Wonderland - Version 2024

C2 Glass Insects

C2. "Strange Creatures" – you're a scientist discovering a new species that includes...? Create at least five of these such creatures; giving details including description, mode of movement, what they eat, reproduction etc.

I have found the most curious creatures in my winter garden. First of all, how did they survive the -40°?

Long-legged snow mouse - this mouse has legs that are a foot long. All the better to traipse through snow and gather the crab apples that fall from the tree in front of my house. Better grab them fast silly mouse, before the deer eat them.

Never-quiet is for anyone that needs a door bell or for anyone that cannot afford hearing aids and needs to know when there is someone in the yard or within a mile of your home, or steps a foot on the sidewalk within twenty feet of your home. A dog-like creatures with supersonic hearing, a creature that can hear a pin drop a mile away. Barking is us! This animal survived in my garden all winter. I have no idea how. I guess it dug up all the potatoes we forgot last fall.

I found a velcronian stuck to the garden post. I found this gray cat-appearing thing on the grayest day of winter. It stuck to me like velcro as I took it from the pole to the safety of my house. Once inside, it stuck to my knee as it slowly thawed out in front of the fire. Gray as a ghost with gray fur and gray nose, velcronian sticks to anything it touches.

Butterball looks like an ant that is as round as a tennis ball, it rolls instead of creeps, is greasy and survived our deep, cold winter by rolling up into a ball and using that greasy exterior as a hard armored shell. Now that the warmer spring is settling in, butterball is loosening up and leaving a grease streak wherever it walks.

Robber made a home in a bird house all winter. After all other robins and song birds flew south for the winter, this animal took over an abandoned bird house and settled in for the long Montana winter. I watched as it gathered material for a winter nest, robbed food put out for outdoor pets. It robbed socks from clotheslines. Then I saw it flying to a bird feeder wearing a sock, the sock having been altered to fit its body. Robber sat on the feeder with a red wool sock having had the toe chewed out for its head, two sides chewed out for its wings. The puffy robber pulled out seeds and suet while dressed in woolen finery. Its cry is ‘robber, robber, robber’.

A carpathian crawler surprised me by coming out from under some leaves one December morning. It moved quite rapidly on those ten legs from one dead leaf to another, searching for dead bugs. Then it disappeared from sight. Those bugs are rare so I considered myself lucky to have seen it for just this once. I noted it online in the ‘Carpathian Crawler Chapter of Montana’ network. I got so many responses I had to shut down my internet for the day. Then my internet provider contacted me and told me I’d gone over my limit on usage for the year. Did I want to consider an unlimited plan for $399 a month? All because of one little bug…

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