A small Elegant Grasshopper having lunch.
I left home so early that I still managed to catch this dew drop on a weed.
A wild flower......
This was unusual for me as the caterpillar normally builds a cacoon around itself but this one was protecting one spun in the grass. Anyone know what it going one here?
The female lays her eggs in the dung and then she holds onto the ball as the male pushes it with his rear legs.
They would not stop moving and I had to put my finger onto it in order to get some pictures. The male would get so mad, he would crawl onto my finger. :)
Common Metallic Longhorns (Promeces longipes)
Small dotted fruit Chafer.
He was trying to bury himself in this flower.
His back is disguised to look like bird droppings so he can hide away from predators. In the picture above, it has some egg sacks it was watching over.
Wooly Bee fly.....
Hidden in a thick shrub I found this chameleon hiding but the poor thing look to be very old and thin. Later on I found another one which was in its prime. I am hoping that next season when I plant my garden, I will have a few in my plants too.
This is tiny, about 3-4 mm in length. I think it is the egg of a Braconid Wasp and I am watching it to see what hatches but knowing my luck, it will do so when I am at work. :)
...and almost all of them were in pairs and mating.
Needless to say there are lots and lots of spiders..... this one was huge, about as big as my hand and I almost walked into its web....
Most of them are Golden Orb spiders which are rather pretty....
...okay, I know most of you are not going to agree with that statement. LOL!!
This one had caught herself a fly for dinner.
There are other species around too but I do not have time to have them identified.
These wasps actively hunt for spiders and it had a small jumping spider which it had caught.
These wasps have very long legs and a few of the species are wingless.
It obviously had a nest under a piece of machinery which was standing there and I watched it trying to manouvre itself with its prey, under it. The spider would be placed in one of its cells in order to feed the wasps babies when they hatch.
The belong to the Scarabaeidae (Scarab) family and are very small in size, less than ½ and inch.
They tend to bury themselves half inside flowers and come in the most fantastic bright colors. Trust me to only find dull brown ones. :)
All of this species are covered with soft hairs and the females are smaller than the males.
A pretty caterpillar feeds on the small wild flowers.
Stinkhorn mushrooms attract all kinds of flies but secreting a brown substance which smell awful. The flies help disperse its spores. I have never seen one of these either except in books. This is about 4 inches in height.
The first is the Mottled Veld (field) Antlion - Palpares caffer - which is very large. This one was about 3” in body length with a 4” length to its wings.
They have two sets of wings and the patterns on each are vastly different.
They are a very widespread species, extending in tropical Africa and are found in a variety of habitats.
This is its larvae who travel freely just under the soil ambushing prey.
A Gregarious Antlion – Hagenomyia tristis – with a bluish tint to its wings and yellow legs.
This is smaller than the first species, maybe 2 inches in wing length.
A larvae which I do not know the species of but might belong to the species below.
A Red Lacewing – Dysochrysa furcata.
One of my favorite flowers has always been Gladioli. Next summer I am planning to plant a lot of them in my garden.
One never associates wasps with pollen gathering but there were almost as many wasp species as there were bees.
This one had its nose buried deep in the flowers.
A very pretty moth was hanging for dear life and the stalk of grass but as soon as I got near it took off.
I eventually managed to get a shot of it but it was very dark and with making the adjustment so you can see it, this pic did not turn out very well.
They live on young shoots od trees and shrubs and have stink glands between the middle and hind legs.
This one does not appear in my book but is the same family although he is only about 1 inch in length.
Male phasmids are generally smaller than the females and have more functional wings. It is usually the males that will fly around to locate a mate. Female phasmids usually lay their eggs in leaf litter and can lay between 100 and 1000 depending on the species. The eggs may hatch in the same season they were laid or remain in the litter to hatch up to 3 seasons later depending on the conditions. Nymphs moult several times before reaching maturity and development may take from a few weeks up to a few months.
I think this might be a Snipe or Horse Fly but I cannot find out more about them.