Creeping things

The news at ten wasn't particularly interesting last night, but it lured out Grandson of Bob (above) from his nook somewhere in our living room. He is the third generation of a family of large but harmless spiders - about as wide as a digestive biscuit toe-to-toe - which share our house, appearing infrequently but usually during the TV news. He reminded me to conclude the Paxos chapter of this blog with a few final creatures which are neither butterflies nor moths.

Our guidebook told us cheerfully that the island had little venemous life to worry about, but a good line in fierce-looking specialists in insect mimicry. I'm assuming that these three are examples: a large black bee which visited many times every day, ignoring us but feeding rapaciously at pretty much every flower in the garden; a hornety thing which takes the expression 'wasp-waisted' to extremes; and a hairy, spidery-looking fly which lived in a cleaning bucket. Finally, we found this snake which had met a car or scooter some time previously. This was a shame but meant that we could examine it and take the picture safely.
Acually, I have got two more Greek bugs to show, both locusty, so I'll deal with them tomorrow, along with an identification triumph (I think) involving a moth sent in the post. Then, if the weather is kind, we'll be back to the moths of Leeds at the weekend. Meanwhile check out Ezekiel 38:20 for the origins of this post's heading.