Disguised Beetle - Auger Borer (Bostrychoplites cornutus) Family Bostrichidae

This was the first look I had of him and he looks very fiercy.
It is about 1 inch in length but as you can see, very slender.

Then came the time to see if I could get a shot of his underside and guess what?

Those fierce looking horns were nothing more than a disguise!! LOL!!

Caterpillar - Silver Striped Hawk Moth Larvae (Hippotion ceierio) Family Sphingidae

The larvae feeds on jasmine, oleander and mango trees. They are very fat and quite large, about 2 inches in length.

 

Mushrooms - Part 2

We have a great variety of mushrooms here of all sizes.

This one is so thin it is almost translucent.

Sibyllid Mantis (Sibylla pretiosa) Family Sibyllidae

Before you look at the other pictures, see if you can find him in the first one. The perfect disguise was some leaves caught in a spiderweb in which it was hiding itself waiting for some unsuspecting prey to come along.

Note the thorn-like nobs on the back and joints which disguise him further by breaking up the shape of his legs.

Close up of a Centipede - Family Scolopendridae

This centipede is about 5 inches long.
They are active predators.

The first segment is modified into poison fangs

and has a forked tail.

His body is flat and has one pair of legs per segment.

It was a day of finding odd things

The morning started off by me finding two small spiders in my kitchen. Both are the same species, but the odd thing was that both of them had missing limbs. This one had 5 1/2 legs....
...and this one had 6. Do you know that if they loose a limb, a new one grows out again?

There was one thing "normal" though, this bee searching for nectar.

This flower grew on a hedge but it had wo different types of flowers on it in two different colors.

This one too on a different shrub.
This is the flower of a small shrub and was quite unusual too.

Then I saw this robber fly flying around with what looked like the skin of something. I wonder what it was and what he was going to do with it?

A different kind of water scorpion (Laccotrephes) Family Nepidae

This is very different to another one of the species I posted a while back that breathes through it's tail. This is a big blighter I hauled out of the pool about 4 inches in body length. They mostly eat tadpoles and live just below the surface of the water clinging to the vegetation.

Busy Bees

He was definitely not collecting pollen but was enjoying walking around this plant for some reason.

King Cricket (Libanasidus vittatus) Family Anostostomatidae

Otherwise called the Parktown Prawn, are extremely large, nearly 3 inches.
They are nocturnal, emerging from their burrows in the early evening.

They have a varied diet which includes snails, insect grubs, earthworms, seedlings, fallen fruit and dog dropings. Adults can consume up to 4 snails per night.

When disturbed they can sqeal like a pig and eject a foul-smelling faeces.

They like well-watered, rich soils in city gardens.

I think this one was dying as it was flopping around and not getting very far.

Twig Wilter and eggs (Carlisis wahlbergi) Family Coreidae

The Wild Gardenia is in bloom and the bushes are invaded with these LARGE bugs (twig wilters). They are 2 to 2 1/2 inches in length!!

I was lucky so see this female laying her eggs on a branch, you can see it by the botom bug.

Their eggs are large too about 2-3 mm in length. The females stayed nearby to guard them.

It was definitely mating time.

Although they look like stink (shield) bugs, they belong to the family Cordeidae and not Tessaratomidae. The males do have stink glands though.