Many dance flies present prey as nuptial gifts as a part of their mating rituals, but as Powell and Hogue write in California Insects, "The strangest habits are exhibited by a few species in which males secrete material from the digestive tract which is formed into a frothy, white ball or "balloon". This balloon either entraps a small prey or is substituted for prey in the courtship gift-giving sequence" (p. 161). This balloon clearly has prey within, perhaps some kind of hemipteran.

Ron and I were pretty flabbergasted as we watched these two engage in mid-air copulation, their aerial control so perfect that I was able to get this picture even though each fly couldn't have been more than 7 mm long.

Jack Owicki has this great BG photo that spawned an even greater discussion: http://bugguide.net/node/view/267952/bgimage.

I suspect this is Empis and not another genus in Empidinae due to the balloon-forming behavior and the long proboscis, but I'd love correction! Habitat was very close to a running creek, vegetation was riparian, some willow, but mostly oaks and maples.

Another partial specimen of the mysterious egg cluster. This time I was able to get an image of the contents (image #3) hoping that might help the process of identification.
(Apologies for large image size but I wanted to retain as much detail as possible).
See also https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18572731 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18815425

Bolbe with attachments
I've never seen a mantis with any sort of attachments, but this little one was covered in large dirt particles - maybe for camouflage? It didn't seem accidental and certainly did a good job of breaking up the mantis's outline, so I'm curious to know whether the mantis did it itself. Has anyone seen this sort of thing before?

This is a terrible, terrible observation of some vegetation I photographed at sundown from the window of the plane as we flew into Icheon International Airport. I've been sitting on it for years, because it's so useless. It may be the closest thing I have to an verifiable observation from this date, though, since people and potted plants don't count. As such it's my only hope of having my daily streak go back to Apr. 1, 2013. I usually do better than this. I promise I won't make a habit of it.

Therevidae larva. Dawn on the sand dune: The cool night has left the sand wet and firm to about 10mm depth. The wriggly lines in sand are tracks of Stiletto fly larvae moving just below the surface throughout the night. The larva occasionally breaks the surface (see holes) or reverses along their own track. The larva could be dug out easily at the end of a track.

1st pic is of a male and the second one shows the female below a thin layer of web. Myrmarachne plataleoides, also called the Kerengga Ant-like Jumper, is a jumping spider that mimics the Kerengga or weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) in morphology and behaviour. Myrmarachne plataleoides, especially the females, mimic the Weaver Ants in size, shape and colour. The body of the Myrmarachne plataleoides appears like an ant, which has three body segments and six legs. This creates the illusion of having a distinct head, thorax and gaster of the weaver ant, complete with a long and slender waist. The large compound eyes of the weaver ant are mimicked by two black patches on the head. The males resemble a larger ant carrying a smaller one. The scientific name of the genus literally translates as "ant spider".