110218 Venus Drive

No magic mushrooms seen, probably due to the recent dry spell.

Polyrhachis ant. Can just make out one of the two spines on the petiolar node.

This polyrhachis ant was wedged in a bark crack. When part of the bark was removed, a pseudoscorpion was observed fleeing. Perhaps the ant was caught and subdued by the psuedoscorpion or maybe by something else and the psuedoscorpion was just being opportunistic.

A couple of assassin bugs (Reduviidae).

Bark bug (Aradidae).

Dolichopodidae? Sensitive to flash and flew off after the first shot.

Fairly large cricket, about 5+ cm long.

Out on the wet grass were many amphipods.

A couple of harvestmen (Opiliones).

Pink arboreal millipede.

Geraldine noticed many of these worms in a pool of water in a tree stump.

Large bracket fungi like these were pretty common.

The blue color of this beetle is most likely due to light refraction by many layers of different refractive indices on its shell rather than pigmentation, accounting for the bright red patch which was not there when the beetle was lit by directional light.

Beetles on the beetle tree. Top to bottom: Unknown beetle, scarab that rolls into a pill when disturbed, tiny ground beetle (Carabidae (Pericalus sp.?), 5 mm long), weevil.

Longhorn beetle (Cerambycidae).

Beetle larva? Tiny guy crawling on moss.

First time encountering one of these frogs (Limnonectes blythii?) that was brave enough to hang around for a close shot. About 9-10 cm long.

Some sort of lily?

Cocoons in a “wire basket“. Usually its just one caterpillar in the basket but this one has 3, no idea why.

Mallinella cinctipes.

Huntsman spider (Sparassidae).

Ctenid spider.

What happened when they ran into each other. Ctenid 1, huntsman 0.

Female lichen hunstman (Pandercetes sp.) with egg sac. The male was nearby and ran away when we approached. She on the other hand was more responsible and stood her ground. Unlike Heteropoda venatoria which carries its egg sac under its body like hugging a cushion, these lichen huntsman attach their egg sacs to tree trunks.