Esporles and other areas

Last Sunday I had a great day with some colleagues, and later in the day we went for a walk I am not the only insect/bug nut around here so we brought the camera to have a look. As I have said I is still quite early in the season but I still found some cool subjects. Viewers’ discretion is advised. It is springtime and that can only mean one thing...well several things, but this as well.

Locusta migratoria; a lot of reasearch is done on this Migratory locust.  Here we see the male and female. Female is the larger one. 

Carabidae and probably also a Carabus. With a little help and expert consult:

Carabus (Macrothorax) morbillosus

Esporles is as I mentioned where I work. It is a little town in a valley with a "torrente" meaning a river with only water when it rains. The geology of Mallorca is porous so when the rain comes it runs down and collects very fast into these rivers. It is also surrounded with mountains for walking in and discovering cool things. After work then a group of us took a trip walking up one of these mountains. It has a statue of Jesus on top (welcome to Spain) with one arm disproportionately larger than the other.  Further up there is a small monastery. This is the view we were rewarded on the top of the mountain.   

On the trip I was looking under every rock and looking on every bit of old wood I could come across. I found at least two different species of Isopoda. Another day I will find time to photograph them. One was from the genus Armadillidium. Those are the ones that roll up to an almost perfect ball. Also we found this Diplopoda which I am sure is a Julidae as the family, but I need more literature (keep coming back to that) before I can determine with some certainty. Diplopoda or millipedes belong to the Myriopoda and these are determined by the two paired legs per segment. Some of these secrete hydrogen cyanide as a defense mechanism. This has in some cases backfired as some monkeys rub them on their fur as a mosquito repellent roll-on. A great example of adaptation.   

Diplopoda Julidae

And this one I am kicking myself for not flipping over and make sure but I think this is a Tenebrionidae  after some expert advice. And perhaps it is in the genus Blaps and it might also be the species gigas.

   That is all for now, But I surely will be bringing more posts in the near future. I will soon go for a trip home to Norway so I cannot promise anything for next two weeks. On the other hand I will surely have new material from the trip so stay tuned.

Coleoptera

This is one of my favorite orders of insect if not thee favorite one. And here are some of my past photos of them. I have mainly traveled in Spain and in Norway the last years and hence that is their origin. They are an amazing group to work with and you have everything from the easily identifiable to the very hard ones where you have to dissect the genitalia to be able to confirm the species. It is a huge and diverse group and it is amongst the three largest orders of insects we know today. They have concurred an array of different habitats all over this world. I myself worked with Carabidae and Staphilynidae from the mountain areas in Norway, then as a re-sampling project of this article (Ottesen, 1996). I am not the only one interested in these fascinating creatures (went a little David Attenborough there). In addition to being one of the most studied groups of insects it is also collected by people all over the world, and for huge sums of money. This has in some cases become a problem for the survival of some species (New, 2007).  

NEW, T. 2007. Beetles and conservation. In: NEW, T. R. (ed.) Beetle Conservation. Springer Netherlands.

OTTESEN, P. S. 1996. Niche Segregation of Terrestrial Alpine Beetles (Coleoptera) in Relation to Environmental Gradients and Phenology. Journal of Biogeography, 23, 353-369.

Family Cleridae, genus Trichodes but lacking species right now

 Carabus coreaceus

 Carabidae; Cicindela rupestris

 Cantharidae; Chantaris nigra

 Cerambycidae; Rhagium inquisitor

 This is just to show that looking for beetles takes you to some beautifull places. A sunny day and your camera surrounded by life. Does not get to much better than that,

 Family; Meloidae,After spending some time searching in various litterature i finally found a good match. This appears to be Physomeloe corallifer, a blister beetle endemic to The Iberian penninsula.

Scarabidae From Spain, i sadly at present time do not have a good key for this family.

That is all for now. I will post a similar post on my other pet group of animals...the spiders, and then whatever i feel like talking about