Friday, May 11, 2018

Some Critter Finds

As a regular morning habit when i am at home in the province, i have coffee and a little bread, lug the camera and my eye drops, and go find the butterflies. But in the course of looking for the butterflies i also see lots of unusual little entities. Sometimes i know them, and sometimes don't. Truth is, most of the time i don't! When this happens more time are devoted to scrutinizing and photographing them. In return, sometimes i miss the butterflies. Anyway, these finds are interesting too.

Cotton bug, Dysdercus cingulatus. It might look beautiful, but it devours the pedicels of my hoya buds. In the past i just allow them there, but when i saw the damage on my plants, i drive them away or make things difficult for them. However, i don't use insecticide so they are still around. 

Spiders are also common residents in my garden and surrounding environment. 
This could be a jumping spider, but i don't know its ID yet. 

Hawkmoths are regular pests of my caladium.  Sometimes i go home finding all the leaves gone. When i feel that they have already pupated, i look for the pupa beneath the plant and photograph them. Once, i reared the pupa to eclosion, so i know that the above is Pergesa acteus. 

Picture below is very dark, probably another hawkmoth. I do not have the time to rear it, so i am not sure of the ID. I just guess that it is Theretra oldenlandiae. It also has many hostplants. 


This is an exoskeleton of the pale green awlet, Bibasis gomata syn. Burara gomata
Its host plant is the green Schefflera. I have not seen their larvae nor the live pupa, and i have seen the adult only once. I wish to see them earlier next time to document the life cycle. 

a very thorny head of a moth catterpillar, later when i poked on it, i realized it is already dead

nymp of a stink bug

bag moth

  another bag moth

another kind of bag of a third bag moth

I realized this moths have different bags that house them which serve as their camouflage. They also pupate inside and later emerge at the bottom portion during eclosion as adult moth. Actually, i have not seen an adult moth coming from this bags. I just saw them in pictures. If i have enough time, which could be later, i will rear them in nearby vicinity so i can also document the adults emerging from them.


3 comments:

  1. Hi Andrea, It's fun sometimes to search out some of the little critters around us... You did a great job.... Most of the time, they are camouflaged so well that nobody even sees them...

    Thanks for sharing... Amazing how pretty some of them are....

    Hugs,
    Betsy

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great selection of bugs and other creatures. These small creatures are so interesting. Not only their interesting forms and colours, but their behaviour. It is a whole different world that most people don't notice. I remember being fascinated by such things as a child. Sadly my eyes don't allow such close inspection these days unless I have managed to photograph them, but I am still very interested and try to provide plants and shelter for them in the garden.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love your butterfly pictures, but this post is FASCINATING. I must slow down and look more carefully for little critters such as this. Thanks for the inspiration. Have a wonderful week!

    ReplyDelete

Your comments inspire me to post more, and our conversations make life and gardening more meaningful.

However, Anonymous comments and personal back links give me problems, so i don't publish them. Anonymous + back links = SPAM = DELETE

Related Posts with Thumbnails