When I wander about with my camera looking for bugs I generally look down towards the path-side shrubs or I look at the tree trunks for camouflaged moths / spiders. Yesterday I realised that I rarely looked at anything above eye-level. On my way back down the hill I changed approach and looked at eye-level and above. I was rewarded with a few finds that I would otherwise have missed.
First up is this very attractive little grasshopper nymph. You know its a nymph because it is still wingless. It was all on its own. I searched high and low but failed to find any kith or kin.
The trouble with nymphs is that they can bare startlingly little resemblance to the imago (adult) gropper. Who remembers this from way back when? Who would have thought that the top one was once just like its pooping younger version. This ID mystery took some solving. I spent several hours trying to identify the pooper. Grasshopper poop is called frass, I believe, if you are of a technical bent. Oh and it is Oxya chinensis in case you wondered.
Here’s another one. Or two to be precise. Making more gropper nymphs.
Oxya chinensis – Rice grasshopper
And my other look-up bonus was this larva or caterpillar:
This is probably a 3rd or 4th instar Papilio helenus helenus. Its very similar to another species so I am not 100% sure. Do you see the cat face?
Of course if you only look up then you miss things as well. I found this on the way up. It did not want to hang around so I only had half a dozen handheld shots before it scuttled off. It is a weevil. The power of Facebook tells me it is Baryrhynchus poweri. There are some very knowledgeable people on FB if you know where to find them (clue: check the entomology page).
And that is it for today. Work tomorrow – another unwelcome interruption to my attempt at retirement. But if you have a photography habit you have to fund it. And Mrs. Ha desperately needs (not) another pair of shoes. I assuage my lens-complex guilt by signing off a chitty for another trip to the shoe emporium. Such are the compromises of a happy marriage. So I am told.
All downhill from here 