Friday, July 9, 2010

That's one flat bug

We were sitting outside the other night with friends in the back yard, under the live oaks, when I came across these VERY flat tiny bugs. Literally. A few were crawling on James, and I found one or two on me. I'd never seen anything like them before. When I say flat, I mean FLAT. But I didn't get any photos. However, last night, I got a second chance when I spotted one on our bathroom floor. So I snagged some pictures to post. Then this morning, I got on Bugguide.net and decided to do a random search for "flat bugs." Sounded like a good description to me. Lo and behold, there is an ENTIRE family of flat bugs! Honest! It's called Aradidae. And ours appears to be in the genus of Neuroctenus or Mezira. These bugs apparently feed on fungi found under bark, which would explain how some probably fell on us. Mystery solved!


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