Today on Monday Mysteries we investigate a different kind of bug. It’s not an edible one, just one of the largest bugs I’ve ever seen, and one that wandered across the patio here the other day.

As I mentioned, at the beginning of the month we transferred from the vacation apartment we were renting to a beautiful house where we house & cat-sitting for the month while the owner, Jean,  and her daughter are off on adventures in Dubai and South America. They have been having close encounters with big, wild cats (at game preserves, by design).  We have been interacting with a very different type of cat here in the house:  Chattie, the beautiful, fluffy and very mellow cat we’re cat-sitting for/with:

Chattie posing briefly for Chris

The only other creatures we’re encountering regularly here while house-sitting are a variety of insects:  e.g.,  little ants, little spiders, regular-sized mosquitoes, etc.   The latter two came into play simultaneously the other day when I got two mosquito bites trying (and failing!) to get a good photo with my cell phone camera of a giant spider web on the front lawn.

But those are hardly remarkable bugs — certainly not like the remarkably huge bug that sashayed  across the patio the other day. It looked like a giant orange-yellow grasshopper, which — according to a quick Google search — may have been exactly what it was. It was about 4 inches long and strikingly unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  Quite astonishing to watch.  I’m not afraid of insects, but there was one thing that bugged me about this critter: before I could get to my camera,  it had ambled out of view! Hmph. This, despite the fact that a site about “Florida’s giant orange grasshoppers” claims that they move relatively slowly. Not slowly enough, IMHO.

Of course, the photo of the insect on that website is a bit more orange than the one I saw, which was yellow. But otherwise it looks like it must be the same thin.  Maybe the yellow ones move faster than the orange ones? That will have to be an ongoing mystery, I guess.  I haven’t spotted another one of any color since last week. However, I noticed last night that one of the animal statues that Jean has in the living room here is a metal sculpture of a similiar-looking creature:

Big Bug (statue)

The sculpture is perhaps a couple of inches  longer than the real-life one I saw. But it’s close.  The pencil is there for reference to show you just how large that type of insect is — and also to remind you that the real-life one was yellow.