New Pet/ Costa Rican Lepidoptera

Saludos,

I have made a new addition to my insect collection that I believe is really worth seeing.
I was walking my mutt, Izzy, and my brother, helping them both to hunt: my dog for crunchy grasshoppers, and my brother for rare Pokemon. Izzy and I stopped under a large oak tree while my brother trekked out in the blazing heat to spin a distant Pokestop, and thus get more items. As he began to march off, I noticed a giant insect on the oak.

I frantically called him back (he had both my phone and his, trying to rack up distance on his two accounts), and he came trotting over. He was impressed, although less than I was, and I convinced him to take the above picture for me on my phone. Fortunately, I had brought my handy-dandy Ziploc bag, into which the stick insect fit easily. Carefully carrying it home, I placed it in a plastic container and got some pictures.

                                                                     

                                                                   

With its legs, it measured nine inches long--as long as my forearm! My brother promptly named it Gerald. When a brief internet search later revealed "Gerald" to be a female Megaphasma denticrus, he refused to rename her and the name stuck (other family members suggested "Geraldine," but it never caught on).

Megaphasma denticrus is the largest insect species in north America, with body lengths maxing out at about 5 7/8 inches (according to an Audubon Society field guide). I estimate that Gerald is a little under six inches, although I am unable to measure her due to the fact that she always tries to grab the ruler with her forelegs and is constantly waving her abdomen. Even when resting, she lets her abdomen hang and I am unable to measure her precisely.

Unfortunately, Gerald's need for a large container meant that Jumpy had to go. I sadly released him into the harsh June wilderness. I regret the loss (now I don't have anything to which to feed our ubiquitous earwigs), but I'm sure he's happier out in the woods. 

Now, I had said that Costa Rican pictures would be in the near future, but I doubt that anyone will want to look at 120 insect pictures in one sitting, so I will break it up into butterflies and moths this week and other insects and spiders the next.

MOTHS:

From the Villa:

Our first morning at the beautiful villa with an amazing ocean view, we stepped out of our rooms to witness a feast: during the previous night, hundreds of moths, big and small, had congregated on the porch and three white-throated magpie-jays were messily devouring them. Every morning, we awakened to a similar scene, although the magpie-jays tended to come before we awoke. They typically left many behind, and, consequently, I got a lot of good moth pictures from here. As I am unfamiliar with most of the species of lepidopterans in the Guanacaste area, any identifications would be appreciated (please leave them in the comments).

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This white and brown one was beautiful and managed to survive the magpie-jays for several consecutive days. Notice the false head on it's rear (which is significantly more conspicuous in real life.)

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A larger moth with tiny slivers of white for eyespots. 

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This moth was interesting, though it was too high up for me to get a good look. The odd protrusion from the back could either be a really weird thorax or the moth's abdomen. I think it is it's abdomen, as I have scene a similar moth here:

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I do wish I had gotten a better look at the Costa Rican one, though. 

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A picture of the previous moth showing the startling orange abdomen.

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Although this black-and-white guise is likely intended to give the appearance of lizard scat, it reminds me more of cookies 'n cream Dippin' Dots!

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Light lime green and metallic grey are an interesting combination--not sure of its usefulness, though. What would it blend in with? 

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A plume moth.

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Finally, my favorite: the hieroglyphic moth, Diphthera festiva.

From the Wild: As we were constantly on the move, I photographed very few moths outside the buffet table of our villa.

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 These little guys were everywhere, from the airport to the villa to a local outdoor restaurant we visited. I only stopped to take a picture of one of them, this one in a garden at the restaurant 

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 I found this geometrid larvae on low shrubbery on a high-altitude hike. It's not the best picture, but the markings on its back are very geometric in appearance and make it look like a totem pole or a piece of indigenous jewelry. 

BUTTERFLIES:

Butterflies are, in general, more difficult to photograph than their less active counterparts. As a result, I got far fewer pictures of them, although they were literally everywhere. I saw three main types of butterflies: limish-yellow ones that fluttered to and fro (and into windshields) on almost every street; greyish-brown ones that rested on the pothole-peppered pavement when there was pavement and on the dusty gravel when there wasn't; and striking blue morphos, which stood cadaver-like behind the windows of every local gift-shop. 

From the Villa: 

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 We had a butterfly garden on the second story level, where the aforementioned yellow butterflies mingled with orange-and-black heliconians.

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 An individual feasting on a mimosa flower.

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I'm not sure whether this individual caterpillar is a butterfly or a moth, but I included it here to inflate the length of this measly section.

From the Wild:

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Now this was a particular interesting caterpillar that I would love to have identified. eight of its prolegs are in the middle, with only two in the rear, making it move with two humps. It looks like a hybrid inchworm-hornworm to me. It was at least several inches long. 

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I saw several of these hairy caterpillars on the same high-altitude hike as the totem-pole geometrid.

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What looks like a heliconian.

And that's it! Stop by next weekend for a post of the various beetles, spiders, and scorpions I encountered, as well as an update on Gerald et al. Of particular interest: trapjaw ants, camel spiders, swarming soldier beetles, a spitting spider, and a katydid that looks like a lump of guacamole (at least to me). 

Adios!

Welcome to My Blog

Greetings,

My name is Nate, and I am an amateur naturalist with a passion for behavioral entomology. I have already joined databases such as Bugguide.net and spiderid.com (for which my username is P. Almoni) and regularly contribute to them, but I feel that a blog would provide more room for behavioral observations so key in the scientific community. I plan to post weekly about a variety of subjects, including my pets and observations I make in the wild. For now, let's just get started with an introduction of my pets. (Warning: graphic images of predatory behavior to follow.)

This one is a giant wolf spider named Jumpy (I am waiting for a more positive identification, but for now, "Jumpy" will do). On the left is the wing of a bee fly, Anthrax anthrax, which it devoured in a matter of hours.

Here is Jumpy just having captured the fly. I found the fly buzzing up and down a tall, wooden fence, landing next to mason bee holes. The mimic fooled me into mistaking it for a carpenter bee from underneath. Upon a dorsal inspection, however, it was obviously not a carpenter bee. 

This is Yoda, my juvenile Chinese praying mantis. I have been keeping him in a plastic container with a Lego jungle gym for about twenty days, and just yesterday he ate his first crane fly! I'll be glad to not have to constantly supply little bugs now that he can eat larger prey. Here is a slow-motion video of how the hunt turned out. 

This is Sticky, my curved-toothed geometer caterpillar. I captured and pinned his mother, but not before she could lay two batches of eggs in her holding container. I decided to wait for them to hatch, and learned that newly hatched inchworms are difficult to contain. I returned from church one morning to find my shelf literally crawling with the little boogers, and in my frantic attempt to expel them from my house, I stuck Sticky in a vial and forgot about him. I came back a few hours later and provided a leaf for him to eat, and raised him from there. I have had him for almost a month, though I have lost track of what instar he is on. 

Finally, this is Izzy, my Otterhound-Rat Terrier mix and companion in all things entomological. We regularly go outside searching for invertebrates: I look for unusual insects and spiders to photograph, and she looks for crickets and grasshoppers to snack on. We make a pretty good team. 

I hope to keep providing interesting information and useful pictures over the coming months and years. Stay tuned for a Costa Rican insect and spider post, as well as updates on my pets and general observations—and questions—about nature.