Second invertebrate post for March

The first post started with spot the spider.  This one begins with a slightly extended game of "spot the grasshopper".  That should be enough of a warning for acridophobes to avoid the page.  (I was astonished to find that googling for 'fear of grasshoppers' got 6740 results!  Some people must get very alarmed driving through a locust swarm!)

These were all spotted while in the vegetable garden on 14 March.  Some of them were quite camouflaged, others less so.  I will present them in order of challenge:
 If you are brown and want to hide, a trombacini leaf is not a good idea.
A bit of green and a bit of brown on old grass stalks isn't bad ....
... but all green on fresh grass is very difficult to spot.  Until the beast jumps when it becomes quite easy to spot.  Since this isn't an interactive site I suggest click to enlarge and then peer closely!

Moving back to bugs I scored an image of a 4th instar nymph (how convoluted is that?) of the Gum Tree Shield Bug (Theseus modestus).  I would query this since I found the beast on a Buddleia not a gum tree but the following image matches very closely that on the Brisbane insects site  So I am making a call.
 
I have finally found a ladybird. This is a Transverse Ladybird (Coccinella transversalism) - thank you Chew family!  Given the number of aphids on our Fuschias we could do with a lot more of them. The two shots show it climbing a grass them and then, after being dislodged by a klutz, scurrying along the ground.


A great big dragonfly was found posing on some grass stems.  It was only when looking at the image that I noticed the beautiful patterning on the side of the abdomen.
I also found some ants busy attending to a pupa (and possibly some nearby lerps: if anyone reckons they can work out what ants are up to  ....).  Only one ant hung around long enough to get its photo taken!
Let us revert to caterpillars.  First up a green jobbie found munching on some Vietnamese Mint.  The amount of hairs suggests it isn't a cabbage white that has got misplaced.
The next image was taken at London Bridge rather than Carwoola but is worth showing due to the hairiness and the size (about 10cm) of this caterpillar marching up a Brittle Gum (Eucalyptus mannifera).
Proving that this blog is not leg-ist. here is a snap of a centipede (only one pair of legs per segment so not a millipede).  This was found on the road leading in to London Bridge.



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