I’m Jade (She/They), and I take photos and videos of arthropods (insects, arachnids, crustaceans, myriapods, and related species) both out of interest and for the sake of sharing, documentation, and information!

All creatures in my photos and videos were found out in the free open of Mississippi, as that’s where I live, and are returned to the wild safely if handled, unless otherwise stated!

Observations seen here can also be found on iNaturalist under the same username, jupiterswasphouse! (The backlog is still in the process of being added at the time of this update)

⚠️ Photos and videos taken by me should, preferably, not be reuploaded directly without my express permission, however, they may generally be used under the same rules as a standard CC BY-SA 4.0 Attribution-Sharealike license, that being that they may be used in your own works provided that the used photos and/or videos come with proper credit to “jupiterswasphouse” or “Jupiter’s Wasp House” (For questions regarding the use and distribution of my media, feel free to message me or direct the questions to my ask box)

Wasp Reviews (On Hiatus)!

Blog specific tags include: ‘Wasp House Buzzing’ (Text only posts), 'Wasp House Sights’ (Photos and Videos), 'Wasp House Answers’ (Asks), 'Wasp House Art’ (Art), 'Wasp House Review’ (Reviews), 'WHR: Wasp Review’ (Wasp Reviews specifically) and 'Not Wasp House Related’ (General posts that aren’t related to arthropods, such as reblogs for particular causes or text posts that just happen to be unrelated)

Asks: Currently always open!

You can also find me at: @theelectricdreamsofddx , and my music channel!

DNI if: You dislike bugs, or are homophobic/transphobic/racist/ableist/otherwise bigoted (TERFS and Nazis can fuck off)

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Help my husband and partner out!

Also check out these people I know!: @dying-myosotis @thelastprimedemon @kllisto @cavestory @bugsmoocher @shock-micro @metallix85 @iced-uppancake @kozykricket

[PHOTOS TAKEN: MARCH 28TH, 2025 | Image IDs: Four photos of a very small black fly on a human hand /End IDs.]

[PHOTO TAKEN: MARCH 28TH, 2025 | Image IDs: A photo of a black and yellow common eastern bumblebee on the white, pink, and yellow flowers of an apple tree /End IDs.]

Happy Wasp Wednesday! New (ancient) species, genus, and possibly family dropped recently!

Sirenobethylus charybdis, placed in family Sirenobethylidae, and superfamily Chrysidoidea! This species is particularly notable for an adaptation discovered on its abdomen, at the end of the metasoma—The long since extinct species possessed a unique, paddle-shaped structure consisting of a series of movable flaps, often compared to a venus fly trap, as it is believed by these researchers that it was used to grasp and restrain their hosts (with other, less likely theories suggesting that it was instead intended to grasp onto their mating partners), with some hairs along the structure possibly even being “trigger hairs”, another similarity to the aforementioned carnivorous plants!

Features of this structure suggest that this grasping ability was not intended to incapacitate the host, indicating this species was a koinobiont parasitoid, meaning that the host was set free and allowed to continue living, until presumably being consumed by the wasp’s young.

[Image Sources: BMC Biology, article authored by Qiong Wu, Lars Vilhelmsen, Xiaoqin Li, De Zhuo, Dong Ren & Taiping Gao | Image IDs: Figures 1 and 3 from the linked article. One shows 3 angles of a Sirenobethylus charybdis holotype female, displaying it’s grasping apparatus up close, making the flaps apparent, followed by an illustration of the species. The other shows 4 different amber-encased females of the same species, with more close-ups further showing the structure on each of them, with the flaps in different relative positions and the hairs/setae more visible. /End IDs.]

They are not the first species we have discovered that can grasp onto their hosts, as some female wasps of the family Dryinidae use claws on their forelimbs to grab onto small hoppers (in the order Hemiptera)—However, they are reportedly the first insect we’ve ever discovered with a structure of this particular shape and apparent function!

[PHOTOS TAKEN: MARCH 28TH, 2025 | Image IDs: Two photos of a brown kudzu bug on the white and pink petal of an apple flower /End IDs.]

Megacopta cribraria, otherwise known as the bean plataspid, kudzu bug, globular stink bug, or lablab bug! The species was introduced (unintentionally, despite popular belief) to America in 2009, and is now present mostly throughout the southeastern United States.

One of the things they don’t tell you about getting into entomology when it wasn’t really a childhood interest of yours or anything is that you go from being apathetic like you were likely taught to be towards bugs to feeling bad whenever you have to do literally anything remotely negative to them—I just had to remove a paper wasp queen’s brand new nest and relocate the wasp because she was building it in my garbage can and I felt like this inside because it’s cold out there and now her home is gone (Even though, realistically, wasps can withstand the cold, but they still prefer warm temps)

ALT