During the time between these two lockdowns, our hotels have been gaining more and more residents. The uptake was slow at first whilst the word was getting out there, but now they have many regular patrons.
Tag: Insect
A Last Minute Lantern Bug (Pyrops whiteheadi)
The Search for a Lantern Bug The day before we were due to leave Danau Girang Field Centre in Borneo, and after a week of searching high and low for one, we found this beautiful lantern bug. We came across it on the buttress roots of a tree near the jetty at the field centre….
Putting a Face to a Sound: The Speckled Bush-cricket
That doesn’t sound like a bat… The majority of our paid work in the UK, especially as of late, is to carry out bat surveys. This involves turning up to a site just before dusk or dawn and listening out for bat echolocations using a special piece of equipment, a bat detector. Bats found in…
On the Road: Stag Beetles (Lucanus cervus)
Setting the Scene Now 250km in to my 1000km charity bike ride; tired, sore and almost at the brow of the last hill of the day, I cycled past a male stag beetle wandering out from the grass verge and heading straight for certain death in the two-way traffic. ‘But I’m so close to the…
Ruby-tailed Wasp: Beautiful, But Deadly*
After a 4-hour drive home after a few days away, we finally pulled onto the drive. With a sigh and a conscious mustering of energy, I attempted to swing myself from the car. Emma, sat in the passenger seat, suddenly pointed out of the window at the front wall of the house and said, ‘ruby-tailed wasp!’ I was…
Gotta Count ’em All – Butterfly Bonanza
Over the past few weeks, we have been getting out and doing some volunteering. Being self-employed ecologists racing across the globe back and forth from NZ to the UK and the UK to NZ, we spend a lot of our time chasing paid work. This doesn’t give us much time to volunteer. Saying that, if…
Exploring the Malaysian Jungle: Endau-Rompin National Park
Tom and I spend the southern hemisphere’s summer in New Zealand, my home country, and the northern hemisphere’s summer in England, Tom’s home country. We follow the summer because it is also the ecology season when we get most work. The flight can be pretty long when you have to travel half-way around the globe, so…
New Zealand’s Longest Beetle: the Giraffe Weevil (Lasiorhynchus barbicornis)
The New Zealand giraffe weevil is endemic to our country, and is in fact our longest beetle. It is also the longest beetle in the world of its family.