Found this poor guy trapped amongst some debris at a gas station. Surrounded by a concrete jungle, he most likely wouldn’t have survived. Took him home and fed him and will release in the bush. He was a little feisty, but calmed after we got him home.
Hey everyone! Just wanted to share a video of me holding (just one of) my beautiful sub-adult female Goliath stick insects. These gals will get quite a fair bit larger after their next molt, and be a beautiful green!
Hello all!
Life’s been absolutely crazy lately, between work, school and kids, and unfortunately that leaves little time for much else. But I really wanted to share my video with you of me FINALLY holding my beautiful Cuddles, the Holconia immanis (or Banded) huntsman. I’ve had her for a couple of years now, and before she passes, I wanted a chance to hold her. I know to you arachnaphobes out there, that sounds absolutely insane.
But I love spiders, especially large ones (not the deadly ones exactly), and I guess I built up my confidence holding my Nephila species Golden Orbs. Neither species are known to be aggressive, though they are both venomous (although they don’t possess ‘medically significant’ venom), and have very large fangs that are not a problem to see.
I started slowly, with coaxing her onto the lid of a container where she nearly walked onto my hand. Some of you long-time readers may remember I was bitten by a large huntsman (same species) back when I lived in Byfield Rainforest. And yes, I remember the pain. So, although I really, really wanted to hold her, I prepared myself for the worst…just in case. A few tries later and I was able to get the following video. Enjoy!
Recently I found a Common Crow (Euploea core) caterpillar.
Euploea core caterpillar
I decided to track the progress of the amazing chrysalis they make. A beautiful, golden metallic colour, that looks more like a piece of jewelry than anything else.
Euploea core chrysalis
Progess above from Day 1 to about Day 9.
And finally, a beautiful Common Crow butterfly emerges.
Every year at this time, the flame trees at my girls’ school just erupts in hundreds of Cotton Harlequin Bugs (Tectocoris diopthalmus). The flame trees (Brachychiton sp.) have these fuzzy seed pods, that contain urticating hairs all over them which can cause itching to whoever touches them. The insects are fine with them however, with the nymphs tending to congregate inside the seed pods at times. The mothers of this species lay eggs around a branch, and guards the eggs until they hatch. The young will usually cluster together as a way of defense against predators-powers in numbers when you’re a small stink bug. When disturbed they can emit a foul odor (I think it rather smells like a mild cleaner), which in turn hopefully make the predator think they are inedible. 
Over the course of a few weeks, the nymphs will undergo a series of molts (shedding exoskeleton) to grow, and will change colour in the process. The newly hatched nymphs are a bright red, then turning to greens and blues in consecutive molts, and finally settling on a bright orange in adulthood. Males can also be orange and red but tend to have brighter spots of blue and green on them, where the females are just orange with sometimes no spots, and sometimes with very muted coloured spots.
Nymphs at various stages of growth.
Male, female and nymph Cotton Harlequin bugs on seed pod.
I’ll be doing a follow up post on these, because the other day for the first time, I noticed two separate clusters of nymphs, on different seed pods. They were the same size, but one cluster were the red ones you see above, the other group were all green/blue. I’ve never noticed this before so I’m thinking perhaps the females and males cluster together. And that means the picture of the red ones above would be all female. I can’t find information on this, and up to now have read and assumed all nymphs resembled each other until adulthood. I didn’t have my camera but will be getting a picture soon of the difference.
Like my new hair accessory? Now, before anyone goes warning me about this bad boy “biting” me, I’ll let you know it’s dead. I found it that way. And if you don’t know what this beautiful creature is, it’s the Giant Water Bug (Lethocerus insulanus). Or more commonly known as the Toe Biter, in many parts of the world.
These guys feed in water (although they can fly)on small fish, tadpoles and your toes, should you step in the water. Just kidding…sort of.
As you can see in the picture, their front legs have a small hook like claw, helpful when pulling in prey. They feed (put simply) by sticking their mouthpart, known as a rostrum, into their prey, injecting a saliva that helps liquify it, and then sucking it up.
And I’ve heard rumor that a piercing from one of these guys is quite painful. But aren’t they stunning to look at?
Well, recently I did a video of my Wuelfing stick insect (juvenile) walking around on my head. It got such a crazy response from my friends, I decided to up the ante. Why not put my beautiful orb spider, Coraline, on my head and really freak people out? (I blame my love for Stephen King for this love of making people’s skin crawl.) As many of you may not know, this spider, despite appearances, is actually a very docile creature. They’re not aggressive and not ready biters, although they are venomous and fully capable of biting. But, their venom is not considered medically significant, like say a Redback.
So, I posted this video to YouTube so I could share it with my friends on Facebook. Then I posted it on Reddit. Somewhere in there, it went viral…ish. Right now it’s sitting at just under 73,000 views. I’ve been interviewed by the local news station, local newspaper, the story has been run on everything from The Daily Mail to MTV.com. I’m not sure how these phenomenons happen, but it’s pretty crazy that it’s my silly mug on the viral video of the minute.
So, here’s a look at the video that’s causing such a stir. ***Remember, these spiders are venomous and should not be handled by anyone not experienced with insect and spider handling.***
Today I took the kiddos out for a bush walk to see what goodies we could find. It seemed at first it was all for naught, but then things picked up speed.
Casemoth/bagworm caterpillar and case.
We keep points whenever someone spots something, and CJ came out of the gates strong with the Casemoth caterpillar spotting and then…
Dragonfly
this beautiful dragonfly. The kids got an eye.
Tree-running Mantid - Ciulfina sp.
Next up we saw this beautiful Tree-running Mantid. I just love how the colour blends with the tree.
Cicada
We found this cicada moments after spotting an exoskelton. Which my brave girl put on her shirt like a broach.
Next we found this assassin bug nymph. Such little pieces of artwork.
Assassin bug nymph
Some of you may have no idea what this next thing is, and I didn’t at first, but this is the secret hideaway of the Spittle bug.
Spittle bug hideout
The Spittle bug is in the Family Aphrophorid, in the order Hemiptera. (Think Leafhopper) These nymphs form a little cubby of spittle around themselves to protect from predators and dehydration; it is theorized. I see a lot of these in pine trees.
And lastly, a picture of three happy, bush-walking, insect-hunting kiddos.
Every once in a while I decide to look through my blog stats. I like to see what search terms were used to find the blog (I use this info for future posts), how people find me (i.e. search engines, facebook, etc.), and where the traffic is coming from, as in country.
Recently, I had a hit from The Isle of Man. Some (or a lot) of you may know where that is, but I had never even heard of it. So, I decided to do some research on it.
Yep, that little red circled island is it. Here’s what wikipedia tells us about this tiny isle:
“The Isle of Man, otherwise known simply as Mann, is a self-governing British Crown dependency located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is represented by a Lieutenant Governor, but its foreign relations and defence are the responsibility of the British Government.”
So then I thought I’d look up what insects were known to be on The Isle of Man. There weren’t too many out-of-the-ordinary ones, but I did find one that is definitely worth a mention. (Plus, it happens to be a part of one of my top four favourite orders of insects…Orthoptera. (Katydids, grasshoppers, and crickets.)
Meet the Speckled bush-cricket (Leptophyes punctatissima).
Photo cred: insektoid.info
And perhaps the most intriguing thing about these creatures, and I’m sure the reason for their common name, is the look of the nymphs of this species. How amazing is this?
Photo cred: http://www.entomart.be
Now, Im not sure why someone on Mann happened to cross paths with my little blog, but it sure was interesting getting to know more about it, and its lovely inhabitants.
Tonight I was in the insect room (yes, I have an entire room for them) cleaning the cages and making sure everyone was fed. I decided to move my “video” cage full of various eggs to a smaller container to move a huntsman to the larger one. I wasn’t really expecting anything to hatch at 9pm at night (they usually hatch between 5-10am) so, imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw a Violet-winged Stick insect hatching! I quickly grabbed my phone and started video taping. The video is nearly 3 minutes long, and at the very end I switch it off to help the insect get loose of the egg casing (per my worried daughter’s wishes), so rest assured, everything turned out okay.
This is what the Violet-wing (also known as the Spur-Legged Stick insect) looks like as nymph.
And this is what they look like as adults.
Photo credit: http://www.brisbaneinsects.com
Photo credit: http://www.brisbaneinsects.com
These stick insects, like most, feed on eucalyptus leaves. The males are able to fly, but the females do not. These insects occur on the east coast of Australia. They get their common name obviously from the colour on their wings, but their other common name ‘spur legged’ is from the distinctive spurs on the male’s thicker hind legs.
Wannabe Entomologist 