Yellow flower (crab) spider

Leaving the office the other day I noticed a yellow spider sitting on a plant close to the door.  Don't ask me how I spotted him, I just did.  Turns out it was a Yellow Flower (or Crab) Spider.  They are of the family Misumena and can either be yellow or white depending on the flower they are hunting on.  During early summer young males can be quite small and easily overlooked, but females grow up to 10 mm (excluding legs) with males reach 5 mm at most.

At the time I assumed the object on this picture was an egg sack and I have a feeling I may be right.  Older females require large amounts of relatively large prey to produce the best possible clutch of eggs. 

 

Generally it is often very hard even for a searching human to recognize one of these spiders on a yellow flower so an insect wanting to land on a flower occupied by one of these better make sure his will is in order. 

So much more than just a locust

Everything has a proper name although as far as the animal kingdom goes us humans often just refer to them by the "overarching" or general name.  That was the case when I found this locust at Brakkeduine close to Oyster Bay west of Port Elizabeth.  It was just a locust.  But I started wondering what kind of locust as to not look too stupid when I do my post.  Where to start? Well, when it comes to insects I go straight to the Bug Lady, Joan Shaw.  And I was correct.  It wasn't just a locust.  It was a Green Milkweed Locust (Phymateus leprosus) of the Family Pyrgomorphidae.  Shows you what I know.  Thanks Joan.

Baby grasshoppers

Going for a walk along one of the trails at Sleepy Hollow outside Port Elizabeth I noticed a black blob in the long grass next to the trial.  Now being a curious creature (and always looking for something to photograph), I decided to have a closer look and this is what I found.  A whole bunch of little baby grasshoppers.

Getting up after one or two pics I noticed for the first time that there was a Praying Mantis in the grass below the grasshoppers enjoying one of them for breakfast.  Would have been a great shot but the grass was in the way and my camera a bit slow on the focus to just move the grass and get a quick pic.  I decided not to disturb his brekkie any further and moved on.

Spider's house

I wonder what type of eight legged critter lives in this hole?

Flightless Dung Beetle

One of the smallest but best known inhabitants of the Addo Elephant National Park is the Flightless Dung Beetle (Circellium bacchus).  The Flightless Dung Beetle is endemic to the Addo Elephant Park and surrounds and very unique in the fact that they can't fly and hence the name. 

This fact also makes the beetle a vulnerable species as they only use elephant and buffalo dung to feed off and lay their eggs in and at the time when these animals were being shot out it meant that the poor beetle couldn't just take to the sky and find another place with those big animals.

Even though they are restricted in where they occure, they are quite commen within their range throughout the park. Visitors to the park are asked though to be very careful when driving through the park and not to drive over dung on the road and kill the beetles in the process.

Aliens amongst us

Do you believe in Aliens?  Arnie took on the Predator, Sigourney fought the Alien and then the two of them (the Alien and the Predator) clashed with each other.  But do they really exist?  Looking at the picture above I would say that the answer may just be yes. 

The other day our general assistant at work came running into my office babbling on about this thing she saw outside and that I must take my camera to get a photo of it.  I barely had time to grab my camera before she dragged me outside and showed me the biggest Praying Mantis I have seen in my life.  She stood as tall as my coffee mug and now that I think of it perhaps I should have taken along my mug to put down next to her.

So next time you are out and about wondering if there are such things as aliens, don't just look up into the sky but also down at your feet.

Spider in his wet web

Often when you go for a walk in the early morning you will see hundreds of little spider webs in the grass all covered in dew.  But have you actually ever seen those spiders?  I like to peek and have a look, always with the hope to get a photo of one.  And the other day I got lucky.  This little guy was sitting in the opening in the web, probably waiting for something smaller than me to come along.  He didn't hang around long enough to find out my intentions, but just long enough for me to snap one picture. Got ya!

Black Locust

On a recent hike down the Lower Guinea Fowl Trail here in Port Elizabeth I found this black locust in the long grass.  He didn't seem to mind me sticking my camera in his face and if you look carefully you will notice that he has what looks like a red toothy grin. Big smile for the camera.

Testing 1-2-3

I've been fiddling with the blog's layout all evening, changing dimensions so that I can add bigger pictures and redesigning the title masthead.  I think I may have it now so the flower with the fly on it will act as a test run.  I do still have a number of pictures that have been edited smaller for the old layout so they will still get posted, but all the new ones will be this size from now on.  Any comments on either the new layout or the masthead?

Fly on a pod

There isn't much of a story to this other than: "Once there was a fly who touched down for a rest on a Schotia Tree pod..." The choice was either swatting or photographing.  Guess which one I chose.  I couldn't get any closer though.  He wouldn't let me.

Twig Wilter Bug again

I did a post on Twig Wilter Bugs about 18 months or so ago after finding a number of them in my garden.  It seems that they appear seasonally as a little while back I had a whole "invasion" of them on a creeper plant in my back yard.  They live off the sap of the plants causing the plants to wilt.  Hence the name.

Seeing that they produce a foul-smelling secretion as a defence I decided to keep my distance, although they kept on turning around and moving off when I got too close with my camera. 

Yellow

There isn't much I have to add to the picture.  Its not the best closeup, there is too much shadow and the flower is slightly wilting, but if I don't post it today I probably never will.  Usually after downloading photos off the camera I sit and edit those I want to load onto my blogs.  At the time I um'ed and ah'ed about this one and decided to just edit it for posting, perhaps along with a couple of other bug pics.  But its been sitting on my memory stick looking at me every day for 6 months now.  So its now or never.