Recently I have been processing some of the 18,000+ photos I took during a recent trip to Mozambique, and yesterday one image caught my eye. It shows a large ground beetle carrying a dead cicada. I shot it rather casually one night in front of my tent in Gorongosa, and immediately forgot about it. But…
Category: Beetles
Mozambique Diary: Somebody has to clean this mess
A friend of mine once compared holding a dung beetle in your hand to kissing a dog on the snout – both feel kind of good, until you think of the last thing they have probably been rubbing against. At least with dogs there is some room for other options, but there is no such…
Mozambique Diary: Manticora redux
Some weeks ago I wrote about the Monster Tiger Beetle (Manticora) that I had found in the savanna of Gorongosa. These insects are powerful predators, hunting grasshoppers and other small invertebrates using their enormous mandibles. The larvae of Manticora are similarly carnivorous, but rather than actively pursuing their prey the way their parents do, they…
Mozambique Diary: Manticora
Things have been busy here in Chitengo, and I am struggling to find time to update the blog amidst the preparations to our upcoming biodiversity survey of the Cheringoma Plateau. But I simply cannot resist mentioning one of the most remarkable creatures that I have had the pleasure to meet in Gorongosa. Every biologist has…
Mozambique Diary: Playing a detective
For an entomologist few pleasures in life are greater than arriving in a new geographic area and being stumped by unfamiliar and mysterious insects, often ones that he/she had never suspected existed. I had a moment like this last night, when I ran across a strange, metallic blue insect, about 25 mm long, walking on…
Mozambique Diary: Back in Gorongosa
Yesterday I arrived in the spectacular Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Last time when I was here the place was dry and dusty, but now, at the end of the rainy season the luxuriant vegetation is vibrantly green and after the misery of Boston’s winter the air feels throat-soothingly humid. During the day Gorongosa’s woodlands…
The Smaller Majority 