Bugs & Frogs in Our Yard: Texas Edition

This summer the boys have perfected the art of catching frogs.  They are everywhere!  And they are pretty cute, so I'll admit that I've grabbed a few myself.



We always let them go.  Except for when the boys use them to chase around little girls.

I didn't realize boys actually did that, but mine do.

So, I knew there were a ton of frogs, but I was still a bit surprised when I opened the door the other night to make sure FedEx hadn't delivered a package while we were out, and I found 6 frogs just sitting there.



Can you spot them all?



The frogs have been getting bigger all summer, but they are still pretty small.




I honestly don't mind the frogs.  But I'll tell you what does bother me a little bit.

The Tarantula Hawk.

It's a spider wasp.  Do you know what that means?  It's a large wasp that hunts spiders.  And not just any spiders, but tarantulas.  And then it feeds the tarantulas to its babies.  One spider for each wasp egg.

Because we have tarantulas here.  I haven't seen any, yet.  But where there's tarantula wasps, there are spiders.



So this, this is a tarantula hawk.  And it is the size of my finger.  I'm not making that up.  They average 2 inches in length.  But they can get bigger.



Its sting is the second most painful insect sting in the world.  It's actually worse than the tarantula in my book.