Wildlife September - November 2012

[ronm]

- the Mail online is not exactly famous for its accuracy!

This time they missed by about 9,000 miles !!!

[Anthony Darby]

As soon as I saw the caterpillar I knew the moth was wrong. Catocala spp. caterpillars are extremely well camouflaged and don't mimic snakes. The UK has several Catocala spp., including the Red Underwing, Blue Underwing (aka Clifden Nonpareil), Rosy Underwing, Light and Dark Crimson Underwings. http://www.hantsmoths.org.uk/species/2452.php

[mark smyth]

I didnt think it was correct but accepted it because I didnt know the species of moth

[Maggi Young]

Bohemian Waxwings Feeding on Apples - Fair Isle - thanks for posting this Mark - I just love waxwings, they are probably my favourite "visiting" birds. Remarkable footage of them- a pleasure to see.

[Lesley Cox]

Can someone tell me what this is please? I assume some sort of spider since it has 8 legs but it also had two long, much thicker-than-the-legs feeler things from the front of its head, pointed almost right up towards the sky. Mostly they were together but sometimes he opened them apart, about as far as I can open my first two fingers. That angle I mean. I never saw one before but this one kept me company for a while yesterday while I was tidying up old trays of plants. He emerged from the rotting beech leaves. He could be a contender for the NZ rugby team, being All Black.

[ronm]

It's one of the black Long Clawed Harvestmen species Lesley, Megalopsalis sp.

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Ron, I thought it looked like what we call harvester spiders but hadn't seen those horns before. What are they useful for? Just for feeling their way around?

[ronm]

Thing is Lesley that it appears that there are many species in NZ but they haven't been really been studied and very few have names. Yours is more than likely an un-named sp.!!
Those long appendages at the front are the Chelicerae. These are the mouthparts, and in this genus they are sometimes particularly elongated.
Like many things we discuss the nomenclature appears to be constantly changing and referring to an individual is difficult unless one chooses to keep up with the science of New Zealand harvestmen 

[Lesley Cox]

Oh well, if I see another I'll call it the rugby harvestman. I believe you about many species of all sorts of things being unstudied here as yet. I usually find out about them in a national geographic or something similar in either the doc's or dentist's waiting room. Some years ago, our govt of the time reckoned that scientific research was not that important and many botanists, entomologists and others in their various fields were made redundant. Most had world-class reputations and there was outcry among the international as well as the local scientific community. But to no avail; they were gone. Our R and D have suffered badly ever since. The present govt values R and D only if it has probable commercial outcomes.

[Anthony Darby]

Unlike spiders, harvestmen eat solid food, so need a good set of chelicerae to pull their prey apart.. I'll be on the look out for more of these Lesley. http://www.terrain.net.nz/friends-of-te-henui-group/spiders/harvestmen.html

[Lesley Cox]

So they're not actually spiders then? The one is your link Anthony - thanks for that - is more fearsome looking than mine and with thicker, shorter horns. Makes my one look quite friendly on the whole. What do they eat?

[Anthony Darby]

They only have one body part and scorpion-like chelicerae. They are reputed to have a poisonous bite, but only tackle small invertebrates. In my honours project I had to identify over 6000 spiders, and 1500+ harvestmen. Fortunately there were only half a dozen species of the latter!

[Paul T]

That ones a spider, that ones a harvestman, that ones a spider, those two are harvestmen.  Not really that hard, Anthony. 

Of wait, you mean different TYPES of them. 

[Anthony Darby]

I was getting into my car at the rear staff car park of Sancta Maria College, Flatbush, Auckland this afternoon and noticed a pair of noisy Masked lapwings (Vanellus miles - the books call them spur-winged plovers, but don't all plovers have spurs on their wings, and not all plovers are lapwings and have masks?) just at the edge, about 20 metres from my car. I wondered why the were calling but not flying away, then I noticed 4 tiny chicks. I went home and fetched my camera and as I was photographing the groundsman drove past. He pointed out the nest in the uncut circle of grass. He'd gone to the Auckland War Memorial Museum to try and identify them. The nest is about 100 metres from where I photographed them. When I approached the chicks just 'vanished', and were very difficult to spot crouched in the grass.

[Paul T]

Very cute.

We've had Banded Plovers nesting in Canberra this year.... been reported on the Ornithologists Group email list.  They're nesting next to one of the runways at the airport.