Australian green grocer cicada (Cyclochila australasiae) in yellow form

Photo by Chris Mattison

Bugs! 🐞

Myrmecia sp. Always fun to photograph. The first image is a very small image stack.

Sky Edwards

2023

Canon R7

Canon EF 100mm macro

Probably with my Raynox 250 diopter?

gross friend!

so… my poppy caught the monster ant, somehow, while i was standing on the bed squealing… now i get to try and ID it.! pretty sure she’s a Giant Brown Bull Ant, and she’s not a queen at all, just a giant humungous soldier ant. and my rough estimate was pretty spot on, she’s almost 3n a half cm.

kind of really enamoured with her. still cannot get over the size of the beast! these types of ants, of the subfamily Myrmeciinae, are the most primitive of all living ants, the species which comprise it being some of the largest ants in australia.

this one, Myrmecia pyriformis or M. brevinoda, is certainly the largest in my area. it’s head is the size of the nail on my little finger. i don’t think i can ever recall seeing one prior to this, a most shocking, scary, and incredible discovery.!

…🐜

The other day I saw one Mantis born from its egg, I thought that maybe the other ones had already taken off, but the next day I went outside and looked at the egg and a few more had come out. The egg was not in a very good spot (they rarely seem to be) so I put them on a plant where they all got under a leaf (it was very windy) and browned up a bit. I'm not sure if it's normal for them to hatch in the middle of winter, I have another mantis egg on a wall behind a table outside no where near any plants that I will keep my eye on. It is fairly recent, maybe a month, so I doubt it will hatch soon considering this freshly hatched egg was there for months, I actually thought nothing was going to come out of it. Praying Mantis are one of my biggest phobias (along with moth, butterfly and grasshopper) but I am trying to conquer it by taking photos and being around them more. What I liked about the mantis is that it is born looking exactly like what it is, unlike a lot of other insects. I just liked how tiny and already praying mantis it was. I liked this photo because it already has it's huge eyes and triangular head by oh so tiny. I still this year have not seen any adult praying mantis, but at least I got to see how they start for the first time in real life.

Australian common garden katydid, Caedicia simplex, Tettigoniidae

Although normally green, erythrism (a condition causing excessive production of red pigments) is not incredibly uncommon in this species or in grasshoppers and katydids in general.

Photos 1-2 by coffey09, 3 by lisa_bennett, 4 by william-harland, 5 by helenmacky, 6 by ssw-burlg, 7-8 by flossiepip, and 9 (normal coloration) by dougalt

just for fun, a compilation of every wasp species I've seen drink from the pond so far.

Spider Wasp, genus Fabriogenia.

Potter Wasp, subfamily Eumeninae.

Potter Wasp, genus Paralastor.

Square-headed Wasp, subfamily Crabroninae.

Vase-cell Mud-dauber Wasp, Sceliphron formosum.

Square-headed Wasp, genus Pison.

Australian Paper Wasp, Polistes humilis.

Peppermint stick insect head (Megacrania batesii)

Photo by Juergen Freund

More bugs 🐜

I’ve reached a new hyper fixation atm

@onenicebugperday i saw a nice bug today. he wasn't great at holding on to me but he tried his best

Alligator with butterflies

Image credit: Ama la Vida

Hi! I was wondering, have you posted about the Saunders’ Case Moth yet? I just think it’s a cool-looking moth.

Moth Of The Day #246

Saunders' Case Moth / Large Bagworm

Metura elongatus

From the psychidae family. The males have a wingspan of 30 mm, the females do not have wings and remain in the larval case. They can be found in the eastern half of Australia.

Image sources: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Cooleenup Island Species List - MINOR ORDERS

2023 - June 9th to 11th.

12C-18.5C, 2.4mm-12.5mm rain, strong wind on Sunday

INSECTS - THYSANURA

Silverfish 1 sp. (Lepismatidae)

INSECTS - TRICHOPTERA

Longhorned Caddisfly 1 sp. (Leptoceridae)

INSECTS - PSOCOPTERA

Unidentified Barklouse 1 sp.

INSECTS - DERMAPTERA

Dacnodes shortridgei

Unidentified Earwig 1 sp.

You know I think it's as important to teach basic compassion for animals as it is teaching about invasive species. There's this video of some person stomping on a lantern fly and then setting it on fire and idk maybe you don't actually care about the ecosystem or whatever you just want some justification to be cruel to animals you deem disgusting and useless but that's just me