April Pics

[CW: Spiders. Also faecal matter, sorry in advance!]

This was interesting to watch. There's an ants nest near the rocks and a small group of them were carrying back this... thing.

What are they carrying? It appeared to have large pincer-like mandibles similar to antlion and lacewing larvae, but I'm fairly certain it's neither of those two things, and it has a long fat abdomen so maybe an egg laying member of its species??? idk, this one is a mystery.

Four ants carrying an unknown bug over a rock. The unknown bug is long, has six legs, and is plated in light red chitin at the front of its body.

What I do know for sure however, is that watching these ants shattered all of my preconceptions about them being highly efficient and great at teamwork. These guys suck. Not only did they keep dropping the mystery creature and getting it stuck on small rocks, they also couldn't decide where to take it and were so uncoordinated that they effectively moved their catch back and forth over the same spot for five minutes. Absolutely embarrassing. Do better, ants.

(For clarity, this was a joke. These hard working bugs were trying their best and ultimately that's all I can ask of them.)


Apologies about this next one. I realise it's a bit grim to post a photo of cat shit, but look! Golden dung flies!! Such beautiful creatures~

These are fun to watch actually (if you're at a safe sniffing distance that is), as they will stay on and around the poo waiting for other smaller flies to land, creep up to them, and then pounce!

Two dung flies sitting on a cat turd which I don't want to describe because it's gross. The flies themselves are covered in bright yellow fur and have brown markings running down their thorax.

My favourite bug of the month! I don't know what this is (some kind of hemiptera probably) but it's super pretty! Look at all the holes around the edge of the wings and thorax! It's as if a doily grew legs and wings.

A small brown bug with thick antennae and two visible wings folded over each other. The outer edges of its body are covered in holes of various sizes, akin to a lattice.

Cool moth!! Took me a while to ID this one, but it's an angle shades moth (Phlogophora meticulosa). These moths are primarily nocturnal so this one was probably resting here until the evening.

The colours and patterning on this species are very striking! I love how bottom of the wings looks like paper that's been burnt away at the edges.

A moth with a variety of different patterns and colours across its wings. Some areas are light brown and resemble tree rings, whereas others are a deep brown colour in a triangular pattern.

Another cool moth!! The one was very small — the yellow/green patches on the surface it's clinging onto are tiny bits of lichen growing out of the fence.

A small narrow moth with a fluffy orange face and light yellow lines patterning its black wings. Its feather-like antennae are mostly black but have a small patch of white near their tips.

Finally, this spider and her golf ball sized egg sac! She must have only just laid the sac when this photo was taken, as I hadn't seen it the day before and her abdomen looked much larger then too.

A redish black spider hanging on the underside of her web. Suspended on the left side of the web is a large sac of tiny white eggs. Also of note is a woodlouse crawling around by the web!

What's odd however, is that a few days later I found the egg sac abandoned on the rocks... Were the eggs not fertilised?

It's a shame, but at least the sac didn't go to waste; the same colony of ants that were carrying the mysterious pincer bug earlier in the month, eventually managed to break into the sac and were taking turns to carry eggs back to their nest.