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April 2024
April 2024
It’s too much!
… the crocus
Spring is around the corner. And I just can´t wait!
“Looking forward to see your pictures of insects of Madagascar,” my former colleague Gert van Ee said when I posted the first results from the Madagascar trip. Gert is a well-known insect expert in the Netherlands.
“I’ll see what I can find, but I’m afraid we didn’t see many insects,” I replied. “And it will take some time to go through those 15.000 pictures.”
So this is the result. A couple of insects indeed, and some other arthropods as well (arachnids)
(lead picture: Brilliant blue – Junonia rhadama)
Madagascar Forest nymph – Aterica raben
Green lady – Graphium cyrnus (feeding on dung)
Walker’s owl – Erebus macrops (Huge! Like 15 cm.)
Giraffe-necked weevil – Trachelophorus giraffa
Praying mantis ( I apologise for not always finding the exact species names – If you know them do not hesitate to mention them)
Green stick insect – Achrioptera manga
Madagascar Flatid leaf insect – Phromnia rosea. They look like flowers, but they are tiny insects (see detail)
Black & White curculionidae weevil – Rhytidophloeus rothschildi
Grasshopper – locust (pretending to be larger than life)
Madagascar black scorpion – Grosphus madagascariensis
Huntsman spider – Damastes sp. (Like 10 cm big. And spitting venom to the guides!)
Golden orb web spider – Nephila sp. (Huge female, like 15 cm. And a tiny but very brave male behind her, hoping to mate but fearing to be eaten)
Zebra spider – Viridasius sp. (Huge! Like 15 cm, and living in our lodge)
Red crab backed orb weaver – Medium wing kitespider – Gasteracantha versicolor (small but beautiful!)
Enormous, really huge wasp – Belonogaster sp.
So I went into the woods (which is less than five minutes from home) and took this picture of a beech. “Quite erotic,” my girlfriend said when she saw the print. Like bodies in a state of ecstasy.
A real life Rorschach test, this tree!