8.18.26 McKinley Park (pests and predators), Chicago, IL

Six-spotted Fishing Spider!!! What a cool arachnid!!!

Pest (plant-eater) or predator? Predator, skating around on the pond and sometimes eating entire fish fry or tadpoles!!!

Helmeted Squash Bug nymph (juvenile) on a piece of naturally fallen American Sycamore bark

Pest or pollinator. Pest, sucking sap from squashes and relatives. Of course, nothing is a pest in the ecosystem. Except for people

A very photogenic Widow Skimmer

Pest or predator? As a dragonfly, not only a predator but the world's most efficient

So pretty

A very large Differential Grasshopper

Pest or predator? Pest of many plants. Also bird lunch

Unidentified Leaf-footed Bug nymphs and a hackberry sapling leaf pointing the way

Pest, but also lunch for some predator

A surprisingly large male Spotted Orbweaver. This one is the size of the larger females. That's weird because male spiders are usually fairly smaller than females so the female can eat them after mating. This one will make quite the snack for his mate

Differential Grasshopper

Scissor Grinder cicada?

Pest of tree roots, but amazing snacks for many predators

Cool on the fencing

Eurasian Collared Dove (left) and a grooming Great Blue Heron (right). Eurasian Collared Doves eat a lot of stuff, but Great Blue Herons are predators. (mostly of fish, but sometimes of snakes, frogs, and bugs.

Black-crowned Night Heron grooming. Predator, like the Great Blue Heron

Juvenile Olive-sided Flycatcher, which my family and I rarely see. Predator

Mating Blue Dashers (right). Predators

Bald-faced Hornet. Predator. Also in the hornet family Vespidae, which contain the only wasps that are aggressive without being directly handled I think. This is one of those wasps that will attack you. But only if you get close to their hive

Look at those three mini eyes!

Unidentified weevil. Pest, but still food for something. Every organism has a purpose in the wider ecosystem.

Unidentified Long-legged Fly in the genus Condylostylus. Predator.

Differential Grasshopper

Large Milkweed Bugs. Pests, but if a plant is being eaten by native bugs it's doing one of its jobs. Also, look at those parent insects protecting their babies!