# What's your favourite insect? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2006, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567 "2006-08-21T09:31:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/1 "2006-08-21T09:31:06Z")
I realise that ‘favourite things’ and ‘insects’ may not be overlapping categories for a great many people, but for those of you that do not regard all terrestrial arthropods\* as just _things to be squashed_, what’s your favourite? Mine has to be the [Hummingbird Hawkmoth](http://www.uksafari.com/hummingbird.htm) - Despite the texts, which all seem to rate these as common in the southern UK, where I live, they are not frequently seen, so it’s always a real pleasure to have one visit my garden. I saw one a couple of nights ago on the verbena and stood for several minutes just watching it flit about and feed; apart from being delightfully bird-like and agile, they seem (in insect terms) pretty alert and spatially aware. \*(yeah, we’ll expand the scope of the question to include arachnids and other arthropods, just to be fair). ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/2 "2006-08-21T09:35:52Z")
_Dead_ ---
**Author:** ![gabriela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@gabriela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gabriela)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/3 "2006-08-21T09:44:48Z")
Can we have arachnids? They’re not technically insects… but ooh baby. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/4 "2006-08-21T09:47:23Z")
Ladybugs. I mean who doesn’t like ladybugs? Well maybe aphids. I saw a picture once of a ladybug taken from an aphid’s veiwpoint and they’re some bad mutherfuckers. But I like them. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/5 "2006-08-21T09:49:08Z")
[QUOTE=gabriela] Can we have arachnids? They’re not technically insects… but ooh baby. [/QUOTE] Yes. Which one do you like best? ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/6 "2006-08-21T09:59:28Z")
Aphids suck. 😛 I like hummingbird moths too, but I think my favorite insect is the dragonfly. They look cool, they fly cool, and they eat mosquitoes. (Never mind the fact that they eat the occasional butterfly.) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/7 "2006-08-21T10:06:24Z")
[QUOTE=Caprese] Aphids suck. [/QUOTE] Actually, they don’t; vascular pressure means _plants blow_. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/8 "2006-08-21T10:58:25Z")
Praying mantis. Because it’s such a total WTF moment when I see one in my garden. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/9 "2006-08-21T12:17:25Z")
I’ve always been rather fond of [hellgrammites](http://www.kentuckyawake.org/files/images/plantsWildlife/hellgrammite.jpg). They’re bigger than you want them to be, will happliy bite you repeatedly and have the word hell in their name. Plus you can buy them by the dozen at bait shops. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/10 "2006-08-21T12:55:21Z")
When I was young, I used to think Preying Mantises (or Manti or whatever) were cool. Now I don’t think about it much at all. ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/11 "2006-08-21T13:51:42Z")
Ant lions, because they’re badass. When I was a kid I would play Roman emperor and make ants pay for their crimes by tossing them to their doom. My other select badasses of the insect world include dragonflies and tarantula hawks. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/12 "2006-08-21T14:12:15Z")
**Cluricaun** , you have just given me several nights’ worth of nightmare fodder. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/13 "2006-08-21T14:23:23Z")
Wow. Hard to say. Lately I’ve been taking lots of pictures of the tiger swallowtails that have been visiting our butterfly bushes. [Here’s one](http://www.unc.edu/~nbeach/swallowtail_markings.jpg). I like both the yellow ones and the black ones. Last year we had a lot of the hummingbird moths, which I’d never seen before. I haven’t seen any this year, but we do have a lot of the ones that look like bees. I’ve been trying to take pictures of those, but I’ve yet to get one I really like - they move so fast they are a bit of a challenge. I also am very fond of ladybugs, caterpillars, these tiny bright green grasshoppers we’ve had a lot of this summer, camel crickets, inch worms, praying mantes (which Wikipedia says is the plural of praying mantis - who knew), dragonflies … ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/14 "2006-08-21T14:59:40Z")
[QUOTE=betenoir] Ladybugs. I mean who doesn’t like ladybugs? [/QUOTE] I used too, until I saw window screens covered in them, and people vacuuming them up, and then they became a hording pest like any other. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/15 "2006-08-21T15:19:56Z")
Gilbert Gottfried. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/16 "2006-08-21T15:25:34Z")
Ladybugs are pretty, so are butterflies. Praying mantises are cool because they look like something from another world, and they have a cool name. But my definite favourite is the dragonfly. They’re just too cool to be true. They look like sticks with wings, but they’re alive, and they fly like no other bug. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/17 "2006-08-21T15:26:11Z")
Ladybugs are cool as long as they’re not arriving in swarms. Dragonflies (aka darning needles to us as kids) are cool, especially since they eat mosquitos. Fireflies are fun to watch blinking on and off, if you can stand being out at night with mosquitos buzzing you amid the clouds of dragonflies zipping around. ---
**Author:** ![Lionne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Lionne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionne)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/18 "2006-08-21T15:29:13Z")
[Katydids.](http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8279/katydidscudderia3ft3.jpg) I kept one as a pet when I was a kid. He would happily sit munching on leaves, and when I took him out, he’d fly around in some wildly acrobatic ways. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/19 "2006-08-21T15:33:07Z")
I think [walking sticks](http://www.wabiblecamp.org/images/2004%20jrcamp%20walking%20stick.JPG) are really cool. Although I wouldn’t want one on my arm like in the linked photo. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567/20 "2006-08-21T15:40:15Z")
Dragonflies (diurnal) and fireflies (nocturnal). Among arachnids, jumping spiders. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favourite-insect/369567.md?page=2)