A female Tent-web spider set up residence in our garden, mid-July 2020
Click on photos below for larger images and labels.
Spider-hunting wasp (Cryptocheilus alternatus)
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Rough Saddle Bush Cricket - at about 1500m (height limit for the species)
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Scarlet Darter Dragonfly (m)
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Violet Dropwing Dragonfly (m)
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Dragonfly has just emerged from its nymph exuvia.
The stringy bits are apparently the remains of its previous respiratory system.
Too early to tell what species it is - possibly a Western Clubtail
This comical, furry Bee-mimic fly makes me laugh. It looks like a tiny bumblebee and behaves in a similar way, hovering and darting from flower to flower. You often hear its high pitched whiny buzz before you see it. In flight, those long legs flung out at the back make it look as if it's skipping through the air! Click on photos for larger image.
Rhinoceros beetle (Oryctes nasicornis). Rescued from our pool, after picking up a couple of passengers that must have mistaken it for a life raft! It's as enormous as it looks, but completely harmless to humans. Its favourite haunt is rotting wood.
Red-striped Oil beetle - also known as the Blister Beetle. Adults are up to 6cm long and they are fast runners. Although they don't look intimidating, the black and red/orange colouring gives fair warning. If threatened, they release a smelly, oily liquid. Skin that comes into contact with it can blister.
Hummingbird Hawkmoth
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Shield Bugs
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Stripey on top
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Spotted underneath
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Swallowtail on bougainvillea
Below: Swallowtail (click photos for larger image)
And this is the scarce swallowtail (which isn't scarce at all in this region)
Pupa of scarce swallowtail butterfly
Great Green Bush Cricket
Tiny cricket on a salvia leaf (the whole leaf is barely 6cm long). One way of telling the difference between crickets and grasshoppers is by the length of their antennae. Long for crickets, short for grasshoppers.
Mole Cricket
Grasshopper
Long nosed grasshopper
Rose Chafer - in Red Robin shrub
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And another - in a cordyline
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They can be as pretty underneath...
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...as on top
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But is this a different species of chafer or is it diseased? Dingy compared with the others, with either
a growth of some kind or something stuck on its back.
Praying Mantis
Cleopatra. This looks like a female but both sexes appear similar with wings closed (and can be hard to distinguish from Brimstones). When they fly, it's a different story.
Male Cleopatra
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Female Cleopatra
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Silver washed fritillary
Pine Processionary caterpillars
One of their nests. Photo taken in mid March - this one looks empty now. The hole was probably made by a hungry bird. (Birds seem to be immune to the hairs that can cause severe allergic reactions in humans and animals.)
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In procession across a road, on their way to pupate - which is the only time they leave their tree.
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Speckled Wood (early April)
This small insect looks like a wasp but I'm not sure it is one. The stripes don't look right and nor do the wings. I didn't see its eyes properly. It might be a hoverfly.
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This wasp is big. Possibly a queen, taking wood from a chair to create paper maché for her nest.
This is possibly Polistes gallicus - one of the so-called paper wasps. Very tapered abdomen at the front. Their nest is a small 'umbrella' without protective envelopes. I've seen these nests in our garden shed, and one was once started in the boot of my car. They never get big enough to pose problems like those of the common social wasp.
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Digger wasp (solitary). Thorax and abdomen are separated by a long, narrow "bar" (behind its right back leg in this picture), which makes them look intimidating to us - but they aren't aggressive.
This big, dark insect might be a solitary wasp but so far I can't identify it. It flew into dead grass with its prey, which looks like a bee.
European hornets
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Asian hornet
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Asian Hornet nest - about 1m high!
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Burnet moths
Green-veined White
Tick. Present all year round - especially in long grass - but at their worst in April. They have eight legs so are, in fact, arachnids.
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One of my favourite bees has been caught by a crab spider.
Click on photos below for larger image.
Thick-headed fly (Sicus ferrugineus). At a distance, it looked attractive. Less so close up, when I saw its abdomen curled forward underneath. That's not a deformity - they're all like that. Its behaviour is even less appealing: Females lay single eggs on bumblebees. After hatching, a larva burrows into the bee's abdomen - feeding on and later pupating inside its host.
Ladybirds and similar bugs
(click photos for larger image)
(click photos for larger image)
Adult antlion resting on the leg of a plastic table.
Click photos for larger image.
