Insect Smorgasbord

Greetings, insect hunters and lovers! Today I had many photo opportunities in the two hours while I was watering the front terraces of the aquarium where I work. Look at the vividly colored grasshopper resting on a dark pepper plant. Its legs were primed ready for a quick escape. These have wings and when they leap they also fly a short distance away to avoid danger.

This is a tree cricket. There are many of them here. Even though it is green, it's still a cricket and not a grasshopper. You can tell the difference by looking at their antennae. Grasshoppers' are short and crickets' are long.

Here is another type of cricket? Which type? I don't know, but I have seen these before. This individual is a female. The long protrusion coming from her abdomen is her ovipositor, or egg-laying organ. It consists of a long tube which buries the eggs underground.

A cabbage moth was resting on an eggplant leaf, waiting out the heavy winds we were getting for a short period. It was a perfect photo op. We have many of these due to all the brassicas (cabbage family plants) we have all over the grounds. The adults lay their eggs on them and the caterpillars eat the young and tender leaves.

This little skipper was resting too until some pesky little ants starting to bother it and it flew away.

Do you know what this is? It's not a bee at all; it's a hoverfly. They mimic the warning colors of bees to avoid being preyed on by other animals. Like bees, however, they do feed on nectar.

Here is another hoverfly. It was foraging on these white flowers along with many other pollinators, including some wasps (not shown).

Speaking of hymenopterans, here is a bumblebee. I had terrible trying to snap a photo of one because they move so fast from flower to flower. This one, however, was taking its sweet time resting on this blossom.

I made sure to get a photo of the common bumblebee so that you can compare it to this bumblebee which is distinctly different.

Unlike the common bumblebee, it's abdomen is yellow with a bit of orange on the tip. It was also larger than the average bumblebee. I don't know what species it is, but I sent the photos to my manager for identification. She has the iNaturalist Seek app, which identifies plants and insects. For some reason, I couldn't get it to work on my phone.
Well that's all the insects I saw at work. I hope you enjoyed viewing them, especially if you live somewhere else and these are unfamiliar to you.
Have a great day!