Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Wonderful Wild Wild West On a Hot Saturday Part 2

When there wasn't any butterfly around, I would take pictures of other insects that crossed my path.

This is a common and slow-flying brightly coloured Assassin bug (Cosmolestes picticeps). It belongs to the Reduviidae family of insects in the order Hemiptera . Possessing a strong mouth part that can penetrate and inject toxin into the body of its preys, Assassin bugs live up to the name given to them. Thinking that it was an ant, I was almost fooled by its appearance initially. Of course, when I looked at the camera's viewfinder, I realised that it has eight legs, an ant-mimicking spider.This is a Giant Ant-like Jumper spider which mimics the Common Spiny ant in the genus Polyharchis.I believe this is a kind of firefly (Luciolinae sp) belonging to the beetle family Lampyridae. This beetle has light-producing substance in its lower abdomen according to a Wikipedia's page here . A kind of Tiger Beetle (Collyris bonelli ?) found wandering on a leaf surface appeared to hunt for its preys. This looks like a Scoliid wasp to me (Campsomeris species ?) resting on a berry fruit of the climber Cissus hastata.
Cissus hastata (Family : Vitaceae) is a rather common climber in our wastelands. One of the distinctive features of this vine is its reddish tendrils. Brown in colour and with a triangular head, the Broad-headed bug (Riptortus pedestris ?) is commonly found on leaves in grasslands.
This green cricket seems to love nectar as it was commonly found on all sort of flowers. I would not be able to spot this well-camouflaged katydid if it did not leap from one leaf to another. A rather common species in grasslands with a pair of big and powerful hind legs, male katydids have stridulating organs located on their forewings. The females would chirp like "katy did, katy didn't " in response to the songs made by the males during the courtship season. This is a kind of toad grasshopper, blending itself perfectly with the ground colour. I would not have noticed it if I had not gone low shooting a puddling Gram Blue butterfly nearby.

A very fruitful outing in which I used more than two CF cards to store my pictures It appeared that some wastelands in the Western part of Singapore have very rich biodiversity, waiting for us to explore further.

Related post : Wonderful Wild Wild West On a Hot Saturday Part 1

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