Morocco continued Orthoptera and pope´s hat

So we continued our days in semi dessert areas passing the kilometers in the sun. Have i mentioned how hot it was there? Because it was fricki´n hot. But also beautiful and such an alien landscape for a Norwegian person. Also I have to say that the Moroccan people were great and full of humor, hospitality and smiles, even though most of the time our skills of communication were far below any decent level. 

Eventually we gt to more of a agricultural areas with water irrigation and good farmland. Still hot and dry but with good soil. Here there were a lot of different grasshoppers. I found several other different groups of animals here and they will be taken care of in another post.

Orthoptera suborder Caelifera  family Acrididae

Quite well camouflaged

The first thre photos are taken in a different locations and they were quite a bit smaller than the fully adult shown below. This might be because they are a different species or they are just juveniles.

 Truxalis nasuta

Truxalis nasuta

So then we moved up into the mountains close to Taza where we found a wonderful agricultural area. Here the first thing i came across was this great cricket with a visor on top of its head. 

Sciobia ssp.

The species is a bit hard to determine since the differences are small details.  

This is a male distinguished from females based on the size of the visor or "hat". I must admit it kind of look like the pope hat mitre. However it looks better on this guy.

Solifugae

On my trip to Morocco we were traveling arround the countryside near Guercif and Taza.

So we were having some fruit after lunch under a tree. Well really it was a huge watermelon we bought out of a van. After wards we were waiting for the sun to fade a bit since it was such a hot day. I picked up my camera to have a look around to see what I could find. Firstly I saw several species of grasshoppers, but it was only after I lifted some of the stones this wonderful creature revealed itself. I must admit that I got carried away seeing how this is the first Solifugae I have found in the wild. I am pretty sure it is a Galeodidae. It was quite docile and hence a treat to photograph.    

 

There is a dead ant right behind her probably her latest meal.

Moroccan desert

So I had the good fortune of traveling through Morrocan desert-land. Witnessing a great landscape and experiencing not so great temperatures for a norwegian. More than 40 degrees celsius is a bit too much for this guy. Later in the evening my head felt like it had been hit by a bat (type baseball). It is a very bright lighting naturally, so that is important to think about when taking pictures.    

The first thing I noticed was the amount of grasshoppers around. They were everywhere and different species.

Identification will be up shortly,

Here you see the great camouflage they use. I had to see them move to find them. 

And here on cactus as I am talking about a desert habitat had to have that. This cactus was actually long time ago planted to serve as a fence. Much better than any barbed wire I have ever seen. On the same fence of cactus i found this net   

This aturally made me search untill i came across this beautiful spider

Right here and now i do not have the genus here due to lack of litterature. Tomorrow i will have a name here.

Crawling on the ground was the only reason why i was able to see this detail on the ground. Sadly there was no spider in there, however i am confident that this was the home of a trapdoor-spider.

Walking in the same area I saw in the corner of my eye, something running fast on the ground. I must admit that for a split second i thought it would be my first live cicindelidae, but I was also equally happy to see it was the strangest Mantodea i have ever seen. I will come back with a better identification shortly 

Ok that is it for this time i will have more...much more verry soon