🐾 Maybe the reason I love animals so much, is because the only time they have broken my heart is when theirs has stopped beating.
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts

Saturday 9 December 2023

South African Paper Wasps—Vespidae

 Don’t reach for the Doom!


These are the most common wasps and all species build papery multi-celled nests of chewed wood pulp and saliva. 

They are highly social. So if you see a paper wasp nest under the eaves, do not reach for the Doom. They are not aggressive and will not attack you. They are keeping the ecosystem in your garden in equilibrium, by preying on insect larvae and aphids.




They gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use it to construct nests made of gray or brown papery material. The resultant wood pulp is remarkably strong.


“Paper wasps have an interesting lifestyle. The nests are usually founded by a single queen. A mated female from the parental nest emerges in spring and starts building the nest. She becomes the queen and is soon joined by other mated females from the same nest to form a colony. The late-comers are relegated to the worker caste. After the queen has started construction of the first hexagonal cell of the nest, the worker females add more concentric circles of cells to enlarge it.

The queen will lay all the eggs. The worker females are destined to be the workers – building the nest, hunting for food and minding the offspring.”

— Read more here :


(The pics are of 4 different wasps and they are all chewing wood on my wooden clothes drying rack.)






Friday 21 April 2023

Bag-shelter Moth (Ochragaster lunifer)

 

For about a week I've been watching these caterpillars as they crawled up the wall after some heavy rain. (This is my next-door neighbour's condo.) First of all they were all bundled together in one big mass (didn't think of taking a photo on the first day), but the next day I found them walking up the wall in straight lines.


Why do these caterpillars go in a line? They travel in long lines of hundreds or more in search of food or a suitable place to begin the transformation into their adult form : the Bag-shelter Moth. Together they present a formidable number of irritant hairs to predators and the conga line helps prevent them getting lost.

It is also thought that they walk in line to scare off predators who might think it is a snake. How clever!

These caterpillars are grey and hairy with a brown head. They grow to a length of about 4cms. When they mature, they will descend from their tree (or wall, in this case) to pupate in a silk cocoon in ground debris, and what hatches is the Bag-shelter Moth.


I have actually found that not many birds like to eat this moth. When touched it curls up, showing a black and red body, which I presume signals that it is poisonous.


By day three the "train" had moved higher up the wall, heading for the roof, it seemed.

Note the bunch of caterpillars behind the Sansevieria close to the ground.


For another day or two they kept on "clustering" and forming trains until eventually, all that was left was a few stragglers - I presume that the rest had descended to complete their pupation.

By the way, lots of caterpillars together is called an "army". These ones are also called Processionary Caterpillars or a "train".

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Saturday 31 December 2022

Spittle Bugs (or Frog Hoppers)

 

Raintree Spittle Bugs (Ptyelus flavescens) on a Coral tree. 

Spittle bugs (or Frog hoppers) on a Coral Tree (Erythrina lysistemon), indigenous to South Africa. 

As I was photograohing them, the sky was blue, and I wondered why it was raining? I actually just happened to pick a spot just beneath a family of raintree spittlebugs! 

These white foam blobs are produced by the immatures, or nymphs, of spittlebugs, small insects related to aphids and other true bugs, in the order Hemiptera. Young nymphs blow bubbles with their excretions, and so they live and feed in a glorious soggy huddle. The dripping foam keeps them moist and cool and keeps predators and parasites away.

Empty skins and some adult Spittle Bugs. 




They suck the sap of a tree through a drinking straw, called a ‘rostrum’ or ‘stylus’. Plant sap is not all that  nutritious, so the bugs have to work through a lot of it to get sufficient proteins. But this Coral Tree doesn’t seem at all the worse for the wear and as I got close to some of the bugs, they would shoot of as if out of a catapult, so I presume they disperse fairly quickly when disturbed so won’t cause too much harm to the host tree.

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Wednesday 21 October 2015

Jewellery inspired by Nature


Did you know that I make jewellery? It started way back in the 1980's, when I used to do stained glass - panels, lampshades, trinket boxes and anything else that could be made out of glass! As you can imagine, one is left with a lot of off-cut glass pieces and I had boxes and boxes full. Racking my brains as to what to do with all this glass, I picked a few small shards and started experimenting with cutting and soldering them together and it turned out that they made beautiful earrings, pendants and brooches!

 Pink stained glass clip-on  earrings with pink dangling beads

Amber stained glass pendant

Blue glass jewel and copper brooch

It wasn't long before my imagination started taking over and, as always, inspired by nature, I started making insect jewellery, mainly as ornaments, but some I fashioned into brooches. Using my 'Insects of Southern Africa' encyclopaedia pictures as reference, I painstakingly crafted each insect using copper, pewter, glass jewels, beads, silver wire and silver solder. Each Goggo/insect can take 3 or more hours to make.

A lot of research goes into making these little creatures. I use photographs for reference, live study where possible and also Google the necessary information regarding their size, habits, lifestyle, etc. Hand-crafting these little animals has taught me so much about nature and given me a new respect for all Mother Nature's beauty.

 Dung Beetle and matching dung ball earrings

The larvae of some dung beetle species are able to produce feint sounds. Some species are horned and all live on dung. The female, having laid an egg, encases it in a ball of fresh dung, which is then buries and serves as food for the larva.

This little Dung Beetle can be used as a brooch

Tarantula

The Tarantula’s appearance is worse than its bite. Tarantula venom is weaker than that of a honeybee and, though painful, is virtually harmless to humans.

Tarantulas periodically shed their external skeletons in a process called moulting. In the process, they also replace internal organs, such as female genitalia and stomach lining, and even regrow lost appendages. Tarantulas sizes range from as small as a fingernail to as large as a dinner plate when the legs are fully extended. Depending on the species, the body length of tarantulas ranges from 2.5 to 10 centimetres (1 to 4 in), with leg spans of 8–30-centimetre (3–12 in).

The underside of the Tarantula - this one could also be fashioned into a brooch by just soldering on a brooch pin

A Leopard Tortoise hand-crafted with a shell, painted with oil paints, with soldered edge and feet. The head is a yellow glass bead.


Southern Africa is very fortunate to have the largest variety of animals in the world. It is home to more than 800 bird species, 150 mammal species, about 50 snake and lizard species, 11 tortoise species and thousands of invertebrate animals like insects and arachnids.

The Leopard Tortoise (or Mountain tortoise - Geochelone pardalis) inhabits a wide range of habitats, from dry Bushveld to moister coastal plains and is the most widely distributed and also the biggest of the 12 species of land tortoise found in Southern Africa. It is believed to take its name 'mountain' tortoise from its size rather than its habitat. ('Leopard' tortoise' comes from the black and yellow blotched patterns on its high-domed carapace.)

Baboon Spider - here I used 2 green glass jewels, silver solder and silver wire

Ground-dwelling, these hairy spiders are among the world's largest, ranging from 2-6cm (body length). Various species exist in South Africa, all of them living in burrows. They have large fangs which can inflict an unpleasant bite but without serious envenomation.

 Hermit crab - here I used a shell, lots of silver solder and silver wire


The underside of the crab

Hermit crabs are decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea. Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab, into which its whole body can retract.

Hermit Crabs are very social animals and can live 10 years or more, changing shells, moulting several times throughout their lives and growing up to six inches in length. Did you know that Hermit crabs are sometimes kept as pets? Hermit Crabs are docile and are easy and economical to care for and their crabby antics, like climbing, digging and shell switching are as entertaining as they are educational!

Blue Emperor Dragonfly (Anax Imperator) - blue glass jewel for the thorax and blue glass bead for the head with silver wire wings and abdomen



The Emperor Dragonfly or Blue Emperor, Anax imperator, is a large species of hawker dragonfly of the family Aeshnidae, averaging 78 millimetres (3.1 in) in length. It is found mainly in Europe and nearby Africa and Asia. They frequently fly high up into the sky in search of prey, which includes butterflies, Four-spotted Chasers and tadpoles; small prey is eaten while flying. They breed in a variety of aquatic habitats from large ponds to dykes, but they require a plentiful supply of vegetation in the water. The females lay the eggs into plants such as pondweed, and always lay alone. The male is highly territorial, and difficult to approach.

Paper Wasp - Arthropoda. Order : Hymenoptera. Family : Vespidae
For the throrax and abdomen I used red glass beads and the rest of the wasp is made with silver wire and 
silver solder. Approx. 5cm (2") long.
 

Sometimes mistaken for a hornet, the larger Paper Wasp is a social wasp, building tube-like nests of a papery material under any convenient shelter. The smaller Paper Wasp builds much larger colonies that are aggressively protected. Larvae feed on paralysed insects.

Button Spider (Latrodectus) - Black glass jewel for the body and silver wire for the legs


The only potentially deadly spider found in South Africa. The male is small and harmless. The female's body is 10-15mm long, black, often with a red marking above the spinneret at the rear of the abdomen. Will only bite if accidentally pressed against the skin.

Inspired by the Eucalyptus trees on our property, a Blue gum leaf made out of copper covered in silver solder and a patina agent added (I use BlackIt) for a vintage look. The other earring is an Indian Silver bead depicting the seeds of the blue gum trees.

Porcupine quill wound with silver wire and soldered for a secure fit. A short dangling silver chain has a glass Mali bead. Pendant hangs from a silver chain, but some leather thonging can also be used for a more natural look.
No animals were hurt during the manufacture. All the quills I use are collected from the veld after porcupines have shed them.

A stained glass panel I made on commission in the early 80's for a game lodge in the Kalahari. Size 3m x 2m.

Another stained glass panel in 3D I did on commission, size 1m x 1.5m.

An amber Stained glass trinket box. Useful for storing jewellery, pens and pencils, tea bags, you name it!

I also use a lot of items from nature for some of my designs, like beach pebbles, stones, wood, feathers, shells and crystals.

An assortment of Rose Quartz crystal pendents.


If you're so inclined, please feel free to visit my jewellery site, "Afrika Street Jewellery", where you will find some other items I make, like cigarette lighter holders, business card holders and all sorts of other items.

Thanks for looking and hope you have a great day!

.

Saturday 18 July 2015

Orb-web Spiderling

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
~Alexander Pope

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I was SO excited this morning - discovered an Orb-web spiderling, just 3cm from the tip of her front legs to the tips of the hind legs, in my garden this morning! - she had just anchored here lines between a Cape Reed Grass spike and the one pillar of the patio when I took the picture and when I returned half an hour later, she had started on her wheel, complete with the typical thick zig-zag lines in the centre.

During the process of making an orb web, the spider will use its own body for measurements.

Many webs span gaps between objects which the spider could not cross by crawling. This is done by letting out a first fine adhesive thread to drift on the faintest breeze across a gap. When it sticks to a suitable surface at the far end, the spider will carefully walk along it and strengthen it with a second thread. This process is repeated until the thread is strong enough to support the rest of the web.

After strengthening the first thread, the spider will continue to make a Y-shaped netting. The first three radials of the web are now constructed. (the "Y"-thread can be seen in the pic below by her hind legs). More radials are added, making sure that the distance between each radial is small enough to cross. This means that the number of radials in a web directly depends on the size of the spider plus the size of the web.


After the radials are complete, the spider will fortify the center of the web with about five circular threads. Then a spiral of non-sticky, widely spaced threads is made for the spider to easily move around its own web during construction, working from the inside out. Then, beginning from the outside in, the spider will methodically replace this spiral with another, more closely spaced one of adhesive threads. It will utilize the initial radiating lines as well as the non-sticky spirals as guide lines. The spaces between each spiral will be directly proportional to the distance from the tip of its back legs to its spinners. This is one way the spider will use its own body as a measuring/spacing device. While the sticky spirals are formed, the non-adhesive spirals are removed as there is no need for them any more.

Many orb-weavers build a new web each day. I have often watched this process. Generally, towards evening, the spider will consume the old web, rest for approximately an hour, then spin a new web in the same general location. Thus, the webs of orb-weavers are generally free of the accumulation of detritus common to other species such as black widow spiders.

Camera: Canon EOS 550D - Location: My bathroom court-yard garden, Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa
(I did post this in 2012, but thought I'd bring it forward)

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