Favoritos de edanko

These mystery creatures were on a Tropical Milkweed plant covered in Oleander Aphids. I assumed they were the nymph stage of an aphid predator. The milkweed was also heavily used by Monarchs (egg laying and hungry caterpillars). There is a Monarch egg to the right of the bottom creature.

Easy to see why the Rosy Maple moth has evolved to look like the samaras (winged fruit) of a maple tree. Adaptation at its best.
Moths came to the lights, and I threw in the samaras that had just fallen from a nearby maple.

Nudibranch Coryphella trilineata (northern form, about 10mm long) & look-alike amphipod Podocerus cristatus. Scanned from a 35 mm slide I took in the lab in 1984. I had found the specimens in close proximity to each other a few days earlier in the low intertidal at Middle Cove, Cape Arago, Oregon. The amphipod (and her recently hatched juveniles, visible at lower right when viewed large) are on a piece of the outer tube of the polychaete Pista elongata; the slug is on a piece of the hydroid Abietinaria.

Notice the white head tentacles of the slug and the white antennae on the amphipod. Here's what one form of the amphipod looks like in central California, where the southern form of C. trilineata ( with chromium orange on their rhinophores and cephalic tentacles) is prevalent: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1103734

Farther south, near Puerto Vallarta, MX, the amphipod lacks white lines, just like the abundant local aeolids (see Fig. 1f-h in paper here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282252603).

About 20 Caprella mutica (Japanese Skeleton Shrimp), the largest 1" tall, entered the tank housing baby Pinto Abalone at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center with the sea water flushing through the tank. So I won't call them "captive." They look like little stick insects doing a dance. I've only seen these once before at the marina, and those were beige. Both times they have been in small groups.