The contract  crew at Noosa & District Landcare are out in the bush all the time. Mostly they are planting native plants or killing weeds. Whilst doing this they come across all sorts of interesting critters lurking in our Biosphere. Birds, snakes [lots of snakes!], insects, ticks [lots of ticks!], and all sorts of things.

Because our guys and girls are keen students of our environment, they tend to notice things... and ask about them. Recently they saw a caterpillar that was cute... and were interested to know what it was. I usually field these queries, which is great as I get a chance to learn too. I did not know what caterpillar it was, so I asked Dr. Don Sands, a retired Entomologist from CSIRO. Don's fame in our area is as the father of the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly Recovery Network. Don knew it straight away... of course!

The horny little fella was a Evening brown caterpillar [Melanitis leda]. You see them quite commonly at dusk and at night. During the day they rest on the ground or in leaves. When walking through grass you see them fly away and rest a few metres away. They are brown in colour...no surprise there!...and look a lot like a dead leaf. this is to hide from all the predators out there. The butterflies lay their eggs on grass, usually Themeda australis, or Kangaroo grass. It is green, and the 'horns' are actually on its tail. see photo.

Spiny Stick Insect [Extatasoma tiaratum]

I was out at a site near Cooran recently and one of our guys thought he saw an odd looking leaf...

It was in fact a Spiny stick insect [Extatasoma tiaratum] . This insect is a Phasmid. The females usually reproduce via normal sexual reproduction [with a fella] and eggs take about four months to develop... but they don't have to... if no males around, no problem. This process is called parthenogenesis. In this case the eggs take longer to develop [up to nine months] and only girls will be produced. Pretty cool! the eggs are flicked to the forest floor by the mother where they are moved around by ants, who eat part of the eggs and distribute them to their 'waste' piles.

They can be brown or green, and have great camouflage. The head has a odd shape which makes it look like it is on the wrong way...They can be up to 180mm long, and are really popular as pets. [I prefer them in the bush...but that is just me!]