annoying.

Which Asian beetle? The Japanese Beetle? Shiny and metallic greenish/orangish, love to eat my hibiscus in the summer? Yep, introduced.

The look like lady bugs but they're orange, and their bite is something terrible.

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/iiin/...ianladysba.jpg

Ahhh, yep, those are introduced too, but also considered a "ladybug" species. I think they're called multicolored Asian ladybugs. I haven't had a problem with those in over ten years, but these bastards

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/images/co...etle_adult.jpg

are the biggest pain in my ass when it comes to my gardens. Japanese beetles.

The ladybug you're talking about was introduced to help combat OTHER introduced bugs (usually from the Hemiptera order, true bugs), which are killing hardwood trees all over the eastern and central US.

^^^lol
That's gotta be really annoying.

Yep, with an introduced species, you're really taking a risk, because sometimes they can be beneficial as a natural pesticide, but sometimes (depending on the species) they can do a lot of damage. ex: "Biting ladybugs". lol :p

So my coolest insect find ever were these 3 guys:
http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-m...4-13870DE6.jpg
A horntail wasp that I found in college and my professor took for his own collection.

http://img2.photographersdirect.com/.../pd1692365.jpg
An eastern hercules beetle, a female to be exact, found on Kellys ISland in the middle of Lake Erie when I was about 13.

http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/BeetleEyedClick03.jpg
An eyed click beetle, also found near Lake Erie, I think I was closer to 11 though. Maybe 10, this was my first "big" beetle.

I've always wanted one of these. I don't think they're sold in pet stores, though. If they are, I've never seen one.


http://www.nmpest.com/images/WhipscorpionT.JPG

I love click beetles. I used to catch them and play with them when I was a kid. I used to like to hear them make the clicking sound.

Is that a kind of false scorpion?

Some people refer to them as "whip scorpions" but they're also called "whip spiders". There's several species. There's even micro-whip scorpions. They're really cool.

I think I would have a field day in a tropical rain forest. There's gotta be a ton of invertebrates there that no one has even seen.

When you found the horntail wasp, was it living? I don't know anything about them, I'm assuming they sting. How did you catch it without getting stung? Beautiful species.

How big do they get? That thing is kinda awesome looking.