[Brenda]

I'm thinking that it may have been a Giant Water Bug? http://www.pca.state.mn.us/kids/c-october.html I don't know that we have anything larger here. We used to find them in our pool every now and then. Yuk!

[Brenda]

If they had a "wall of shame" at the butterfly conservatory, she'd be on it.

I don't even want to know.

[ShanaD]

No, it wasn't a water bug, it was more "moth-like"

[Brenda]

Ah, I understand now. When you said a bug as big as the palm of your hand, that was the first one to come to mind. It may have been a species of Giant Silkworm Moth. This sub-family includes the Luna (which you would have noticed the green color--the one in the Lunesta commercial), Cecropia, Polyphemus and several others which occur here in NY. Without a photo it's tough to say, but I'm glad that you didn't squish it.

[Brenda]

I just had the coolest sighting! I've been fascinated by these for the longest time but never saw one until a few minutes ago. I ran back to the office and grabbed my camera, and I managed to get one shot before it flew off. Boy, are they fast! In my search to identify exactly which species this was, I discovered that there's actually a website named hummingbirdmoths.com. I didn't bother to link it, but the intro is pretty humorous.

Hummingbird clearwing:

[Matt]

they look like fighter jets

http://www.birds-n-garden.com/hummingbird_moths.html

[Brenda]

they look like fighter jets

They do look like fighter jets, at rest. But having seen my first specimen, I don't think that they're at rest very often. It's easy to see how someone might think that they're baby hummingbirds. There are some really nice photos of them on the site that I linked previously, if you click on additional images of a particular species. The site that I mentioned when I posted the photo also has a really nice photo gallery, set to music, but there's no way to skip the intro page which is only cute the first time you visit the site.

You certainly got some amazing shots at the butterfly conservatory, Matt.

[ShanaD]

Are there Lantern Flies in the area?

[Brenda]

I don't believe so. They appear to be from tropical regions. I'd never even heard of them, but Entomology isn't my forte. The closest thing that we have (as far as glowing goes) are lightning bugs/fire flies. Our property is a virtual light show in late June/early July. It's very cool to see, because we don't have much light pollution here so it's very dark at night.

[Matt]

we don't, but who knows what will happen when as the climate shifts.
We have a cousin of them, the cicada

[Brenda]

We have leaf hoppers too, but the lantern flies look much more colorful. It will be interesting to see how species change/shift. Oh, but wait, there's no such thing as global warming!

[ShanaD]

One night, we turned out the lights and there was something glowing on our wall, it was a lightning bug glowing in our room. It was very cool.

[Brenda]

I could have spent the entire afternoon following Monarchs around the back field. They were everywhere. I believe that both photos are of males.

[Matt]

The Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester has an enclosed Butterfly garden with local species. This past weekend there were only Monarchs and they seemed pretty eager to get out of there.

[Brenda]

Have you ever hiked down through the cemetery on your visits to Watkins Glen? It's one of their "staging" sites for fall migration. I've not seen it yet, but my husband has and it sounds pretty spectacular.