Tetragnatha (long-jawed water spiders)

These are very handy spiders to have as their main food is mosquitoes.

 Tetragnatha is a nocturnal and sometimes diurnal spider.

 The integument is cryptically coloured in shades of brown, cream and green for those species that occur amongst foliage. Tetragnatha has an very elongated body. The long chelicerae projects forward with long fangs folded against it. Its body length is rather small as can be seen on the picture of it on a Morning Glory below.

 The delicate orb-web, with few radii and spirals, is usually horizontally inclined over streams or bodies of water. The web is taken down and reconstructed daily and the spider is often found on an incomplete web.

 On the web the spider resembles a piece of dry grass as the front two pairs of legs are projected forward while the back pairs are projected backwards. Tetragnatha has a world distribution and is the most common genus, of the Tetragnathidae, with 14 species in South Africa. The name is derived from the Greek "tetra" means "four" and "gnathos" means "jaws".

Stink Bug (Coridius nubilis)

Family Pentatomidae

 These are large bugs and easily identified by the last two segments of the antennae being bright orange.

 They are a pest on watermelon and muskmelon plants.

 Their distribution covers all of South Africa and into Namibia where they are also found in bushveld.

Information from: Field Guide to South African Insects

African Humming Bird Moth (Macroglossum trochilus)

Family Sphingidae

After all these years of taking pictures of our smaller critters, I have learnt not to be surprised when I find something which does not look to be what it is, as in the case of this Humming Bird Moth. You wonder how it can be classified as a MOTH when it clearly looks like a BEE. :)

Not only that, but they feed on the same kind of food as bees do eg. tubular flowers and especially lavender. They are about the same size and coloration too.

See also: http://saphotographs.blogspot.com/2009/02/african-humming-bird-moth_11.html

African Wood White (Leptosia alcesta inalcesta)

 Family Pieridae

The female is larger than the male and its wings are rounder.

 This butterfly is easily recognized by the spot on the upper wing.

 It is a woodland and rain forest dweller with a slow wing-beat and stays out of the sun.

Info from: Field Guide: Butterflies of Southern Africa  By Ivor Migdoll

Red Bugs (Cenaeus carnifex)

Family Pyrrhocoridae

These are small, about 9mm in body length and are found along our eastern coastal regions of lush vegetation forest margins and gardens.

 They are encountered in groups on seed heads of herbaceous plants, often in mated pairs.

Information from: Field Guide to Insects of South Africa.

Cape Dwarf Gecko (Lygodactylus capensis)

Family Gekkonidae

The Cape Dwarf Gecko (Lygodactylus capensis) is found in the woodlands and forests of central and southern Africa.

 Length (snout to vent length) is 39 mm for males, 43 mm for females. Throat is stippled with grey or brown while the belly is cream coloured. The back is grey-brown with dark streak from snout to shoulder or beyond. It is sometimes seen as a pet.

Information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_dwarf_gecko

Epaulet Skimmer (Orthetrum Chrysostigma)

Family Libellulidae

 Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, dry savanna, moist savanna, subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, river, intermittent rivers, shrub-dominated wetlands, swamps, freshwater lakes, intermittent freshwater lakes, freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marches, and freshwater springs. The adults prey on various flying insects, with the bodies of the males being vivid blue and those of the females a bright green color.

Information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthetrum_chrysostigma

Cavernous Crystalwort (Riccia Cavernosa)

Bryophyte

I found this growing on a rock in the Olifants River a long while back and have never been able to identify it. It is about 2.5cm in diameter and a type of Liverwort. A very nteresting find for me.

Thanks to Nigel from http://www.ispot.org.za for telling me what it is.

 What is a liverwort?



A liverwort is a flowerless, spore-producing plant - with the spores produced in small capsules. The introductory WHAT IS A BRYOPHYTE? page noted that bryophytes have a gametophyte stage and a sporophyte stage. The spore capsule (possibly with a supporting stalk, or seta) is the sporophyte and this grows from the gametophyte stage.


The aim of this page is simply to describe the features you can see in a liverwort. You will see much, but by no means all, of the variety to be found in the liverworts. While the identification of liverworts often requires the use of a microscope, you can learn a lot just by using your eyes and a hand-lens that magnifies 10 times. In the reference button you’ll find some books with good colour photographs of Australian liverworts. Looking through them will give you a good introduction to liverwort diversity.


The division of the liverworts into leafy and thallose is very useful and is used by all bryologists. However, it is important to note that there are a few liverworts, classified as thallose, which come very close to leafy in appearance. The liverworts show a great variety of gametophytic form (far greater than that shown by mosses or hornworts). Regardless of whether a liverwort is leafy or thallose, the gametophyte is the dominant stage - in terms of both bulk and longevity. Sporophytes are fairly ephemeral. This is markedly different to the flowering plants where the sporophyte is the dominant stage.


All liverworts produce mucilage, which helps liverworts absorb and retain water. The mucilage is produced by the gametophytes, either internally in slime cells or externally in slime papillae. The latter are simply very tiny outgrowths, possibly stalked, from the gametophyte. Amongst the thallose liverworts there are genera (such as Riccardia, right) in which the mucilage is produced by slime papillae and genera (such as Marchantia) with internal slime cells. In the leafy liverworts mucilage is produced in slime papillae, which may be found on stems or leaf tips, depending on the species. Liverworts produce mucilage at the growing points and this mucilage protects the growing points from drying out.


Since liverworts are photosynthesizing plants, their cells contain chloroplasts. In addition to chloroplasts, the cells of about 90% of liverwort species contain oil bodies . These vary in size, shape and number per cell, depending on species and are therefore useful for identification. While often colourless, brown and blue oil bodies are also found. There are species in which the oil bodies are found in the majority of cells, while in others they are confined to isolated cells. In some cases the oil bodies are persistent and can be found in dried, herbarium specimens but in many species the oil bodies disintegrate when a specimen is dried for storage in a herbarium and the oil bodies are then permanently lost. The compounds found in these oil bodies are various terpenoids and the amount produced various between species. In many cases the functions of these compounds are unknown, but they do give distinctive aromas or tastes to various liverworts.


Another feature common to virtually all liverworts is the presence of rhizoids. These are anchoring structures, superficially root-like, but without the absorptive functions of true roots. Liverworts in the genus Haplomitrium lack rhizoids and have a rhizome-like growth, with both erect and subterranean stems. As a rule liverwort rhizoids are single-celled, with just a few species having multi-celled rhizoids.


The male and female gametes (sperm and eggs) are produced on the gametophyte (in antheridia and archegonia, respectively) and a fertilized egg will develop into a spore-bearing sporophyte. Thus the spores are part of the sexual reproduction cycle. There's more about this in the REPRODUCTION SECTION.

Information from: http://www.anbg.gov.au/bryophyte/what-is-liverwort.html  

Ground Beetle (Cypholoba graphipteroides)

Family Carabidae

I have for a long time been looking for someone to identify this beautiful beetle and this was done by the friendly Simon van Noort who is the Curator of Entomology at Iziko South African Museum.

This beetle is about 2cm in length.

Thank you Simon, it is greatly appreciated.

 The following information is an extract from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3332019/

 These beetles are conspicuous elements of savanna and woodland ecosystems, where they are typically found running in bright sunshine over bare ground, or in short grasses (Fig. 1; Marshall and Poulton 1902).

 Like most other members of the tribe Anthiini, species of Cypholoba have the ability to excrete formic acid from their pygidial glands as a defensive behavior (Péringuey 1896).

 Most species in this genus are black and many species have white setal patches or setal tufts (Fig. 1) that are thought to have evolved through mimicry of Mutillidae, Formicidae, and other stinging Hymenoptera (Marshall and Poulton 1902).

 These beetles are of potential interest to entomologists and evolutionary biologists studying phenomena such as mimicry, aposematic coloration, and the evolution of chemical defenses.

 Species of Cypholoba, like many other Anthiini, also show close associations with particular ecosystems or vegetation communities and their activity patterns are closely tied with environmental variables such as temperature and rainfall, and overall climate patterns such as seasonal monsoons (Schmidt 2001; Mawdsley et al. 2011).

Given the relatively large adult body size of most Cypholoba species (length 15–33 mm), their diagnostic color and setal patterns (Strohmeyer 1928) and their conspicuous activity patterns and behaviors (Schmidt 2001), these beetles could easily be incorporated into environmental monitoring programs which track overall ecosystem condition, status, and trends.

additional info from Riaan Stals (iSpot)
"This species belongs to the same tribe as the 'oogpisters' of the genus Anthia: http://www.ispot.org.za/search/determination/anthia. That is in the tribe Anthiini.

Cypholoba graphipteroides is a species that is not uncommonly encountered from Zululand to the northern provinces of South Africa. In the Kruger National Park [this observation], this species is the most abundant and most frequently encountered member of the tribe Anthiini. Adults emerge in the early rainy season, are typically found near flowing water, and are active both by day and by night. They have characteristically brisk walking behaviour."

Thanks Riaan

Hawk Moth (Nephele comma)

This is a medium-size moth belonging to the Sphingidae family.

 Distribution

Throughout Africa south of the Sahara as well as adjacent islands.

Underside

 

 Pollinates a variety of long-tubed flowers including:


• Caricaceae

Carica papaya (Papaya, Papaw, Pawpaw). A cultivated species, pollinated by hawkmoths, including Nephele comma. Martins & Johnson (2009) in a study conducted in rural Kenya, found that natural habitats were important in sustaining hawkmoth populations because they contained the larval hostplants needed in completing the life cycle. Hence, papaya plants grown near natural habitats were more likely to be pollinated than those isolated from natural habitats.

Information from: http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/lepidoptera/sphingidae/nephele_comma.htm