9 January 2012
‘Bugs’ I saw in South Africa
Posted by Callan Bentley
Here is a collection of creepy-crawlies I saw in South Africa:
Big grasshopper/katydid orthopteran:
Another big orthopteran (“locust”?), obviously beefier than the previous one:
Beach roach (Blattodea):
Mating true bugs (hemipterans):
Here’s a big snail, too:
And best of all? This solpugid!
Solpugids are arachnids, but they are not spiders. Along with vinegaroons, scorpions, pseudoscorpions, tailless whip-scorpions, ticks and harvestmen (“daddy-longlegs”), solpugids roam the world as effective predators but I’ve only encountered them twice before this time. I caught this one on our porch in Kruger National Park. I trapped him under a glass to photograph him, but then released him to the wild again.
Note the opposable “jaws” and the tapered “waist” – very unlike a spider.
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