ISAAC THE DOG
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wetdogclaws.bsky.social
ISAAC THE DOG
@wetdogclaws.bsky.social
70 followers 84 following 320 posts
HE / HIM / HIS / HIMSELF

My name is Isaac. I am fond of organisms that can be colloquially referred to as a "bug" (such as many invertebrates). I have a neurotic disposition and I was born at exactly 2:27 AM on a Saturday morning.
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wetdogclaws.bsky.social
It's amazing how much closed barnacle shells resemble sleeping eyes. It makes me happy. Soothing to stare at. I was happy I got to see barnacles. Did you know barnacles have the biggest penis-to-body ratio in the animal kingdom? It's amazing. It's like an orgy to watch them go at it.

#barnacles
A close up on some barnacles. They're all clustered close together, white-colored shells that look like little white rocks with one big closed eye each (the two shut lids of the shell). Some of the barnacles have black "eyelids" instead of white eyelids. I don't know the scientific reason why, unfortunately. The same barnacles from earlier, but instead of being close-up, we're WAY out! So you can see that there's a whole lot of them all together on this rock!
August 9, 2025 at 10:34 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
This is a sea slater. One thing that's really fun about them is those sizable compound eyes. Their compound eyes are pretty big in comparison to their more landbound kin... I was delighted to spot this one at a beach.

#isopods #bugsky
A picture of a sea slater on the sand, near a rock, barnacles, and bits of algae. It is a pale sandy color with grayish-dark markings. Its compound eyes are big and dark. A picture of the same sea slater as in the previous image, but at a somewhat different angle.
August 9, 2025 at 10:22 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I wish I could've stayed to wait for it to come fully out of its shell, but I was in a hurry that day. But look how pretty the shell is. Such beauty!! So beautiful. Sometimes I feel like these creatures are the only beauty I have in my life. It may be true.

#snails #bugsky
A picture of a snail on some pavement. It has a yellow body, though it is only peeking a little bit out of the shell. The shell is white, and very pretty: brown spots go around in a ring, and the center whirl is a jewel-like/lapis-like gorgeous blue, with faint pinkish stripes extending out like a peppermint.
August 9, 2025 at 10:04 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I have no idea what this is... What kind of creature is hiding in that pupa? Did it construct that igloo made out of wood bits(?) itself? No matter how hard I search, I haven't been able to figure a thing out, and it drives me a bit mad sometimes.
#bugsky #idhelp #insectidentification #mystery
On the surface of an old log, there is an amber-colored pupa inside a shelter made out of little grains of wood. It is a peculiar sight. The same pupa within the wood bit shelter as shown in the previous image, but we view it from far above instead of close up in this photo.
July 31, 2025 at 8:38 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
A stiletto fly cleaning itself. I adore how wonderfully hairy it is.
#bugsky
On a leaf washed with plenty of sunshine, a brown stiletto fly is cleaning its head with its skinny orange-ish limbs. It is quite a fluffy fly. The same stiletto fly from the first photo, but instead of rubbing its head, it is now rubbing its front limbs together. Its eyes are a handsome hazel color.
July 30, 2025 at 9:43 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
Big aquatic snail at the beach. Something about its face has a sagely quality to it. #invertebrates
A relatively big aquatic snail on some white sand. The snail has a big brown and white mottled shell, with some thick greenish growth at the top part of its conical shell. The snail is black. Unlike land snails, the eyes are not on top of stalks.
July 30, 2025 at 4:05 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I saw a guy who looks alike to your fellow too here in England! I'm not so good at identifying flies yet either, so I had no scarce idea what it was when I saw it, so it felt very neat to be surprised with a similar fly in your post.
Perched on a daisy, a mousy gray fly. Its head is small in proportion to its body, and it possesses dull reddish-colored eyes. The legs are somewhat long, thicker near the base and thinner near the ends. Along the bottom of the abdomen, there is a line of what appears to be distinct little holes, the function of which unknown to me.
July 13, 2025 at 8:16 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
These two pretty fellows with their catching orange thoraxes remind me of WW1-era women in summertime fox fur scarves.

(1st photo: Clarke's mining bee, 2nd photo: Narcissus bulb fly)

#bugsky
Perched on a wood chip laying among other ground debris, there is a pretty solitary bee. It is plump and black, its dark abdomen shining with sunshine. The thorax is eye-catchingly covered in fluffy foxy orange hair. In the center of a big daisy, there is a pretty hoverfly. This hoverfly has a thorax covered thickly with orange hair. Its compound eyes are black in color. Its abdomen is light yellow with subtle black strippage. The legs are black and thick.
July 13, 2025 at 6:52 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
A long-jawed orbweaver from my garden.

#bugsky
A long-jawed orbweaver crawling atop a blade of grass, head directly facing the camera's POV. Its face is an orange color, it has cute little beady black eyes, oversized jaws/chelicherae that almost look like a dramatic mustache to the imaginative mind, long spindly silver-ish legs. The background is very green. The long-jawed orbweaver perched vertically on a leaf, outstretching two of its very long limbs forward. We view it from a sort of side-view/side-profile. The background is yellow with sunshine. The photo quality is a bit low/grainy. Its abdomen is long/cigar-shaped and very silver.
June 2, 2025 at 8:10 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
Lady beetles are always a delight to get to see. The aphids are plentiful in great droves on the metal fence tops and railways, so the lady beetles come and feast on them.

#bugsky
A close-up picture of a lady beetle, on the green-speckled gray surface of a metal fence growing lichen. It is a famous kind of beetle with a great rotund red and black-spotted body and a black thorax with two white eyelike spots. Its face faces the camera. An orange-colored lady beetle perched on the thin horizontal wire of a fence, shining under the sun. It is grooming itself, cleaning its antennas.
May 25, 2025 at 7:12 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
In the night, it made it to my house, and I eventually left it by the window in hope it would crawl back into the darkness where it came. It followed the beam of my flashlight keenly.

#bugsky
A brilliant green shieldbug faces the camera, perched on the square edge of some kind of clear plastic contraption I keep in my room. There is harsh lighting, because it is night, and I am using a flashlight to illuminate it. The lighting puts the most emphasis on the triangle of its pronotum and its face, the rest of its body (besides the yellow legs) dark with an obscuring shadow. The pronotum is incredibly porous, bespeckled black like black sesame or flakes of fine-ground pepper. There are two strikingly red spots above the eyes, which I believe are (probably) ocelli. Its eyes are almost a bit fuzzy-looking, soft and gentle and easily washed out by the light. Unlike the previous photo, now we can see most of the entire stink bug's form, sufficiently illuminated and glistening bright under the light. It has vibrant red stripes on both sides that go inward and then out again in a triangular shape. Inside the triangle that these red stripes border is orange and yellow and red, it looks pretty and a bit smudgy, like a little pool of watercolors that aren't mixed into each other. The stinkbug, wings outstretched with some motion blur, a second before take-off. Its face is looking at the off-screen flashlight, because that is what it is flying towards: the bright light. It has pretty wings, and its slender antennas are long and lovely. The flashlight's beam like a spotlight, the stinkbug perched rather photogenically on the corner of my table, wings exposed: they have bold red markings and a shy dark brown spot near the tips, very handsome. Under this white-washing light, its eyes look blue.
May 23, 2025 at 10:13 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
There is a tale told of the English King Alfred, who disguised as a soldier and hiding in an old dame's house, fell asleep and inadvertently let her bread burn.

The black mushrooms that the resin weevils' larvae develop within, Daldinia concentrica, are thus called "King Alfred's cakes".

#bugsky
A resin weevil on a rotting log, close-up image. It has a fascinating and possibly even rather handsome appearance. It has a sooty-gray and occasionally yellow-white-spotted body with a rough-looking, intricate pattern meant to resemble bird poop. The face, strikingly, resembles a skull; the fur pale and the dark glaring eyes facing towards the camera intense. The mandibles (blurry and out of focus) are short, stout, and black. We view the weevil on the log from directly above, only its torso within camera focus. We can the elytra is incredibly porous; the cool gray-black color is bluish like a stormcloud. It is flecked with yellowish white spots and more obviously black spots, almost paintinglike or reminiscent of a fine and fanciful ceramic tile. The head is eye-catching white, and so are the ends of the elytra as well; its rump is, noticeably, white.
April 14, 2025 at 8:12 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
#bugsky #spiders
A triangular cobweb spider spinning silk around a captured honey bee. The spider is dwarfed in comparison to the much larger honey bee. This is taking place on a brown windowsill on a rather sunny day; there is a little slit hole in the window sill that is its hiding spot (though the slit is not visible in this specific photo, just providing additional context), and in front of the slit, it has spun a wild cobweb. A larger triangular cobweb spider in its wild web, its charming dark brown face delightfully within view. We can see its great long chelicerae. It has two white eyes that are the most visible among of its eyes. It has a big yellowish abdomen.
April 13, 2025 at 12:29 AM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
A little rove beetle unfolding its wings.

#bugsky
On the dull grayish surface of a metal fence top, there is a blue colored rove beetle. As is characteristic of rove beetles, this rove beetle's boxy elytra are small and much too short to cover up most of its exposed abdomen. The wings almost look as though stuffed beneath them, needing to be folded a bit densely to fit under. The beetle's feet are orange and its body has a very porous appearance. The same beetle from the previous photo opens up its elytra, extending its wings outward. The square shape of both elytra makes it look almost like an opening book. This photo focuses in on the wings, which are now fully out and in a relaxed position. They are membranous, ovular, and thin, faintly catching the light with a prism-like rainbow effect. They are edged with fine hair.
April 7, 2025 at 10:22 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
Unbossed, the tiny larva bares its young jaws wide and full of fierce warning at the colossal vertebrate.

I win in the trivial matter of size, but it wins in spirit. I hope to be brave enough to snarl in the face of a cruel God. To have bravery that transcends the fragility of my being...

#bugsky
On the white and gray speckled surface of an old rubber tile, we can see a tiny ground beetle larva. It has a long snakishly thin body with many segments, each segment brown on top but with a cream/off-white underneath, but the body is not in focus, the camera focuses in on the head/face which is facing the camera directly. The little face is brown and delicate looking. Its fragile-looking almost translucent thin jaws are stretched so wide they're pulled to the sides of its head; a truly impressive snarl at the camera! In a relaxed position, they would be in front of the head in a more typical-looking way. The four eyes (two on each side of the head) are very cute, very tiny little black orbs. Its black-thin antennas are also a bit delicate looking, as they are quite short and thin.
April 6, 2025 at 6:48 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I really love green worms so much, that it was great trouble to pick only 4 images. Such pretty, lovely beings! Allolobophora chlorotica!

The yellow expands as the worm's body expands, but constricts into a ring when the worm also constricts, the movement of the colors is amazing...

#bugsky #worms
This species of worm is initially pink but only turns green when exposed to very wet conditions. Relatedly, the worm in this photograph is tunneling along through incredibly wet, shiny muddy brown soil. The worm is a striking dark green color with a brownish-yellow (think: the color of caramel candy) clitellum. To the right of the clitellum, it has a portion of its body that is a dark purplish color (think: the color of a bruise) surrounded with a yellow that almost radiates away from the purple area. What a colorful masterpiece of a living being! Another photographed green worm digging through wet slushy mud, a bit more up-close than the previous image. This worm's clitellum is almost a more carrot-like shade of orange. We can see such a fascinating pattern of coloration within its green body: veinlike strings of purple atop of a yellowish section of its body, with one brighter more vivid blotch of yellow like a smudge on the upmost area of the section. It is so handsome, I could die! Another green worm. This one is slithering across the surface of a blue and red rubber tile. The photograph is focused up-close to its tail end, I believe, if my recollection is correct. We can see a smudgy yellow segment (it looks less like a smudge and more like a tight ring of yellow when the worm is constructing itself instead of expanding itself, but the worm is expanding in this photo). There are veins of deep purple. The overall coloration of the body is more mixed-looking, purplish, pinkish, yellowish, grayish-green. This green worm is burrowing away from the POV (which, in real life outside of this image, was a scary camera-aiming human) and into the safety of the deeper underground through a hole it is digging its way into. Its head/upmost body is curved downward into the soil, and the rest of it is still atop the surface. The camera is close enough to the worm we can see individual segments on its body. The section of the worm closest to the camera (the one bending down to dig) is a uniform light clover-leaf green color. But as our eyes trail up across the worm's body, we can see a ring of bright yellow, and almost like a border, past the ring is a brownish-purple section. Within the brownish-purple section, there is a vein of deeper, more vibrant violet that rivers across, bordered so faintly and thinly with yellow. In the more blurry background, we can see there is an orange clitellum and a second yellow ring.
March 29, 2025 at 4:36 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
A female woodlouse hunter spider I saw. Opisthosoma so white and shiny like a huge expensive pearl, gorgeous wine-red coloration, and powerful isopod-crushing fangs... She could be a pin-up girl! I'd buy it!

#bugsky #spiders
On a bed of orange sand, there is a woodlouse hunter spider. She has a large white shiny abdomen, a wine-red prosoma, and thick reddish-orange legs (like a pepper's color). Her six eyes are clustered very very close together in an almost ovular arrangement. Her chelicerae are humongous and powerful, tipped black-fanged at the ends. Some very fine threads of silk surround her-- before I had flipped the ground tile over that she was underneath, she was likely in the middle of constructing a silk cell (to rest in until night). The same woodlouse hunter spider as described in the previous image, though from a more above angle. The woodlouse hunter viewed from higher above, letting us get a good view of its overall body/appearance. On the top of a rubber ground tile's edge, the woodlouse hunter spider is illuminated by harsh sunlight and also faces the camera more directly, though its legs cover its chelicerae.
March 26, 2025 at 7:54 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
Beneath a round smooth stone near the back of my school is the home of these clever black ants and their white aphid livestock.

Ants are tricky to photograph because they move a lot, but seeing them carrying the aphids in person was a wonderful experience.

#ants #bugsky
Many black ants, clustering numerously in a crowd on the surface of a stone. You can see three white-colored aphids in focus and one blurred out aphid, and one of the ants near the center's head is facing the camera enough to see its face. The craggy stone surface the ants are on is washed in a lot of warm sunshine. If you look closely at this photo, you can see two ants carrying aphids with their mandibles. On a little crater in the stoney surface, there are ants and aphids. One of the aphids is a bit on the larger side in comparison to the other two aphids near it. Only one and one aphid, with the exception of another blurred-out ant, are in this picture. You can slightly see the aphid's black eye and segmented-looking body.
March 9, 2025 at 5:57 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I wonder what you think about.

#bugsky #spiders
Among various chunks of rain-slick pieces of wood and sticks, the lighting cool (it was a cloudier day at the time of the photo), there is a small light brown wolf spider. Most of the spider's body is blurry, it is mostly just a bit of its furred face that is in focus: the two big front eyes, deep, shiny, and dark, have a strikingly thoughtful-looking sense to them.
March 4, 2025 at 8:06 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
This was the largest, most girthy slug I have yet to see in my life. I was stunned.

#bugsky #slug #mollusk
The mantle and eyestalks of a very large, girthy slug face towards the camera. The slug is fat, its girth enormous, and it is yellow with brown patches. The eyestalks are a blue color. A pigeon probably would not be able to lift this sizable slug or fit it in its beak to swallow it down. We can see some of the slug's shiny slime patching on the surface of the damp log it is on in the background. That hole you can see on the side of the mantle is the pore that allows it to breathe, or the pneumonstone. The slug, but now the camera is more zoomed out. We can see its comparatively minute eyestalks poking from underneath its hulking mantle, which is lumpy and saggy-looking in a way that kind of reminds me of fat rolls. A side view of the large bulky slug. It almost reminds me of a plump fish, especially with how scaly the texturing of the body looks. Above view of the slug, intended to give the viewer a clearer view of the color pattern of its entire body; yellow with brown patches. Around the mantle, the brown almost looks like a marbling pattern, but it's more stripey (though still wavy/patchy) across the rest of the body.
February 23, 2025 at 5:09 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I have to admit I'm quite poor when it comes to identifying isopods, so I won't give a guess since it is probable I will guess wrong, though I presume these fellows are within the Armadillidium family.

The color morph of the two is gorgeous; I felt blessed just by gazing at them.

#bugsky #isopods
A pair of wild isopods on the craggy surface of a rock. They have a bumpy-looking mottled texture, colored orange, white, and gray. Up-close shot of one of the isopods. We can see the mottled white, gray, and orange pattern more closely and also see the bumpy appearance of the ocelli of its eyes. The antennas are posed in such a way each antenna bends at a squarish 90-degree angle. Another shot focused in on just one of the two isopods, meant to give the viewer a better view of the way the coloration looks on the critter. The whole body is within view and we can see the second isopod in the background blur. Similiar to the previous photo.
February 22, 2025 at 12:21 AM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
I thought it was a baseball when I first glanced at it, but it is a mushroom of some kind.

#mushroom
An incredibly spherical, ball-shaped white mushroom covered all over in little bits of plant debris in a patch of grass. The same mushroom as in the previous image, but now we are viewing it from more of an above view. On top of the spherical fungi, we can see it neatly splits a bit.
February 21, 2025 at 11:29 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
Male cellar spider.

#bugsky
Underneath the harsher white illumination of a flashlight, we have a male cellar spider. He is brown with a thin cigar-shaped abdomen and large pinkish palps. His spindly legs are "knobbed" dark around the joints. The same cellar spider as earlier, but now he is on the wooden leg of a table, visible only due to a flashlight because the lights are off. We can more clearly see the velvety fuzz of his abdomen in this photo than in the previous one. He is hanging from silk threads, the underside of his prosoma facing towards us. We can see the plump reddish undersides of his palps. Like in the photo right before this one, the cellar spider is hanging from the silk threads, but now his abdomen faces up and the lighting is a more harsh, allowing for the hairs fuzzing his body to be more apparent.
February 18, 2025 at 10:07 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
An adorable six-spotted orbweaver. Amazingly, its prosoma is a little transparent in the sunshine!!

I am no expert, but I am under the impression those dark insides we can see are perhaps arteries (in the legs) and the aorta (the top middle lump bit connecting from the abdomen).

#bugsky #spiders
Perched vertically on the lower end near-underside of a metal fence railing on a very sunny day, there is a six-spotted orbweaver. Its prosoma (head part where legs also connect) and legs are orange-colored, while its abdomen is a calm mossy green color. Especially thanks to the illumination of the sunlight, we can see that the prosoma is transparent; inside of it, we can see the dark outlines of tube-like bits extending down into its legs. The spider once more, but it's in more cooler-toned shade-- a cloud was passing over the sun in this picture. We can see its abdomen a little better here because the abdomen is facing the camera more (its back is kind of turned to us more than in the other picture), which has little black spots and an uneven coloration (darker green on top, lighter on bottom). Also, if you zoom in, you can see a tiny bit of its spinnerette and a very fine thread of web coming out. At least, you can on a computer, I'm not sure about on a phone screen. The six-spotted orbweaver on the sunny metal railing, more up-close, body facing the side. We can see some of its cute little beady black eyes. Out of all the photos, also, this is the best shot in terms of the visibility of the arteries and aorta, which we can see decently here through its side. The six-spotted orbweaver on the railing facing the camera head-on in a cute way. We can see the most clearly the little sweet black eyes. They are set up a bit like this: image a square made out of four spots, and then one spot on the left side, and one spot on the right side, six total. Its orangey smooth smooth-looking small head and chelicera remind me of a vitamin gummy.
February 18, 2025 at 7:55 PM
wetdogclaws.bsky.social
A pear-shaped weevil. The paler color is nice, I think.

#bugsky
On the surface of a metal railing, there is a pear-shaped weevil. It has orange legs. The head, thorax, and the upper portion of the body are a white color while the rest of its body is a kind of orangey-pinkish color. The snout is black.
February 16, 2025 at 9:20 PM