i am away this weekend (away i say! from my thesis! from everything! from planet earth! ... in any case, the interweb) and so, alas, no bugs or herps or other miscellaneous wildlife will be appearing here for several days. and the fact that i need to walk out the door in 5 minutes for a smashing pumpkins concert (eeeee!) means none of the above for today either, even though i did catch the mantises again this afternoon (all three of them). they will make their debut soon. in the meantime, happy long weekend!
they're actually smaller than a lot of the local arthropods. look at the tiny skinktoes!
yesterday, the belly jumped up from a nap in the doorway, raced across the patio (undercarriage swinging wildly), and pounced on something in the leaf litter. fearing it was one of the little native skinks that like to sun themselves out there, i chased him off, and instead found this fine fellow.
i thought he was lovely, but i may have been the only one...
also from the weird & wonderful hall, an astonishingly green native new zealand gecko.
the auckland museum has many things to offer in its various galleries, from virtual volcanic eruptions to classic new zealand children's toys to maori culture to natural history. there are some nice exhibits dedicated to fossils and the coastal and sea environments, but (and i know this will surprise everyone by now), my favorite part is actually the 'weird and wonderful' hall, and in particular, the trays and trays of entomological specimens. i could pull those drawers out and stare at spiky legs and filmy wings for hours. i tried once, but my poor friend nemo, who was good enough to come along with me despite being pregnant at the time and not a fan of terrestrial inverts ever (although marine ones are her specialty), was nearly ill.
but look. they are so very beautiful.
here's a little kickback to the lantern festival, which had not only unexpectedly luminous invertebrates in size XL, but also this beautiful avenue of moon-and-star lanterns.
ok, more quadrupeds today, because i can't find the cool photos i took of the praying mantises that live in my tomato plants. so i will have to re-do those or wait until the pebbles gets home. in the meantime, i offer this wee baby hedgie, who came snuffling around the leaf litter next to the front door (hmm, sounds like we live in a forest - if only it were so) a couple weeks ago, and was obligingly slow enough to be caught and examined for a few minutes.
[edit: i found out after posting this that the correct word for baby hedgehog is 'hoglet.' now you know!]
but really, you should already know, if your guide looks like this.
before the steep descent, you hike about 20 min along the top, affording spectacular views up and down the coast.
after sustaining large numbers of pokes and scratches from the dense gorse along the path, you come to the actual point of departure from the main trail, down what we shall call the cliffs of insanity.
although some things do apparently enjoy life along the steep, crumbly goat track.
so you swim, explore the caves, eat lunch, and stroll along the beach. you watch the oystercatchers run in and out of the waves, you admire hundreds of meters' worth of stratified rock cliffs, and you are lulled by the pounding surf. you stare out at the different blues and greens of the ocean, the near purple at the horizon, and you contemplate what interesting marine life might be right out beyond the breaking waves. (what do you mean, not everyone does that??) and you try to avoid looking too closely at the way back up, until you have to actually face it. and as you climb, you keep turning around for one last look, to fix it in your memory until the next time you come back. which you know you will.
and although this may seem like a very sober, collected account of the day, let me just tell you - it actually felt more like this.
ha, i almost didn't make it for today... but it's 11.48pm. :)
i know there has been a tendency more toward the creepy, more-than-four-legged fauna around here lately, so here's one who is probably a little more mainstream. levi, swagbelly, stealthcat, pointyfoot, all of these apply equally well. with the pebbles away this week, mr belly has been particularly snuggly, apart from earlier this evening when he sat at my feet meowing plaintively, then spontaneously attacked my knee. just after i'd cleaned the litter box too - seriously, no gratitude. i had to forgive him though, because earlier today i saw him dreaming, something i haven't observed before - ears, feet and tail twitching intently, punctuated by little grunty cat-snores. gotta love them.
let he who has not had this thought wield the first can of paint-remover.
this sign makes me giggle every day on my way to work.
[edit: apparently this is a widespread phenomenon - wiki-worthy, even!]
