More piccies from Switzerland
- Padfield
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More piccies from Switzerland
Snow fell on Saturday and today was bitterly cold until the afternoon. Just 9 species left on the wing in the Valley, of which 8 are British butterflies.
Wall
Queen of Spain
Clouded yellow
Clouded yellow egg
Berger's pale clouded yellow
Painted lady
Red admiral
Adonis blue
Grayling
Tree graying (the only one not on the British list)
This mantis had got herself a grasshopper!!
Guy
Wall
Queen of Spain
Clouded yellow
Clouded yellow egg
Berger's pale clouded yellow
Painted lady
Red admiral
Adonis blue
Grayling
Tree graying (the only one not on the British list)
This mantis had got herself a grasshopper!!
Guy
Guy's Butterflies: https://www.guypadfield.com
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- Gruditch
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Some nice shots Guy, the mantis reminds me of a conversation I overheard at the AES Exhibition over the weekend. A rather posh Father telling to his son "my general feeling on a mantis is no". Even though I was in the pet trade for a number of years, there just seems to be something wrong about an 8 year old being responsible for the welfare of such a wonderful creature.
Regards Gruditch
Regards Gruditch
- Padfield
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
I agree with you, Gruditch! Mantises are interesting creatures with quite complex behaviour. They also fly a lot. They look something like a large grasshopper in flight, but they fly at eye level and can go quite some distance. I wouldn't like to see one in a cage (quite apart from the fact you'd have to feed it with live insects).
I had stick insects when I was a kid (rescued from a laboratory). Stick insects are nearly all females (mine were all female) and just sit around munching bramble leaves while churning out eggs, which bounce on the bottom of the cage all night and hatch out into hundreds and hundreds more stick insects... In the year I had them I never saw a male, though they can be generated (insect females are XY and males XX, so females can make males). In the end, I put my stick insects on the bramble at the bottom of the garden when we went on holiday at the end of August, knowing they would go torpid and die when the winter came. They did. But they had a pretty good life before then.
Guy
I had stick insects when I was a kid (rescued from a laboratory). Stick insects are nearly all females (mine were all female) and just sit around munching bramble leaves while churning out eggs, which bounce on the bottom of the cage all night and hatch out into hundreds and hundreds more stick insects... In the year I had them I never saw a male, though they can be generated (insect females are XY and males XX, so females can make males). In the end, I put my stick insects on the bramble at the bottom of the garden when we went on holiday at the end of August, knowing they would go torpid and die when the winter came. They did. But they had a pretty good life before then.
Guy
Guy's Butterflies: https://www.guypadfield.com
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The Butterflies of Villars-Gryon : https://www.guypadfield.com/villarsgryonbook.html
- Dave McCormick
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Good shots Guy, I definatly like the mantis. Reminds me of someone I used to know. He had a praying mantis and kept it on a big plant on his table in a room and fed it crickets and cockroaches. He even told me he ate on the same table as the mantis. Not me, I'd never have something like that on my table.
I know in australia that stick insect females just run up a tree branch and drop an egg on ground, with the end covered in a sugary substance. The eggs look like seeds and ants in area collect seeds and take them back to nest and they do same with the stick insect eggs and when they hatch, the young scoot out of the nest and up the nearest tree. After my last stick insects, I stick to rearing local butterflies/moths and not non native insects.
Reminds me of a few years back. I had stick insects. Started with two males and two females. Ended up with 100+ by the end of that year. I gave many away and ended up doing what you did, putting my last few on brambles near my house and they died in winter.I had stick insects when I was a kid (rescued from a laboratory). Stick insects are nearly all females (mine were all female) and just sit around munching bramble leaves while churning out eggs, which bounce on the bottom of the cage all night and hatch out into hundreds and hundreds more stick insects... In the year I had them I never saw a male, though they can be generated (insect females are XY and males XX, so females can make males). In the end, I put my stick insects on the bramble at the bottom of the garden when we went on holiday at the end of August, knowing they would go torpid and die when the winter came. They did. But they had a pretty good life before then.
I know in australia that stick insect females just run up a tree branch and drop an egg on ground, with the end covered in a sugary substance. The eggs look like seeds and ants in area collect seeds and take them back to nest and they do same with the stick insect eggs and when they hatch, the young scoot out of the nest and up the nearest tree. After my last stick insects, I stick to rearing local butterflies/moths and not non native insects.
Cheers all,
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- Padfield
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
I didn't know that about the Australian stick insects, Dave. Thanks!
What a bizarre idea - eating at table with a mantis!
They're creatures of myth and legend. Season 1, episode 4 of Buffy features a giant She-mantis looking for virginal schoolboys to mate with and decapitate.
I find them very photogenic. This is one of my favourite pictures, taken in 2007. The mantis looks just like a sheathed grass stem, apart from that alien head!
Guy
What a bizarre idea - eating at table with a mantis!
They're creatures of myth and legend. Season 1, episode 4 of Buffy features a giant She-mantis looking for virginal schoolboys to mate with and decapitate.
I find them very photogenic. This is one of my favourite pictures, taken in 2007. The mantis looks just like a sheathed grass stem, apart from that alien head!
Guy
Guy's Butterflies: https://www.guypadfield.com
The Butterflies of Villars-Gryon : https://www.guypadfield.com/villarsgryonbook.html
The Butterflies of Villars-Gryon : https://www.guypadfield.com/villarsgryonbook.html
- Lee Hurrell
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Great picture Guy.
She was quite nice, the mantis teacher lady if I remember correctly. I'm halfway through season 7 at the moment!
Cheers
Lee
She was quite nice, the mantis teacher lady if I remember correctly. I'm halfway through season 7 at the moment!
Cheers
Lee
To butterfly meadows, chalk downlands and leafy glades; to summers eternal.
- Pete Eeles
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Or reptiles I found this mantis and lizard eying each other up while on holiday in Menorca in 2002. The mantis won - which surprised me!padfield wrote:I wouldn't like to see one in a cage (quite apart from the fact you'd have to feed it with live insects).
Cheers,
- Pete
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- Padfield
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
What a drama! It's a harsh world out there.
I believe that is a juvenile ocellated lizard, Lacerta lepida. It had many things still to learn about life in the brush, poor thing...
G
I believe that is a juvenile ocellated lizard, Lacerta lepida. It had many things still to learn about life in the brush, poor thing...
G
Guy's Butterflies: https://www.guypadfield.com
The Butterflies of Villars-Gryon : https://www.guypadfield.com/villarsgryonbook.html
The Butterflies of Villars-Gryon : https://www.guypadfield.com/villarsgryonbook.html
Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Guy, I think it's a Moroccan Rock Lizard Lacerta perspicillata. Known only from Minorca in Europe, where it was first noted in 1928, a presumed introduction. Ref. Collins Field Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Britain and Europe. A nice find, Pete.
Misha
Misha
- Padfield
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Thanks Misha - my book doesn't have that one!
Guy
Guy
Guy's Butterflies: https://www.guypadfield.com
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- Pete Eeles
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Typical. The only one I saw and it was a "gonner" within seconds Thanks for the info, though, very enlightening.Mikhail wrote:Guy, I think it's a Moroccan Rock Lizard Lacerta perspicillata. Known only from Minorca in Europe, where it was first noted in 1928, a presumed introduction. Ref. Collins Field Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Britain and Europe. A nice find, Pete.
Misha
Cheers,
- Pete
Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies: http://www.butterflylifecycles.com
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- geniculata
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
since were doing a bit of prey identification,
i wonder if misha could confirm if guys mantis is taking out a blue-winged grasshopper, not a species ive ever seen but i believe we have as resident in the channel islands.
gary.
i wonder if misha could confirm if guys mantis is taking out a blue-winged grasshopper, not a species ive ever seen but i believe we have as resident in the channel islands.
gary.
- Padfield
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
If it helps, I can confirm that the commonest flash colour for grasshoppers here is blue, but we do have red ones too.
Guy
Guy
Guy's Butterflies: https://www.guypadfield.com
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
Gary, I can't see the victim well enough to hazard a guess.
Misha
Misha
- geniculata
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Re: More piccies from Switzerland
well it was a long shot!
don't help that its part dismembered
good set of pics though!
cheers gary.
don't help that its part dismembered
good set of pics though!
cheers gary.