A time-lapse video of a male Chinese mantis (Tenodera parasinensis) undergoing his final molt. I recorded it last night over the period of 5:35 hours; this movie contains 494 individual frames taken with Canon 6D. Note: If the quality of the video clip embedded below is poor, click here to see the uncompressed video.
Category: Behavior
African Tuesday: Matabele ants of Gorongosa
Shortly after arriving in the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique I witnessed a puzzling phenomenon: while exploring the network of roads in the woodland savannas of the park our local driver would barely slow down to avoid hitting antelopes and warthogs, but immediately slammed on the brakes if he noticed a long column of large…
African Tuesday: Being bark
When I first read “Out of Africa”, which to this day remains one of my favorite books, the one thing that left me oddly dissatisfied was the lack of attention to trees of the savanna – their smell and colors, the texture of their bark and, most importantly, all the wonderful creatures that the author must…
What butterflies like
The weather has become so unpleasantly cold that I try not to open my eyes while walking outside, out of fear that my eyeballs will freeze. (I was told that this would happen by my teacher in preschool; she also told me that eating candies makes worms lay eggs in my teeth, and that if…
Life in the season of death
Winter in the Northern Hemisphere – is there anything more unpleasant? To most entomologists living in temperate climates winter is synonymous with the disappearance of everything they love: insect activity and the pleasant buzz of millions of wings, vibrant colors of plants, warm weather. Our beloved animals have long turned to dust, buried themselves into…
The most interesting find of 2012
Well, the first year of my blogging is nearly over, but I think I still have time for one more story. And it is a good one. Earlier this year I was in the spectacular Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, doing my usual things – chasing katydids with a net and a recorder, taking pictures,…
The Smaller Majority 