Here's A List Of Invertebrates You May Find In Your Yard

It may not come as any surprise to you that most people dislike those spineless little creatures science calls invertebrates. A recent University of Arizona survey showed that less than 1 percent of respondents (0.7, to be exact) said they liked bugs.

What is shocking is that most people don't even notice bugs. Only 10 percent of the people the university surveyed could recall having seen a butterfly in the previous year. When was the last time you saw an invertebrate?

Here is a guide to a few invertebrates you're bound to run across - in your bathroom, in the garden, dead on the sidewalk - if you keep your eyes open. It may be a few months before you see them since many adult forms disappear or die in the fall and immature forms, harder to identify, may overwinter out of sight. But stop and observe any little critter you see. Invertebrates are interesting.

Orb spider. Description: There are hundreds of different species, varying greatly in size, color and shape. The kind I see most around here are about a half-inch long (excluding legs) and are orangy brown with light and dark markings. Like all spiders, they have 8 legs and 2 body parts.

Myth: The female always kills the male during mating. Reality: She only kills him sometimes (when she can). Habitat: Tall grasses, shrubbery, trees. Food: Insects that fly or blunder into the web. Interesting Facts: Female orb spiders weave beautiful webs with silk from their bodies. Some species weave a new web every evening, others try to make one last a while. Most of the strands in the web are sticky, to trap insects, but a few are not. The female travels on these. During courtship, the smaller male taps out vibrations on a special strand or strands.

Dragonfly. Description: Long and slender, with pencil-shaped body and gargantuan eyes; 3 to 5 inches long. Some are shiny, metallic colored, others are plain. Dragonflies rest with their massive wings flat out to the sides, like airplanes. Damselflies, near relatives, rest with their wings out behind them.

Myth: Dragonflies are "devil's darning needles" and if one catches you, it'll sew your lips shut. Reality: This rumor was started by gnats and mosquitoes, on whose populations dragonflies are voracious feeders.

Habitat: Near ponds and streams. Food: Gnats, midges, mosquitoes, et al. Interesting Facts: Dragonflies have been clocked at speeds up to 60 miles per hour - as fast as a cheetah or a pronghorn. Nature's helicopters, they can fly backward as well as forward.

Daddy long legs. Decription: Most are one-eighth to one-half an inch long and have long, elegant legs. The body, round and slightly flat, hangs low to the ground. The creature's knees tower above it.

Myth: Daddy long legs are spiders. Reality: They are not. Habitat: Sides of buildings, tree trunks, open ground. Food: Small insects, other invertebrates, decaying organic matter.

Interesting Facts: Daddy long legs have a stink gland. The unpleasant scent might be for defensive use, like that of a skunk, or it might be a signal-bearing pheromone, like the undetectable, to us, scent of a moth. Also, some bite, so don't give 'em a squeeze.

Crane fly. Description: Writer Sue Hubbell describes these as looking like "an exagerated mosquito," a description that cannot be improved on. There are many species. Some are tiny, others very large, including one native species whose body exceeds 2 inches.

Myth: Crane flies can devour an entire lawn in a week. Reality: It would take a crane fly larva infestation of biblical proportions to eat a whole lawn. Habitat: Your lawn. Ha ha, just kidding. Technically, humid areas, in or on edges of streams, wet ground. The European crane fly, an import, is a lawn pest.

Food: Adults don't eat. Larvae eat decaying plant matter, roots. Interesting Fact: The harmless crane fly - it cannot bite or sting - inspires such abnormal fear in some people that psychiatrists have given this fear a name - tipulophobia (from the crane fly family name, Tipulidae).

Lady beetles (most improperly known as ladybugs). Description: These little round beetles need no introduction. Most are red, orange or yellow with black spots, or black with red or yellow spots.

Myth: If you buy a packet of live ladybugs and release them in your garden, they'll eat aphids, protecting your plants. Reality: The ladybugs' life cycle and behavior, and the way they are collected, precludes their being much help. They must fly first, then settle down to eat - in someone else's garden. If they're in their resting phase prior to spring warming, they simply crawl under leaves and go back to sleep for the rest of the season.

Habitat: Meadows, fields, forests and gardens. Food: Aphids and other small insects. Interesting Fact: The ladybugs you buy are taken from the wild (they aggregate in "ladybug beds" under leaf litter in the California sierra). No one knows what the effect of removing billions of beetles every year will be, but it's safe to say that it can't be good.

Environmentalists aren't raising a ruckus - perhaps because they'd rather see gardeners using ladybugs than pesticides. Maybe it's because they don't fall into that 0.7 percent of us that are bug-huggers.

Banana slug. Description: Yellow, gray green or brown, often with large black spots; 6 to 10 inches long. Myth: Banana slugs are garden pests. Reality: Banana slugs aren't much of a problem in gardens. Slug pests are two smaller European imports. Squash these.

Habitat: Damp forests. Food: Living and decaying vegetation, roots, fruit, seeds, animal droppings and carcasses. Interesting Facts: A banana slug can lower itself from a tree on a sort of slime bungee cord. The slug's eyes are on the end of the longer of its two pairs of tentacles. The hole in the side of the head, the pneumostone, is the slug's blowhole.

Most interesting of all are the slug's mating habits. Sorry! No space! Have to buy the book!

Well, six down, only 30 million more invertebrates to go. I'll tackle five or six a season and we'll be done in no time.

And now for some resources. If this invertebrate hors d'oeuvre has whetted your appetite, show up for Discovery Park's free Saturday walk, "Invertebrates Are Everywhere," on Feb. 26, 2-3:30 p.m. at the visitor center. If you're lucky, you'll get to pet their tarantula. Call 386-4236 for more information and to get a schedule of their wonderful winter programs.

Information for this column came from "The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders," from Sue Hubbell's "Broadsides from the Other Orders," Alice Harper Bryant's "The Banana Slug" and from Dr. Art Antonelli, entomologist at Washington State University Cooperative Extension Service, Puyallup.

Susan McGrath's column appears every two weeks in the Home/Real Estate section. Send questions and comments t: The Household Environmentalist, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.