Readers’ wildlife photos

Today, regular Mark Sturtevant contributes photos of arthropods (and two vertebrates). His notes and ID’s (and links) are indented:

Here I continue with some of the pictures from our recent trip to Maui last year.

At the Maui National Wildlife Refuge, on the southern part of the island, the lady at the front desk told me about several insects to look out for, and among them was one of the smallest butterflies in the world (!) She explained exactly where they are common at the refuge. The first picture shows this tiny butterfly, which is the western pygmy blue (Brephidium exilis). These were fluttering all around their host plant which I think is a salt-tolerant ground cover called pickleweed. It is hard to convey size here but these little insects looked like they would barely cover the fingernail of your little finger. Wikipedia describes a wingspan of 12-20mm. This tiny creature ranges through parts of Asia and can also be found in the Southwestern states of the US.

While at a botanical garden (there were lots of those, and wow, the plants were amazing!), I came across a corpse of an enormous moth. It was badly mangled, which was a bummer, but I reasoned that since it was the sort of moth that often rests on buildings that maybe there would be another one. Sure enough, in the gloomy dark eaves around the visitor center I saw this big bat-like shape. The flash of my camera revealed the mystery moth, and my ancient 100-300mm lens was used to take one of its last pictures for me (one of its last pictures since I had an Expensive Upgrade waiting for me at home). This is the black witch moth (Ascalapha odorata), and this species is well known in the U.S. where it is one of our largest moths. The picture in the link conveys the size of them.

Next is a cool little fly which is known as the banana stalk fly, Telostylinus lineolatus. It ranges through much of Asia.

I would generally dash out for a quick ‘bug run’ in the morning before the family would wake up and drag me off for tourism. Along the beach front across from our condo were palm trees, and there were some windfall coconuts that were split open. Numerous odd-looking cockroaches were all over the coconuts. This is the aptly named Pacific beetle roach, Diploptera punctate, and it has a rather interesting biology. These insects give live birth to surprisingly large young, and while the youngsters are inside the mother she feeds them internally with a ‘roach milk’ nutrient. The link shows a mother giving birth.

The large scarab beetle in the next picture is one of many that I saw on the trip. They were usually buzzing around and not catch-able, but this one was just sitting there while we were waiting in the buffet line at a Luau. I quickly grabbed it, and having no other option it had to go into my pocket for the entire evening which involved much eating, drinking, and dancing. So here it is in a staged shot on our kitchen table late that night. It is Protaetia orientalis, the oriental flower beetle.

I finish with lizards. Virtually all species of lizards in the Hawaiian islands have been introduced by humans. I photographed several species of geckos, but the probable favorite of that group is the lovely gold dust day gecko (Phelsuma laticauda laticauda) from Madagascar. When I got close to this one, it was for some reason looking intently up at something above it. To get the gecko to look at me for a picture I merely had to waggle a finger. Sure enough, its attention was redirected to the movement.

Another non-indigenous lizard ends this edition of Readers’ Wildlife Photos. At a botanical garden there was this display about the various species of invasive lizards on Maui, and not 10 feet from this display was a impressively large horned chameleon just sitting there! I thought that surely this was a realistic plastic model that someone put there as a joke, given it was so close to the display, but then its eye rotated to look at me. This is the Jackson’s chameleon, Trioceros jacksonii, and they really should be found only in east Africa. It is the males that have horns while females usually lack them.I have learned these are pretty common throughout the Hawaiian islands now. The many species of introduced lizards are of course a problem since they will prey on the native fauna. Big lizards like this one will take baby birds.