Author: Hannah Whitlock

Sealing in late summer is the only reliable prevention. Soapy water for the ones inside, why sprays fail against wall voids, and the stocking trick for the vacuum.

A pale green silk moth with no mouth, a week to live, and tails that jam bat sonar. Why sightings are so rare, whether to touch one, and how to help them.

Adult bot flies cannot bite at all. What the lump really is, why squeezing it makes things worse, whether the US has them, and what to do for a pet with one.

A sharp pinch plus sprayed formic acid, gone within a day. Why they have no sting, how to tell them from termites, and what an indoor bite says about your walls.

A quarter-inch reddish cobweb spider and a black widow relative that is not dangerous. What the bite actually does, and which red spiders you are more likely seeing.

Bristly quarter-inch grubs that eat wool, silk, and feathers while the adults do no harm. Where the food source actually is, why the rash is not a bite, and how to clear them.

A grey papery ball with one entrance hole, and a colony that dies every autumn. How to tell it from a wasp nest, when removal is justified, and what actually works.

A one-inch endangered butterfly surviving on a handful of Keys islands. What drove the collapse, why fire ants matter, and what the captive breeding programme has achieved.

Ominous in parts of Europe, auspicious in Japan and China. Why the readings contradict each other, what the black witch moth has to do with it, and which butterfly you saw.

A genuinely poisonous black swallowtail with an iridescent blue sheen, and the model five other butterflies copy. ID, the toxicity, and why the right pipevine matters.