Archive for ‘Arthropods and Snails’

March 31st, 2012

Dream Bug Sketches

Yes, I sketched something for the first time in ages!

Last night I was dreaming about getting some new leaf insects, however the insect in my dream was completely fictional. Now I think a combination of my lack of sleep last night, handling my Phyllium giganteum before bed and the fact that I was shopping for carnivorous plants yesterday is to blame for this one.

Although I can’t remember if this insect used it’s Cape sundew-like tail to catch other insects, it looks damn cool. I also like the leafy antennae I gave it. I would actually love to have one of these as a pet, but obviously I can’t. But since it was on my mind, I drew it instead. I hope you like my scribbles!

Ink and copic marker. Click to enlarge.
dreambugsmall

Sorry for the poor image quality, I haven’t got a scanner at the moment.

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March 3rd, 2012

Female Phyllium giganteum Walking

My female Phyllium giganteum molted recently and is looking beautiful! I have already lost one of my leaf bugs to a bad molt, so I was glad she got through it ok. I decided to film her walking just to show off how lovely she is. There is also a photo below!

philly-copy

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February 29th, 2012

Social(media) Butterfly

I joined Pinterest a few weeks ago. For those of you that have been living under an internet rock, Pinterest is a social sharing site where you “pin” things you like onto a virtual pin board. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with it to be honest. I’ve been pinning random cool things I’ve found, liking other pins and I’ve even made my own pin boards… but I don’t really feel like I’m achieving anything with it. My Pinterest page is here for anyone who fancies following my pins.

pinterest
Pinterest is a fantastic place to find crafting ideas, delicious recipes and fashion tips – This recipe for chili-chocolate macaroons is a particular highlight. (I’m slightly obsessed with chilli chocolate at the moment.) My main gripe with Pinterest is similar to my gripe with Tumblr – there is too much fakery! Becca from Shiny Shiny put this much better than I can in her opinion piece, ‘Is Pinterest just a beautiful but sad fantasy land?’, where she talks about the way people manicure the image of themselves obsessively online. There is also a brilliant piece on the Tumblr angle you can read on Bitchbuzz.

I often worry that more and more of my time is spent being sucked into social networks. Yet here I am, joining yet another massive website, wasting time sharing things that I haven’t created. I like to think that a lot of the things I am pinning are inspiring me to make my own items to share, it’s certainly part of the reason I started work on my knitted beetle patchwork! Maybe Pinterest will grow on me. It’s still a relatively new social network, and it has huge potential. But hey, I’ve still got Tumblr, Twitter and deviantART to fill that gap if I get bored. Any of you lot on Pinterest? What do you think of it?

bugnation
Oh yes, I also joined a forum! Another way to waste time. I haven’t participated in forums since I moved from Community Management to PR just over two years ago! I’ve been taking a while to get back into it, but since the forum is about insects, I’m really enjoying it. The forum I’ve joined is BugNation.co.uk for anyone interested in insect-related topics. The only real downside of joining is that I’m now looking to get 2-3 more varieties of Leaf Bug (Phylliidae) to add to my personal zoo. Not that you can blame me, look how cute they are! This is one of my female Phyllium giganteum having a drink.

drinkies

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February 21st, 2012

New craft projects and some other odds’n'sods

You know you’ve been knitting too much when the sides of your fingers are covered in dry skin! I only began to knit last year, but I’ve been slowing teaching myself more and more techniques. This week I have been trying to get the hang of Intarsia knitting – a technique that allows you to create images using two or more colours. I’ve also been drawing up my own knitting patterns using some really useful online tools.

Now with my powers combined, I am Captain Pla… able to start a larger project I’ve wanted to do for some time: a knitted patchwork. I’m planing for it to feature many of my favourite insects and so I started with a dung beetle, or a Scarab for those that prefer a more flowery name.
beetle_knitting_feb_2012
I’m also working through a book my brother gave me for christmas that is full of some rather brilliant dinosaur patterns. Here’s the body of a Diplodocus I’ve started, I’ll post up pictures of the finished piece in a few days.
dino_knitting_feb_2012

Other than becoming a crazy knitting lady, I’ve been planning the tattoo half-sleeve for my right arm, as well as helping Chris work with the wonderfully talented, Alice, on his first tattoo. It’ll be something Shadow of the Colossus related so watch out for future tattoo updates.

Gaming-wise I’ve been a bit distracted by all the crafting but I’ve almost hit 1000G on Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 and I managed to get my mitts on a copy of Atlus’ rather surreal puzzle game, Catherine. I’m hoping to get stuck into this week, especially after all the drama surrounding it and the general love/hate opinions of people reviewing it.

I’ll finish off this post with a picture of one of my Giant East African Snails (Achatina fulica) which came out of hibernation this weekend. Cute!
snail_feb2012

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October 2nd, 2011

Amateur Entomologist’s Society Expo 2011

The Amateur Entomologist’s Society hold a yearly exhibition and trade fair at Kempton Park, Surrey. This year was my first show so I dragged my friend Ben along for the ride. The expo itself was much larger than I expected. Various breeders sold pets, collectors sold specimens, there were books, food plants, jewelry, accessories and educational stands for the likes of Butterfly Conservation, The British Tarantular Society and more. The beautiful ornate specimen cabinets have made me want to start collecting moths but there’s no way I could fit one in my house.

Bugfest 7 was pretty awesome, still can’t believe cockroaches can be described as ‘cute’ though! – Ben

I went with the intention of picking up a few more species of land snail, but there weren’t many on offer – just Giant East African Snails (Achatina fulica) which I already have plenty of and couple of Giant West African Snails (Archachatina marginata), which are too big for my current tank. Luckily there was no shortage of other creatures to tempt me. I was especially interested in the Vinegaroons (Thelyphonida), they’re fancinating arachnids, although I’m certain Chris would have killed me if I brought one home.

In the end I went with a pair of female Leaf Insects nymphs (phyllium giganteum) as I’ve really missed keeping Stick Insects and though they wold make a welcome addition to my collection. Also, since all of their food grows naturally in front of my house, they’re very easy to care for. I also met up with Catherine and her sister who had bought some gorgeous Tiger Hissing Cockroaches and a few varieties of Millipede.

For now I’ll leave you with a short video of the show and a picture of me and one of my new friends.

leafbug1

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September 24th, 2011

Poop Fly Killing Spider

I don’t usually post things like this on my blog, but it entertained me far too much. Jumping spiders are indeed “the shit”.

funny-spider-catching-fly

Sorry for the naughty language!

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September 22nd, 2011

Derp-fly

It’s autumn so the the light from my living room is attracting visitors much faster than the last few months, most of which have been craneflies this week. SO many in fact, that I decided to photograph one.

This is a Tipula Paludosa, it’s the most common of the uK crane-flies. Most people refer to them as Daddy-long-legs although @cliffwaz206 and I have named them ‘Derp-flies‘, since their flight is so clumsy and their legs seem to flail about as they navigate my living space and bump into my TV while I’m trying to play games.

cranefly

Photo taken with my HTC Desire.

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