WASP -6

Location – Palode, Thiruvananthapuram

MY OBSERVATIONS

08-9-11 – Collected some eggs in a leaf

                Eggs are only 2 mm in diameter

                                                        Enlarged view

14-9-11 – Emerged. There is a lid in the egg. The young one pushed opened it and 

               come out

Very tiny fly. Having 3mm in length.

                   When enlarged it looks like a wasp

Giant Red Eye Butterfly (Gangara thyrsis thyrsis)

Location : Thuckalai, Tamilnadu

23-01-2011 – Caterpillar from coconut tree leaf. Grayish white in colour covered with white powdery hairs. Edges of the leaf is pasted together and stay inside it. For a little disturbance the pupa shivering with sounds (the sound is due to the hitting of the pupa against the leaf)

 The leaf is folded in such a way that if rain comes no water can enter inside the cover

Host Plant : Coconut tree (Cocos nucifera)

24-01-2011 – The leaf roll opened.

27-01-2011 – Emerged out

It is “Giant Red Eye” (Gangara thyrsis thyrsis)

Kingdom:      Animalia

Phylum:          Arthropoda

Class:            Insecta

Order:            Lepidoptera

Family:           Hesperiidae

Genus:           Gangara

Species:        G. thyrsis

Also check the blog White Caterpillar from Kollam

MOTH-3

Location : Palode, Thiruvananthapuram

MY OBSERVATIONS

13-1-2011 – collected a caterpillar. There are number of different aged caterpillars in the plant.

Host Plant :  Breynia patens (Roxb.) Rolfe

Common Name: Cup & Saucer, Peruniuri (Malayalam),    The plant grows as a shrub with spreading branches

17-1-2011 - Colour and shape of the caterpillar changed. Edges of the leaf is pasted together. So I think is going to pupate.

18-1-2011 – Become a complete pupa

28-1-2011 – Emerged out

IT TAKES 10 DAYS TO BECOME ADULT FROM PUPA

Moth-2

Location : Palode, Thiruvananthapuram

MY OBSERVATIONS

10-01-2011 – Collected two cocoon

17-01-2011 – One emerged in the night.

Inside the cocoon cover there is one hard brown pupa cover also.

04-03-2011- The second cocoon is not yet emerged. So dissected. 

Inside the cocoon a baby wasp was found dead. So the cocoon is parasited.

Antlion

Location : Palode, Thiruvananthapuram

Kingdom:       Animalia

Phylum:          Arthropoda

Class:            Insecta

Subclass:      Myrientomata

Section:         Pterygota 

Division:        Neoptilota

Subdivision:  Endopterygota

Superorder:  Neuropteroidea

Order:            Neuroptera

Suborder:      Myrmeleontiformia

Superfamily:  Myrmeleontoidea

Family:           Myrmeleontidae

The larva always moves backwards.

The larva makes a conical shaped pit in the loose sand and waiting for a prey, usually ants and small insects, which passing through the sides of the pit and slipped into the pit. 

The angle of the pit is adjusted so that no prey can escape from it. Simultaneously the antlion flicks sand to the victim and grabs it when it falls near. 

The two powerful jaws of the larva is capable of grabbing the prey and injecting a liquid venom which liquefies the body parts of the victim inside its exoskeleton.

Larval stage takes about 2-3 years to become pupa. Pupation period is about 20 days. 

Adult emerging in the evening and comes to the surface and climbs to the nearby plant and takes nearly half an hour for stretching its wings fully.

Adult antlion fly is having a clubbed antennae. They do not eat ant or insects. Usually they may not eat anything. Its aim is to mate and reproduction. Its life span is only about 20 to 45 days.

Treehopper

Location : Palode, Thiruvananthapuram

MATING FLIES

Location : Malayinkil, Thiruvananthapuram

8-6-11-  Seen mating in  grass at 12 noon

PRAYING MANTIS-3

Location: Palode, Thiruvananthapuram

MY OBSERVATIONS

19-5-2011 – Seen a praying mantis guarding its egg (oothaca) in a mangostein tree leaf. There is one more egg is there in another leaf.

7-6-2011 – Egg hatched

Large in numbers

                            Spread all over the tree