# Bug hunts in Arizona(Tucson) and Eastern Texas area



## yen_saw (Sep 4, 2008)

Before we start here is my friend (Christian Ludwig) who is bug hunting with me for this entire week, mainly looking for ants (i am afetr mantis). Also, it was a great pleasure meeting up with Peter and his wife too. My hunting trip actually started the second day as i was pretty sick the day we landed. I will continue the hunt pics on several posts due to pics limit and also my time limit  

Starting from left, Christian, Peter's wife, Peter, and myself taken in front of the hotel lobby at Tucson, AZ.







Arizona grasshopper mantis (_Yersiniops sp._) - adult male











Scarab beetle






More beetle






Nice butterfly






Arizona mantis - adult male






Hopper!






Ok that's all for now..... will share more pics when time permits I promise.


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## Kruszakus (Sep 4, 2008)

What about the pictures of local cuisine?

I did not know that Peter had such a nice looking gal for wife


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## Rick (Sep 4, 2008)

Nice pics Yen! That grasshopper mantis is cool. Will make a good addition to bugfest.


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## Andrew (Sep 4, 2008)

Looks like fun! Hope you find more _Yersiniops_, it's a great species.


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 4, 2008)

Have fun!


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## yen_saw (Sep 4, 2008)

Kruszakus said:


> What about the pictures of local cuisine?I did not know that Peter had such a nice looking gal for wife


Now Peter is going to kick me out of this forum  

Sorry Kruzakus i was there for bugs, not food  But i have to say the restaurant in the hotel served delicious food  



Rick said:


> Nice pics Yen! That grasshopper mantis is cool. Will make a good addition to bugfest.


Will send you the adult male no problem.



Andrew said:


> Looks like fun! Hope you find more _Yersiniops_, it's a great species.


Yes there are pretty cool. It was difficult to catch them as there were many grasshopper the same size as this species, and when disturb they jumped like grasshopper, got to have a good (and quick) eyes for spotting them. We caught 5 males and 2 females, all adult. I am not sure if both female were mated so i mated them again.








hibiscusmile said:


> Have fun!


Thanks  

Well on the second day we have more luck on more insects. Caught few more AZ grasshopper mantis. Check out their hind leg, pretty similar to a grasshopper leg i have to say.











Also a fat female ground mantis..yay! If she didn't move it it is almost impossible to spot her.






Christian checking out some ant nest. I believed that was the honeypot ant nest he was checking out






A closer look at the nest... but where is the queen?!?!






Also found an ootheca. Hmmm.... the ooth looks like _Phyllovates chlorophaea _and _Pseudovates arizonae_ ooth. But i am really hoping that this is something new, like some other Vates or Pseudovates sp. and hopefully it is not empty egg cage.






Scorpian.... not sure what species











Male Tarantula, quite a few of them.






To be continue.......


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## Gurd (Sep 5, 2008)

Some nice finds there mate  

I remember watching a documentary with honeypot ants and they needed a JCB to get to the queens chamber


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## Peter Clausen (Sep 5, 2008)

Haha...I showed my wife that photo and she was quick to mention that this was the last day of our trip out in the desert collecting bugs and she wasn't exactly expecting to be caught on film  

Still, she did appreciate the compliment, Kruszakus!

The food in Tucson is not so great compared to what I'm used to up here in Oregon. Of course, maybe I wasn't hitting up the best restaurants. There was a little hole in the wall restaurant in Wilcox. I collected my first bug of the trip on a picnic table out back there. It was chasing one of the hundred flies that were buzzing around the tables. Strangely, the flies went away when the food was served. Probably not a good sign! My tacos looked better than Roxanne's mystery meat hamburger though. Oh, I also saw some dragonfly naiads in the water fountain and a few swept-up Xyloryctes beetles in a trash can (only because I looked, of course).

Oh your scorpion is a common Vaejovis. I probably saw a hundred of them with my blacklight. They call them 3 stripe or 3 lined scorpions, I think. I did manage to find some desert hairy scorps and a few others.

I'll post a few photos from the trip here too:

Photo 1: Tarantula crossing the road

Photo 2: Me in the Arizona desert

Photo 3: more eye candy for Kruszakus (silly hat we bought for our son) at Big Nose Kate's Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona

Photo 4: It's monsoon season in AZ, so that means flash floods. It ain't all sunny skies in August!

Photo 5: caterpillar larvae

Photo 6: Horsebean longhorn beetle


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## yen_saw (Sep 6, 2008)

Gurd said:


> Some nice finds there mate  I remember watching a documentary with honeypot ants and they needed a JCB to get to the queens chamber


Thanks Craig  I wasn't serious when i said where the queen is  With only little shovels in hand Christian will probably still need to dig in right now to get into the queen chamber!



Peter said:


> Haha...I showed my wife that photo and she was quick to mention that this was the last day of our trip out in the desert collecting bugs and she wasn't exactly expecting to be caught on film  Still, she did appreciate the compliment, Kruszakus!
> 
> The food in Tucson is not so great compared to what I'm used to up here in Oregon. Of course, maybe I wasn't hitting up the best restaurants. There was a little hole in the wall restaurant in Wilcox. I collected my first bug of the trip on a picnic table out back there. It was chasing one of the hundred flies that were buzzing around the tables. Strangely, the flies went away when the food was served. Probably not a good sign! My tacos looked better than Roxanne's mystery meat hamburger though. Oh, I also saw some dragonfly naiads in the water fountain and a few swept-up Xyloryctes beetles in a trash can (only because I looked, of course).
> 
> ...


Nice pics Peter. Thank you so much for taking care of Christian for me on our first day in Tucson. Thanks for the scorpian identification. Also i have donated some tarantulas you gave me, the museum wanna thank you too  

Before moving to bug collection in Texas. Here are few more pics of some bugs found in Tucson.

Nice looking stick insect











Tiger beetle











Is this a velvet ant? It looks like some character from Disney :lol: 











The ground mantis female produced an egg case in the container! Good chance the ootheca is fertile.











So i set up a cage for this lady






Also there was a huge sun spider, she will bite anything!






Still no luck for Christian to witness any ants mating ritual, he is keeping his finger cross and praying for rains, which is ants collector friends, but rain is not mantis collector friend B)


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## Peter Clausen (Sep 6, 2008)

I still have a ton of photos to go through, but here's a fun one of Roxanne when we were within a few miles of the border of Mexico. Roxanne and I were hiking down a wash (dry creek bed) when we heard a car pull up near ours back on the road. I ran back to see if somebody might be messing with our car. It's unusual to hear other vehicles stopping on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. But it was just Border Patrol..."keeping it safe". We had a good time talking about bugs as many of them aren't from Arizona, originally. They also shared some tips with us for being safe while collecting so close to the border. They catch border-crossers almost every day. I asked them if I could snap a few photos and they even turned on the lights for me


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## yen_saw (Sep 6, 2008)

Interesting stuff Peter. We didn't get stop by any border patrol being far away from Mexico border, but have some local people (usually cyclists and joggers) curious enough to stop by asking what are we doing. I guess we are some bug freaks and wierdos for them :lol: but they are kind enough to take pics for us  











THe room service lady almost scream when she saw the bugs in our room  and told us not to let any of those loose  






We went back to the place you brought Chrsitian on the first day Peter... Continental Rd.. I have to say that is a great spot for bugs!!






Prime area for bugs of all kinds






Some mantis collection on the second day.











One more immature female ground mantis (_L. minor_)






adult male ground mantis






Well there was no single queen ant for my friend Christian, but there is a great sign he might be lucky tomorrow...... ant collector greatest friend has arrived in Tucson!






Will Chrsitian hit jackpot tomorrow? To be continue.......


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## d0rk2dafullest (Sep 6, 2008)

the scropion might be yellow fat tail

death stalkers tails are skinny with skinny claws

FYI anyone =P


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## collinchang635 (Sep 6, 2008)

Hope you find more mantids!


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## yen_saw (Sep 7, 2008)

d0rk2dafullest said:


> the scropion might be yellow fat taildeath stalkers tails are skinny with skinny claws
> 
> FYI anyone =P


Yup. Small claw + big tail = poisonous sting! I don't want to mess with any scorpian.



I Like Mantis said:


> Hope you find more mantids!


Thanks. We found many kind of bugs beside mantids. At the end we have to release some bugs back as I ran out of luggage space &lt;_&lt; 

Ok back to the queen ant hunt for Christian. On the last day, he did find around 20+ queen ants of leaf cutter ant (_Acromyrmex versicolor_?) and long leg ant (_Aphaenogaster cocerele_?) yay! So the rain a day before did help! and according to Christian these queens will easily cover the cost of this entire travel, or at least the flight ticket.... WOW! :blink: 

Here checking out nest for long leg nest






Queen leaf cuter ant






Queen long leg ant






Those queen ants have started making hole on the ground after mating and ready to start a colony. By digging in it wouldn't take long to locate the queen. But sometimes we found something else.






Also some cool grasshopper






At the same time i found out that Yersiniops sp is pretty aggressive, believed cannibalism is common for this species. I was mating another pair again.






The next thing i know is the male has only a leg left






left with a fat female






Another pic of the ground mantis female






Hmmm.. what type of ant nest would this be?






So we are all happy leaving Tucson and head to Phoenix airport for the trip back to Houston.

Next to bug hunt in Houston area.....


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## pohchunyee (Sep 7, 2008)

YEAH!!! Welcome back to the hobby Yen!!!


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## d0rk2dafullest (Sep 7, 2008)

Awesome pics, the queen leaf cutter ant looks really cool!

Remember to be safe wouldnt wanna get bitten or messed up with a centipede! =P


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## idolomantis (Sep 7, 2008)

my next vacation destination is........

we don't find any of that in europe :angry:


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## yen_saw (Sep 7, 2008)

pohchunyee said:


> YEAH!!! Welcome back to the hobby Yen!!!


Thanks Chun, although i am not 100% back.



d0rk2dafullest said:


> Awesome pics, the queen leaf cutter ant looks really cool!Remember to be safe wouldnt wanna get bitten or messed up with a centipede! =P


THe Texas leaf cutter (_Atta Texana_) ant queen is even larger, i would say 3 times larger than the Arizona leaf cutter ant! I am learning more about ants nowadyas  

Yeah, that centipede wasn't a small one either. A good 5-6 inches



idolomantis said:


> my next vacation destination is........we don't find any of that in europe :angry:


You have many cool mantis in Europe too. _Empusa sp _can be found in most Western European country.

Ok, back to Houston now. We went to a park nearby my house. Just a small park with trees and low grasses. A good place for ants (Well don't want my German friend here to go home with nothing from Houston). However, we found no queen ants but other bugs (including mantis) instead.... hmmm talk about coincidence.

Jumping spider






Spider crab











Mantis!!! _Thesprotia graminis _nymph






Well we found interesting wasp-looking ant, pretty cool. THese two were fighting! Christian hopes he can find the queen for this species. It will make him very rich ha!






Found a small colony of ants inside a log, but not too interesting i guess as Christian decided to leave it






Hey found another mantis!! Another immature grass mantis






That's me checking out some bug, didn't realize i was in that pic till Chris passed me the photo






Grasshopper...mantis food!






Will share more photos from the bug hunt next.....


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## idolomantis (Sep 7, 2008)

we never go to these countries.. lol. the most interesting i find here is waterbug


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## d0rk2dafullest (Sep 7, 2008)

awesome spider crab!


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## yen_saw (Sep 8, 2008)

Continue with more bug hunt. This time we went to Kingwood - about 30 miles north of Houston - to meet up a bug buddy of mine David for both day and night hunt. Before the hunt I want him to show Chris his awsome dried collection, but i was the one who really want to see it again. I never get tired looking at those eventhough i have seen it many time.

Here they are (nothing much on mantis)















































Kenny holding a large Malaysian stick insect - bought from KL butterfly park.






David has about 30+ trays i will only show part of it

more pics next post....


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## yen_saw (Sep 8, 2008)

An owl butterfly and nice birdwing butterfly pair collection David had someone bought for him from Malaysia in KL butterfly park











I can see Chris "crying" when he saw the Texas leaf cutter queen ant in one of his pin collection! How he wished it was a live specimen.






Zoom in on the mantis collection, not sure what it is but look like European mantis






Well enough with the collection so we moved on to the day hunt, but sun was fast setting. Then i saw a wasp looking ant moving near the garage door and quickly let Chris know. Turn out that it is a queen!!! Chris quickly captured it without getting stung (it deliver a painful sting!)






It appear to be the same wasp-looking like ant species we saw over the park near my house. Got the sceintific name from Chris as _Pseudomyrmex gracilis_?! He claimed that he will be the first person in Europe to have this species, but he will need another queen to continue breeding future generation as this species avoid inbreeding. Damn he will be so rich  if we found another.

To attract more ants we brought a can of sugar and pour it along the trail from a park. Since both David andf myself are not the ant guy only Chris is looking down the ground and holding the sugar walking down the trail :lol: Unfortunately what we attracted were only bunch of fire ants.... grrr they are everywhere!






So move on with night hunt next post......


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## yen_saw (Sep 8, 2008)

The first interesting creature we found was not a bug, but a green anole.






Then we stopped by at a school with bright flourscent lights around.

Tiger beetles were everywhere!






A metallic tiger beetle






Some bugs i have no idea
















A very large black cricket...... which eventually taken by my Florida barkies.






Found two _Stagmomantis carolina _ adult male. One will go to bug fest.
















More pics to come....


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## yen_saw (Sep 8, 2008)

A nice large beetle






hopper






Chris managed to find another queen ant of _Pachycondyla harpax_, and again saying that he hasn't seen this species in culture back ini Europe..... he is so lucky! The ant move so fast i don't wanna risk taking a pic sorry!

I also found a dead adult female _Thesprotia gramins_... what a bummer! But i am really glad this species is making a comeback to Houston. I couldn't find a single grass mantis (not even a dead one) last year due to the non-stopping summer storm.

So my mission will be finding an adult pair of grass mantis while Chris's mission would be another wasp-looking queen ant in another park........

At the meantime. The AZ grasshopper mantis produced an ootheca!











Could it be _Y. sophronica _or _Y. solitaria _? Well i can only hope it hatches and only time will tell.


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## The_Asa (Sep 8, 2008)

That is an amazing bug collection! Never seen anyone that devoted :lol: 

How do you guys find these bugs? Do you search or do you prefer to attract them?


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## Rick (Sep 8, 2008)

Great pics Yen. I have tons of those metallic tiger beetles around my house. They make a good mantis meal.


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## yen_saw (Sep 8, 2008)

The_Asa said:


> That is an amazing bug collection! Never seen anyone that devoted :lol: How do you guys find these bugs? Do you search or do you prefer to attract them?


David really has the heart and patient for his pinned collection. I learnt quite a bit from him.

We go out searching for diurnal species (dragon fly, butterfly, grasshopper, etc) during day time and attracting nocturnal insects (moth and beetle) using light trap. It depends onwhat you like but it is easier to collect bug at night as they are attracted to the light source so you don't have to look for them.



Rick said:


> Great pics Yen. I have tons of those metallic tiger beetles around my house. They make a good mantis meal.


Never try feeding mantis tiger beetle. Mainly wild caught moth. But i am sure mantis is capable of handling both.

Took a break and brought Chris to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to check out some bugs at BUtterfly center/insect zoo. THe insect zoo manager (Erin) was kind enough to give me some free tickets for Chris. I gave Erin some mantis, scorpian, and tarantula (Thanks again Peter!) and we started taking some pics

Leaf insects






How many leaf insect can you find?






Chris and myself in the backstage






Chris with Erin






Stick insects
















Vinegaroon






MOre stick insect






Discussing with Erin on the budwing, carolina, and asian giant mantis nymphs (32oz insect containers)






MOre pics on the butterfly park........


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## yen_saw (Sep 8, 2008)

PIcs from the butterfly center





















Chris with his favorite ant display section































Next we are back to bug hunt near West Houston Bear Creek Park......... post more pics tomorrow. Promise to have some mantis photos!


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## collinchang635 (Sep 9, 2008)

Be sure to stop by Malaysia. There are a lot of insects and some mantids here. If you do, check out Cameron Highlands. That place is full of orchids and dead leave mantids. If you're not that lucky in finding them, be sure to ask the 'orang asli' to help look for them (they're really good). If you would like topurchase some, I think you can go to the butterfly farm. From the information 'pohchunyee' (also a Malaysian like me) gave me, you can go around and ask the farmers if they will allow you to look around their farms for mantids.


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## pohchunyee (Sep 9, 2008)

I Like Mantis said:


> Be sure to stop by Malaysia.


Yen is from Malaysia too, he was the one who gave me those INFO...LOL


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## collinchang635 (Sep 9, 2008)

pohchunyee said:


> Yen is from Malaysia too, he was the one who gave me those INFO...LOL


Oh............. :blink: Heh heh..... :lol:


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## yen_saw (Sep 9, 2008)

I Like Mantis said:


> Be sure to stop by Malaysia. There are a lot of insects and some mantids here. If you do, check out Cameron Highlands. That place is full of orchids and dead leave mantids. If you're not that lucky in finding them, be sure to ask the 'orang asli' to help look for them (they're really good). If you would like topurchase some, I think you can go to the butterfly farm. From the information 'pohchunyee' (also a Malaysian like me) gave me, you can go around and ask the farmers if they will allow you to look around their farms for mantids.


Spent most of my first 20 year living in Malaysia  

CH (Cameron highland) was part of my plan this Summer vacation, but i got sick... sigh....  

Are you from KL? CH is developing into a tourist area so i would go sooner for bug before all the trees are gone! There used to be only one way going up (via Tapah road) but few years ago there is a Simpang Pulai route going to CH which has less winding road. The new route also open up more access roads to bug collecting. I was planning to visit the Orang asli too although my "Bahasa Melayu" is pretty bad nowadays.

So back to bug hunt. Went to couple of parks. The first one looks like this






Nice area for ant collection and grass mantis. But plenty of large spider (Orb weaver?)






Ah i was late! appear to be a hatched out (with parasitic holes) Carolina ooth.






A cicada and an old shed






Adult female _Thesprotia graminis_!!! although a good 2.5 inches they are pretty tough to spot as they blend in well with the surrounding. I couldn't take the pic of it using my lousy camera so i have to place her on a stick for focusing, ya i am cheating ha!






She is kind of fat so finger cross she has been mated.

Found an interesting ant at first glance.






But wait it is not an ant!!











It is some kind of wheel bug nymph. An ant mimicking bug... cool. The long "probosis" gives the clue.

We also found some velvet ants. The small one reminds me of the "Disney" velvet ant found in Arizona.






By the way, the AZ velvet ant was identified as _Pseudomethoca contumax _in bug guide.

The more common velvet ant






Next post is about hunting ant lions and queen ants.....


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## yen_saw (Sep 9, 2008)

I have never been bothered digging up the antlion from its trap. But since Chrsitian is here we decided to dig up a few. Antlion appear to be selling good in Japan according to Chris.

Here we found the typical antlion traps. They are usually found right below a large dead oak tree where ants infested the area. Also at area where the area soil type is of soft clayey and sandy.











All you need is a small shovel, and small tweezer, and as usual, a good pair of eye as antlion lays motionless appear just like a clump of clay. Antlion usually stay pretty close to the surface so you don't have to dig in too deep. However, you need to be quick or they dissappear beneath the soft soil pretty fast too.

Here is when we first dig up the trap. If you have a good eye you can spot the antlion's head. But trust me it is difficult to spot when we first dig it up, not to mention being sucked dry by tons of annoying mosquitoes at the same time.






Slowly going through the pile of soil... and there you are!











Then Chris is busy checking for the wasp like ant






and hit jackpot! another queen! now good chance he will continue to breed this species in Europe.






and found a colony with some brood, and some winged queen and male. Talk about luck!






Here is a comparison between a worker and winged queen. The winged queen looks just like a wasp.






A colony all hiding in this piece of log. So Chris took the whole log with him. He is certain there is a producing queen inside.






Opss reach the limit of 10 pics per post so move on to the next post with more bug hunt....


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## yen_saw (Sep 9, 2008)

guess my luck on ootheca is not doing so well... another very old ooth. Carolina i presumed.






but the luck can turn as quickly too. Found couple of fresh ootheca without parasictic holes. yay!






This one is so fresh my guess is it was deposited just a day or only hours ago.






So i was playing around with the adult female grass mantis and found another fat one!











So now i am hoping to find a male grass mantis just in case the two female haven't been mated. But based on my experience the grass mantis adult female found around the tree bark are mated and ready to deposit ootheca which is commonly found around lower part of tree bark. So I moved on to the grassy area where grass mantis adult male can sometimes be spotted flying around.

But what i found was a surprise.... a green snake! This one is about couple of foot long.






So i moved on to find some other bugs instead. A jumping spider attacking a moth its own size






Some more wheel bug






This wheel bug was finally identified as the adult form of the ant mimicking wheel bug.






And before we decided to end the bug hunt, there is this subadult male grass mantis found short grassy area! he is missing a leg but hopefully he can molt out alright. I can certainly use him if both adult female grass mantis ahven't not been mated (which i doubted)






That's all for now!!!


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## Giosan (Sep 9, 2008)

Omg I have a thing for grass/stick mantids :lol: Very nice.


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## idolomantis (Sep 9, 2008)

i begin to get addicted to watching this...


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## collinchang635 (Sep 10, 2008)

Not from KL actually, I'm from PJ


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## collinchang635 (Sep 10, 2008)

Not from KL actually, I'm from PJ. Going to Cameron next month with a friend for a bug hunting trip. This topic motivated me.


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## mantidsandgeckos (Sep 10, 2008)

Yen saw, can you give us tips on how to and where to catch mantids in Cameron highlands?


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## yen_saw (Sep 10, 2008)

Thanks Giosan, the female grass mantis is wingless just like a stick but the male has wing and fly well. However, the AZ grasshopper mantis has no wing at all on either adult male or female.



I Like Mantis said:


> Not from KL actually, I'm from PJ. Going to Cameron next month with a friend for a bug hunting trip. This topic motivated me.


I lived with my sister in PJ SS2 area for a year before buying a condominium in OUG Hill (Bukit OUG) at Kuala Lumpur. Is the popular PJ food stall (near SS2) still there? I really missed the food! Good luck on your bug hunt trip.



friendofgeckos said:


> Yen saw, can you give us tips on how to and where to catch mantids in Cameron highlands?


There is no particular places where plentiful insects can be found. Luck and right timing, together with experience and keen eyes play important role. June is a good time as most insects are in season. If you use the old Tapah route, try mile 19th-Tapah-Cameron Highlands road. During day time, check out some fruit trees with ripe fruits, these attract insects which provide foods for mantis. Wild banana and papaya trees are good target for large green mantis. You can also find mantis around gardens in CH booming with flowers. Dead leaf or other cryptive mantis is a little more tricky as they blend very well with surrounding, you need luck and a very keen eyes to spot them. At night, look under street lamp post or building with flourescents light and you might see sometimes a coommon mantids, but moths and beetles are most likely what you wil be encountered.

The new road (Simpang Pulai) going up to Cameron Highlands from Ipoh also provide new hunting ground. Along the way,the forest is good place to collect mantids. Try beat the tree and bushes with a long net and some small,medium and large mantids wil fall into the net. Or you could bring a large white sheet of cloth for easy spotting when the bugs fall to the ground. These mantids are not collected by the aborigines as they have no value, especially when they are at nymph stage with no dried collection value.

If you need more info, PM me. I don't wanna bore other members here with story from CH. Remember the hunting ground there in CH is very different than here in arid Arizona or subtropical Texas.

Before moving on to more bug hunt pics. I was told of species name for few bugs.

One of my Yersiniops adult male die and i sent it to the Texas A&amp;M curator. He think the species i have is _Yersiniops sophronica_.







Apparently, the "Disney" velvet ant from Arizona is a very rare specimen. It is of _Pseudomethoca quadrinotata_

Here it is again






While the small red velvet ant found in Houston is of the _Timulla sp._ which is more common.

Last trip to the park before sending Christian to the airport.

Fond a very large spider. It was early in the morning.






zooming in






Hey another fresh S. carolina ooth....






small lizard






Can't find any mantis for hours bummer so i follow Christian to check out some ants. I was knocking on a tree with some holes and all of the sudden lot of large interesting ants emerging from the holes... obviously the disturbed ants was trying to defend themselves and coming right at me. So i leave them alone after Chris told me that we will have to cut down the tree to dig up the queen..... errr not very possible although Chris would love to have the queen.






But then Chris was rewarded with a large wasp like queen ant later on! another queen..... he is a happy man, and we left the park with mosquitoe bites on every single limb. Itch like heck......


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 11, 2008)

I so enjoyed the story, tell some more!


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## Peter Clausen (Sep 11, 2008)

I brought back enough of those _Megacephala carolina_ tiger beetles (metallic ones) to start a culture. Not sure if I'll be successful, but it's a fun challenge.

You're welcome, Yen. I'm glad those few extras went to a good cause. I wasn't sure if you were going to be feeling well enough to get out at all, so I made sure that Christian brought back a few things from our adventure for show and tell.

Couple photos:

1. handsome devils (Yen and Peter). somebody must have said something pretty funny cuz I'm cheezin' it BIG TIME!

2. AZ rattlesnake

3. friends John and Michael at the blacklight setup

4. closeup of sheet


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## d0rk2dafullest (Sep 11, 2008)

hey, i've seen a setup like that before

its used to bring a crud load of insects to you guys at night?

do mantids come too or just insect food for mantids?


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## Peter Clausen (Sep 12, 2008)

Yes, the mercury vapor bulb draws in a bunch of different kinds of bugs. We also had a blacklight bulb on the other side of the sheet. Mantises will fly in, though usually just males. Females can sometimes be found in the bushes in the periphery of the lights.

I'm a bug generalist, so I don't really think of other bugs as being food for mantises when I'm out collecting. I like pretty much everything equally, though mantises make much better pets than most other bugs.


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## collinchang635 (Sep 13, 2008)

yen_saw said:


> I lived with my sister in PJ SS2 area for a year before buying a condominium in OUG Hill (Bukit OUG) at Kuala Lumpur. Is the popular PJ food stall (near SS2) still there? I really missed the food! Good luck on your bug hunt trip.


Are you referring to Murni? It has changed a lot. They serve a lot of new dishes.


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## yen_saw (Sep 13, 2008)

I will add more pics later. We have been hit badly by Hurricane Ike. Part of my house's roof and fences are damaged, bummer  . Much of the city is without electricity at the moment. My thought is currently with those who have lost their house from the wind or flood.


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## idolomantis (Sep 13, 2008)

aw man! sucks to get hit by a hurricane.....

Well, i hope everybody survived it..


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## collinchang635 (Sep 13, 2008)

yen_saw said:


> I will add more pics later. We have been hit badly by Hurricane Ike. Part of my house's roof and fences are damaged, bummer  . Much of the city is without electricity at the moment. My thought is currently with those who have lost their house from the wind or flood.


Hopefully it wasn't so bad.


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## yen_saw (Sep 18, 2008)

Peter said:


> I brought back enough of those _Megacephala carolina_ tiger beetles (metallic ones) to start a culture. Not sure if I'll be successful, but it's a fun challenge.You're welcome, Yen. I'm glad those few extras went to a good cause. I wasn't sure if you were going to be feeling well enough to get out at all, so I made sure that Christian brought back a few things from our adventure for show and tell.


Nice. I am not familiar with tiger beetle, only see lot of them in dried specimen. Best of luck breeding them Peter. Thanks for the extra bugs you gave Christian. He brought some spiders back to Germany but we end up releasing all the beetles and grasshoppers cos we ran out of luggage space  but we took some pics of them before letting them go.



I Like Mantis said:


> Are you referring to Murni? It has changed a lot. They serve a lot of new dishes.


Yes the Murni drive!!! Looking forward to try the food there the next time i go back to Malaysia.



idolomantis said:


> aw man! sucks to get hit by a hurricane.....Well, i hope everybody survived it..


Everyone is alright, but the house is in bad shape. Bummer.....

Sorry i have to skip more bug hunt pics and get to the summary.........

Overall, it was not bad for both of us as we pretty much found what we were looking for

For Christian, he managed to collect 5 different species of queen ants and 2 colonies in the logs.

As for myself, the following is what I collected

Arizona

- 5 ground mantis (_Litaneutria minor_), 9 grasshopper mantis (_Yersiniops sophronica_), 5 Arizona mantis (_Stagmomantis limbata_)

Texas

- 11 grass mantis (_Thesprotia graminis_) and 3 Carolina mantis ootheca (_Stagmomantis carolina_) - edit: also couple of adult male Carolina mantis.

Before going back, Christian had a chance to try some food in Houston......











Took some pics with my family











and chill out in my theater room






I hope you guys enjoy this thread as much as i do and it would encourage more hobbyists go out to see these insects in the wild. It is a different type of experience, besides rearing mantis in captivity.

After sending Christian to the airport. I have decided to go to another park the next day. After finding both adult male and oothecae of Carolina mantis, i don't understand why i couldn't find adult female Carolina mantis, which is bigger than any other species I found through out this bug hunt. Finally I found 3 Carolina mantis!!! HOw could i missed this species all this while :huh: Well all i can say is ..Luck, luck, and luck!!!











THe recent Hurricane really messed up the trees in all the parks. Most of the parks are flooded too. My guess is the chances of finding more mantis is slim, but i never give up any hope.

Here are few more pics of the mantis collected.

One of the grass mantis molted into subadult, it is a male






Ground mantis






Adult male grasshopper mantis


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## yen_saw (Sep 19, 2008)

Update. The ootheca collected in Arizona couple of weeks ago surprisingly hatched out today!!! I couldn't tell what exact species it is right now but it has small "teething" on the head. I am hoping it is some new species but most likely it is of _Pseudovates arizonae_. Hatchling have small "teething" on the head which resemble the Arizona unicorn mantis nymphs. If this is infact Arizona unicorn mantis, this would be new bloodline to the current Arizona unicorn mantis gene pool I distributed a while ago. Hopefully this will keep this species continue for more generations.

Starting to hatch this morning






By the end, i have about 55 nymphs. Each appear to be strong and healthy. None get stucked on the ootheca.






On the wild collected Carolina mantis, I introduced the pair in the net cage yesterday and gave the female a huge moth. Male took little time to jump on her, she dropped the food immediately but appear not to threaten the male so I took some pics and let them together for the rest of the night.






Zooming in











But here is what i found the next morning  he is my only adult male :angry: Anyone here has a male for me?!?! SHe has probably been mated in the wild, is that the reason why she slaugthered the male?






Well at the same time, another wild collected female produced an ootheca in the 32 oz container. GUess she been mated in the wild.






Nothing much left. Here is another wild collected subadult male _Thesprotia graminis _feeding on a large house fly.






I like this pic. Looks like he is about to chomp down the flies with his mouth wide open :lol: 






Well i guess that's all for this thread as i am slowly moving away from the topic. I still have lot of bug hunt pics but it is pretty much the same species of mantis. Peter, feel free to add more pics here if you like. I am out for now, thanks for following this long thread and hopefully everyone finds it interesting.


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## hibiscusmile (Sep 19, 2008)

Thanks for all the pics and info you guys gave us, for those of us who can't go bug hunting this is the next best thing.


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## idolomantis (Sep 19, 2008)

Holy #### the poor male.....


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## collinchang635 (Sep 20, 2008)

Be sure to go for another bug hunt. I kinda got addicted to this thread.


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## collinchang635 (Sep 20, 2008)

Be sure to go for another bug hunt. I kinda got addicted to this thread.


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## yen_saw (Sep 26, 2008)

The storm really "destroyed" the park, i went back to the park and trees are falling left and right.

Before the strom






Afetr the storm











Hardly see anything that move in the park, except for the pesky fire ants... no wonder they are everywhere!






So no more bug hunt for me. Hoepfully by next Summer some mantis will come back to the parks again. Luckily i did some bug hunts before Ike arrived. Ike sucks!!

By the way, the ootheca from wild collected _Thesprotia graminis _hatched in as little as 16 days, as predicted the females been mated in the wild, especially when they are found on tree bark.


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## Ian (Sep 26, 2008)

Some really fantastic photos there Yen!

Nice to see your house is still in good keep  

Glad you had a good time.


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## yen_saw (Sep 26, 2008)

Thanks Ian, been busy repairing the house, have insurance adjustor and even FEMA agent dropping by our house, is going to take a long time but life goes on. All the best to you too!


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## collinchang635 (Sep 26, 2008)

Hope your house gets repaired quickly! :lol: Then you can go on another bug hunt


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## yen_saw (Oct 3, 2008)

Thanks, the repairment is underway and is burning a big hole in my pocket too bummer  Don't think I will go out for more bug hunt as weather is turning cooler now. Hopefully I can see some nice mantis coming back to this place, the recent storm must have killed or chased many away. I would really like to try some bug collecting in other places like Europe in the future - looking for some empusa! but most likely i will travel to Malaysia next Summer for bug hunt (still feel the pinch from missing the last trip).


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## Frack (Oct 4, 2008)

Gratz on all the cool finds and thx for sharing, I really enjoyed all the pics.


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## yen_saw (Oct 10, 2008)

hello fellow Houstonian! glad you like it. See you this Saturday for the mantis/roach trade.


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