Vacation Time - Day 4 Part 4

Ever felt that all eyes are one you or you are being watched? :)
The bees were buzzing around but to get a picture of them in flight is almost impossible as you can see. :) Well it is an ALMOST good one. :)

The Antlion larvae is only about 5mm in length. As everyone knows, they make cone-shaped holes in the sand and lay in wait for ants to fall in.

Because of the gradient, there is no way the ant can get out and faster than lightening, the antlion grabs it with its pincers and drags it under. Dinner is served!!

The males of the Western Julia Skimmer have a pale blue abdomen.

They bask on rocks and twigs from which they make short flights using their bristly legs that act as a basket to capture prey in flight.

In contrast to other four-winged insects, the fore- and hindwings of dragonflies are not coupled; they function independently. Thanks to this double flight-power system, large dragonflies Anisoptera) are capable of carrying out Incredible flight maneuvers. Even gliding flight, which is seldom found in Pterygota, is part of their repertoire. This energetically and thermoregulatory important flight behavior enables one to treat the wings of these animals as aerofoils.

Braconid wasp (Bathyaulax) are medium size and have very long antennae.

The female has a long ovipositor which they use to drill into plant species to reach the host.

Gaelyn's visit - Part 5

One tree in Kruger Park was covered with these caterpillers.
What was strange to me is that there were always two together laying side by side. I have never seen any other cat do this.

A Slug Moth (Limacodidae)

A silk moth who mostly feed of fig tree leaves.

This moth was as large as my hand and I found it one night when I went to shower. Well okay, I DID shower more than ONE night!! LOL!!

Common Bush Brown butterfly (Satyrinae)

Vacation Time - Day 4 Part 3

The Rock Monitor lizard is our second largest we have reaching to 800mm (31 inches) in body length, having a tail a little longer than that. Females lays between 10-40 soft-shell eggs in a hole dug in the soil and they take about 10 months to incubate.
The park has put in many waterholes with water from boreholes so even if the rivers dry up completely, there are still places to have a drink and slack that thirst.

At this time of year, all there is to eat are innutritious leaves and many of the buck species get mange. As soon as it rains and the new leaves and grass starts coming out, their coats will slowly recover. This is a female Bushbuck and one of the lovely species of buck we have. We have no deer species in SA.

When looking for the big cats, the Impala will give you a good indication if there are any around. They will be feeding and all of a sudden run in a group to one place and stand staring. You can be sure they are looking at a lion, leopard or cheetah even if your eye cannot see it.

This is the once might Olifants (Elephants) River. You can see how broad it used to be. Now with factories and farm pumping water out of it along its course, there is very little left except for this small stream. How sad!!

In winter, although this looks like a very dry riverbed, there is still a certain amount of underground water. Elephants are very good at digging for it and will use their trunks and feet to do this. Once the hole is dug it fills with water and when they have finished drinking, other animals make good use of them too.

Kudu are one of our larger species of buck, the males having horns which reach to 180cm (70 inches). As soon as new shoots appear, they are enjoyed by them and all the other animals.

It is spring and the birds are building their nests and hatching their chicks including the ugly Lappet-faced vultures. I could not get a decent picture of them but I could see one check in the nest.

Walk 18/4 - Part 4

A while back I did a post how this amazing Fire Plant was used to make light in years gone by.
Now, I found it in bloom and it has such a pretty flower. There was a tiny bug hiding away on the bottom petal but I did not notice it until I got the pictures on the computer.

These leave were interesting to me. They grow in very rocky places and the back of them has almost like tenticles that they use to secure themselves in place as there is nowhere for roots.

Over another hill and the path starts to go down hill at last - or is it again? There have been so many. :)

A pretty wild flower which looks almost like a Sweetpea.

A skipper fluttered onto a nearby plant. It looks like the Borbu gemella Twin Swift.

Turning a corner I saw this lump of something and went to investigate.....

It was about 6 inches in height and turned out to be a ball of caterpillars. Hundreds of them it seems!! It looks like they might be of the Cabbage White butterfly.

Vacation Time - Day 4 Part 2

At this time of year so many trees and plants are flowering. Some are dull and others have brilliant colors. Wherever you look, the bees are busy collecting pollen.
Although this Agama lizard is a completely different color, it sits so still that one can walk right by without noticing it.

The Fever Tree has spread its roots along the top of the ground and because of its color, it somehow looked pre-historic to me. Please click on the link to read the story of how it got its name.

While photographing the roots above, I noticed a large ant scurrying along one of them and bent down to take a closer look as I had not seen one so large before. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be something else!!

It is a baby Flower mantis (family Hymenopodidae). In the picture above he is on my thumb nail to give you some idea of its size. When larger, they mimic flowers and are very beautiful but extremely difficult to find.

Most mantids of this species have some kind of raised section in the middle of their heads and this one reminded me of a unicorn.

It has very unusual eyes don’t you think? All mantids are carnivorous and eat all kinds of insects, spiders etc which they can easily grip with their spiny forelegs.

The Yellowbilled Hornbill is very common here. A large bird maybe twice the size of a dove. They are also insect eaters and hop along the ground all day looking for food. Their nests are in hollow trees which the male closes with mud to leave just a narrow slit. The female moults completely inside and has to rely on being fed through it by the male.

Lunar Moth

This moth was so amazing that I took a whole lot of pictures to share with you.
It belongs to the Emperor Moth family and as you can see here, is bigger than my hand.

Aren't the colors amazing? What a cute one!!

He kept on climbing up on my hand for some reason but this allowed me to get some stunning shots of them. Enlarge them to see better.

It had the most amazing antennaes with the longest tail I have ever seen in a moth or butterfly species.

At average temperatures of about 25°C eggs hatch after 10.9 days, and the first to fifth larval instars are completed in means of 5.6, 4.2, 3.4, 5.8 and 14.1 days respectively.

The pupal stage lasts 6–12 weeks in summer and 5–8 months in winter. The African lunar moth completes two generations per year.

Marula trees are attacked during the months October to December and February to March when most of the larvae are in their fourth and fifth instar.

And back he goes, this time climbing up my arm.

Vacation Time - Day 4 Part 1

Update: Brilliant Adrian from The Bug Whisperer has commented that they are the eggs of the Lacewing and he is quite right. Thank you. You are a star!!

To see what it looks like, click here or here.

Being only an hours drive away from Kruger National Park, there is no way I could resist going there for a day, so I left early in order to get there when the gates opened. The sunrise with its soft colors was unbelievable.
This is a birders paradise but usually as you get near, they fly a little way from the road so one needs a better lens than what I have. This one however decided I was no threat and stayed just where he was. It is a Burchell’s Coucal, a rather large bird, twice the size of a large pigeon at least. Its claim to fame is the sound it makes which is like liquid gurgling out of a bottle and the belief is that when you hear it, it means it is gong to rain so we call it the Rain Bird. It eats frogs, insects and small reptiles amongst other things.

I have found that one of the best areas to look for insects in the early morning is on the walls of buildings where they perch for the night and so I headed to the nearest. This was a most unusual find and although I can see it is the eggs of something, I do not know what it belongs to. This whole thing is maybe ½ an inch in diameter and this picture is exactly as it is from out of the wall. It is not hanging down as I would expect but sticking straight out. I looked to see if something which laid them might be lurking around but the closest was the spider below and I know it does not belong to it as I have seen their nests and eggs.

PLEASE SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT IT BELONGS TO!! This is one time I would have loved to have gone back on a regular basis to see what hatches out or brought it home, but there is no way I could have detached each strand and done that. So here I sit, clueless again!! It is SO frustrating!!

A “Flattie”, about the size of a quarter waiting for something edible to come along.

Another unusual one. A Clear-wing moth. They all have such spectacular colors. This one was guarding a clutch of eggs.

Namaqualand Daisies. These are one of the nicest flowers to have in a garden. They are long-stemmed and come in a rainbow of colors and easy to propagate too. In the picture is its seedball which you scatter and lightly cover with soil. Alternatively, the roots can be divided into more plants.

When finding flowers like this, it is a good idea to always look inside them as very often small katydids like this will be hiding there.