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Jonathan's Jungle
News from
October - December 2009
8th
December 2009
The most amazing
thing happened last night as a fantastic beetle
emerged from its pupal cell, something which I had
been looking forward to happening for many weeks!
He is a male of a species which doesn't have a
common English name but whose scientific name is
Chelorrhina polyphemus confluens, which is a
bit of a mouthful I'm sure you'll agree! As
you can see here he is extremely beautiful:
For more pictures of this
beautiful beetle, and for more information about its
life cycle and the process of pupation which led to
him emerging last night, please click
here.
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8th
November 2009
I am very excited about my
latest animal purchase of this week, as I have been
fortunate enough to be able to buy one of my
all-time favourite species of insect! The
bizarre creature pictured below is a species of
praying mantis with the scientific name Gongylus
gongylodes, which is commonly known as the
Wandering violin mantis or
Indian rose mantis.
This is my favourite
species of praying mantis in the world! You
can see that it has a truly remarkable appearance
with many unusual features including an incredibly
long 'neck' or thorax, leaf-like projections on its
legs and a crest on its head! For more
information about this fabulous species, as well as
many more photographs, please click on the blue
highlighted common name above the photographs.
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20th
October 2009
At the weekend I visited
the Amateur Entomological Society (AES) invertebrate
breeders/trade fair at Kempton Park racecourse.
This was my fourth year attending the event and it
is always a day I very much look forward to. I
did not acquire as many new animals as usual but
those which I did acquire I am very pleased with!
First up are some beautiful
Domino beetles,
which are a large species of tiger beetle from
India. Tiger beetles come in all manner of
colours but these ones are known as domino beetles
due to their pattern of white spots on a black body.
This particular species has six spots, but others
can have a greater or smaller number. As you
can see in the picture below they have very large
and fearsome-looking mandibles (mouthparts).
This is because they are predatory ground beetles
and hunt for various smaller creatures on the
ground, which they grab with their mandibles prior
to eating.
I bought a small group of
these beetles in the hope that I will be able to
successfully breed them myself, and here they are
pictured in part of their new home!
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As well as the domino
beetles I also bought some new beetle larvae or
grubs. All beetles start off life as grubs
and it is amazing to watch their transformation or
metamorphosis into beetles, so these are ones I am
hoping to see complete this change!
First of all I bought
myself a pair of
Elephant beetle grubs, which are the largest
grubs I have ever owned to date! The male is
the larger of the two and he weighed in at 78
grammes on the day I bought him, a truly huge grub
as you can see below!
I also bought much smaller
grubs of a couple of different beetle species, and
you can see just how much bigger the elephant beetle
grub is in the next picture!
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Finally I also bought some
nymphs of the world's largest leaf insect from
Malaysia which has the scientific name Phyllium
giganteum. These are beautiful little
animals and I am hoping to successfully raise them
into adult leaf insects because as adults they are
truly incredible, measuring up to 10cm long!
This is how they look at the moment, and as you can
see they certainly have a lot of growing to do yet!
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10th
October 2009
This morning I found that
Rosanna, my Chile rose
tarantula, had moulted overnight! It still
takes me by surprise every time I look into one of
my tarantula's enclosures following a moult as the
scene is always so amazing, with what looks like two
tarantulas being present when in fact one is just
the empty discarded exoskeleton (or exuvium)!
In the two pictures below the 'real' Rosanna is on
the left hand side:
As you can see below
Rosanna is looking especially beautiful and
colourful following her moult, with brand new hairs
and a really cuddly fluffy appearance!
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2nd
October 2009
I was delighted to find two
more baby crested
geckos this evening, one of which had only just
hatched when I did my usual evening check on the
eggs! As you can see below the babies are once
again absolutely beautiful and I'm delighted to say
that there should be many more to follow in the coming
weeks!
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