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aggienaut
Came across this fellow on a telephone pole while out strolling about in Moorepark. Actually I went strolling to take photos of kangaroos that were standing picturesquely in a field. I may or may not end up posting those photos, but they weren't as photo worthy as this crazy bastard I noticed on the way home.
It looks like a giant tick!!!! Does anyone have any idea what it is???
And then just a little further on a came across another very large --though substantially less scary looking-- insect (apparently deceased).
Look at the siiize of it! It's like sputnik!
Also I have filthy farmer hands. d:
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Date: 2012-11-24 11:45 am (UTC)http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/others/red-cicada-2650.jpg
That's what we have down here to make all the noise in summer when we don't have any crickets. (Well, New Zealand does, but they're either carnivorous cave-dwellers or are giant herbivorous ones.)
The husks do look a bit like the garthim from The Dark Crystal though, don't they? :-)
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Date: 2012-11-24 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-24 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-24 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-24 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 12:23 am (UTC)Also arrgh my back still hurts from the week of heavy lifting. For some reason the farmer doesn't believe in shallow honey supers, yet we lack the boom truck usually used for lifting off deep honey supers. They've been extracting by removing frames frame-by-frame here I guess but that just strikes me as impractically slow --- and NOT practical for emptying the top boxes enough to lift them off to check the lower boxes .... And we caught two swarms on Thursday so I'd LIKE to be going through them all busting queen cells. Greg STILL insists its "not swarming season" which is such a load of bullshit -- he just doesn't want root through the boxes for the QCs. Though I think the avoidance of shallow boxes is the first thing on Trevor's part I'd call "knowing enough about bees to have an opinion .... that is getting in the way."
Especially since unless we radically re-evalutate our trailer placement, many are placed in ways where even if I did have a lifting boom on a pickup, I can't currently drive along both sides of the trailer...
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Date: 2012-11-25 12:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 01:32 am (UTC)I've actually seen this in person and it takes quite a while for the wings to fill out. It's pretty impressive.
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Date: 2012-11-25 02:33 am (UTC)Every time they shed one of those skins, it's because they've gotten bigger and can't fit inside the old one.
And here's a cave weta:
And here's a giant weta:
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Date: 2012-11-25 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 05:19 am (UTC)And the fact that they have a 17 year life cycle. Wikipedia was unclear on whatit meant by that -- I'm assuming the eggs just sit in the ground for 17 years? I wonder what the survival rate of the eggs is. Also that would be like a human baby somehow coming into the world hundreds of years after his parents lived.
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Date: 2012-11-25 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 12:47 pm (UTC)Note: presumably not rooting about in the Australian sense.
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Date: 2012-11-25 04:05 pm (UTC)Given their diet and their above-ground proclivities in the mating season, you could accurately say they're always after a root, though! ;-)
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Date: 2012-11-26 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-01 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-02 10:25 am (UTC)