It’s critter time

Well, it’s been an interesting week. First, no sooner had I mentioned my lack of seeing wild snakes here in HK I ended up seeing some small brown thing (about 2 ft long) whilst on a small hike around the North Head in Sydney last week (summer hols). Okay, not in HK but almost coincidental (it’s only the second snake I’ve ever seen in the wild).

Secondly, a load of people started reporting seeing a shark swimming off the coast of Sai Kung (and today even in my local Tolo Harbour) and thus my HK Shark Attack entry has stormed to the top of my most popular posts. Whether or not it is/was a shark remains to be seen but, even so, all this talk about wildlife has put me in a critter mood and I thought it might be fun to look at a few bug shots I’ve taken over the years (with a nod to Yvonne at Webs of Significance, I can never better her awesomely huge orb spider pics and so I’ll post some smaller stuff ). I guess these might just be regular run-of the-mill bugs for a lot of people, but seeing as I hail from suburban UK then most of them I find quite weird, a bit cool and definitely…alien.

First off there are the cicadas. You don’t get these suckers in the UK and the cacophonous noise they are capable of making when they buzz in harmony can be deafening. They turn up late spring early summer and hang around in the tops of almost every tree in HK before completing their life-cycle and dropping dead.

It’s quite common to find them on the floor after a storm in a  somewhat semi-dazed/near-death state and this one just had enough strength to crawl onto my shoe. It was about 2 inches in length. Apparently they spend about 17 years underground before coming up for air and a last gasp chance at some reproductive action.

The next shot shows two critters. One is a dead wasp (at least I think that’s what it was) the others are a nasty little thing called weaver ants.

Wasp aside, these weaver ants can be downright vicious. They are about half and inch long and can be found all over the place. My son got bitten by some once and they give a nasty nip. I’m not sure if they are the same ant that is responsible for building nests from leaves (I thought they were green ants?).

I have no idea what the next thing is, but my attention was caught by its red colouring.

Actually I think this may be a stink bug because Yvonne also has a picture of what looks to be the same thing on her post here. Either way they look slightly different to these red bugs that I spotted in the garden of my apartment complex not so long ago. They almost look like someone has dropped a pack of sweets on the floor. Not sure you would want to eat them though. (hmm, I did wonder what it would look like if I squashed them all )

Here’s another first for me, a stick insect. Quite a big one too. This guy was walking down our road along the top of a set of HK’s ubiquitous metal railings.

Pretty cool, but he needs some instruction in proper concealment. Millions of years of evolution to look like a twig and the dude still chooses the railings.

Onto the next one that I think is some sort of tiger beetle. He kind of looks like and ant but this guy is over and inch long. He likes the railings too (or perhaps there are just so many of them there’s no space to walk anywhere else).

Ever seen a bug orgy? Not many may have so I have taken a snap of some just for you. Actually I have no idea what these guys were doing but they split pretty quickly when I shoved the camera in there for a close up (hmm, actually I think they might be UK rioters in disguise coming up with a plan to loot the local Adidas store).

Here is one for the moth lovers. This one was sitting on a rusting metal post and has some sort of weird fluffy stuff coming out from behind. Perhaps an egg covering? I have no idea but this one was quite big and measured a few inches.

The next shot is a cocoon and if you look closely at the top you can make out the bugs head. It was moving around fair deal so I assume  it was on the verge of breaking free. I guess I could have done a Terry Nutkins and stood there with my time-lapse camera taking snaps, but had more urgent matters to attend to. Still pretty cool.

Not so long ago I managed to meet up with Daniel Thomas who runs the Hong Kong on Film blog. He showed me a pick of a very strange looking bug that had almost cotton-like feathery strands coming out of its side. The next shot isn’t that bug but it reminds me of Dan’s shot (PS. Dan – did you ever get an ID?). Anyway, these following ones were snapped at the Wetland Park (well worth a visit) and looked like some sort of aphid – albeit a rather ornately decorated one. Suggestions welcome.

Finishing off with a couple of gratuitous hairy caterpillar shots. The first one looks like the grub equivalent of an 80′s hairstyle and whenever I look at it I hear Europe’s “The Final Countdown” in the back of my mind.

Actually, in my former life as someone who worked for a living I used to have a colleague called Steve who sported one of the hairy behemoths on his upper lip. I think he may have dyed his though.

last but not least another ‘pillar that has some potential use in the bottle cleaning industry. You could pop this one on a stick and clean all sorts of hard-to-get-into places.

Anyway, if there are any experts, or at least more-expert-than-me people (which encompasses just about everyone I think) seeing these photos I would love to know what some of this strange and bizarre behaviour is for.

UPDATE: Here is one just for Emilie who incidentally also has an absolutely fantastic blog called: Land of no cheese.

We were talking of centipedes and I just stumbled across a snap I took last summer (time flies so quickly and I am such a numpty I couldn’t find it earlier because I thought I had taken it earlier THIS year). Anyway, this one was about 6″ long and was kind of crawling around slowly (I believe they have very poor eyesight and ‘see’ with their feelers). I was tempted to get closer but the last thing I wanted my kids to see was me screaming like a 6 year-old girl and doing an impromptu version of Riverdance.