The last few weeks has seen the appearance of a huge number of moths with a considerable diversity being attracted to our lights and entering the house at night. One of the most abundant are the fruit-piercing moths from the family Noctuidae. Many of these moths are quite large and are often adorned with spectacular colours and markings.
These moths are attracted to fruits both on and off the tree. The feeding habits of these moths do not endear them to orchardists due to the damage they cause. I recently observed a tree fruiting at Crystal Cascades which had in excess of twenty of these large moths of various species feeding on its fruits. A large adult Nephila pilipes had her web set-up within the branches of the same tree, and was reaping obvious rewards. At the same location I found one of the largest caterpillars I have ever seen, complete with very convincing eye-spots. The caterpillar is the larva of one of the largest moths in this group, Phyllodes imperialis.
Eudocima iridescens, one of the fruit piercing moths that appeared at our home
The spectacular Phyllodes imperialis caterpillar
The eye-spots and apparent teeth are enough to startle many would-be predators.
The TV series we worked on from October to the end of January has recently started going to air in the US on the Discovery Science channel. We were contracted by Beyond Productions as invertebrate specialists and wranglers. The program is quite educational and examines the upper echelon of invertebrate predators, and reveals their adaptations and abilities within their various natural habitats.
Our role was to recreate the habits (sets) for the camera, and of course supply and wrangle around 60 species of invertebrates in order to film a wide range of natural behaviours. Each segment culminates in the pinnacle - the predation sequences where two predators meet. All the match-ups are those which would naturally occur in nature, but getting natural behaviour to occur on cue in front of the camera isn’t as easy as it sounds. It was a painstaking and patience-testing job, 10 hours a day for 3 months. For the most part there were just three of us on set; the DoP (Director of Photography) Malcolm Ludgate, camera assistant Mylene Ludgate, and myself (Alan). It was shot in full HD, and for some sequences we used two cameras - a specialised high speed camera which we cranked up to 2000 frames per second at times. (This camera was from the Myth Busters set, and came complete with shrapnel holes in the back of it). Some of the sequences we recorded with this camera gave us incredible insights into the behaviour and tactics used by some of the predators - things you would simply miss or misinterpret watching them at real speed.
The final product includes amazing imagery, some stunning CGI, music and an array of sound effects. Although the program style may not appeal to everyone, it is already gaining a substantial following in the US, and hopefully not only raising the profile of these often overlooked animals, but also providing the audience with a sense of appreciation for them through admiration of the incredible abilities these minute predators have.
One of the rainforest sets, surrounded by lights and two HD cameras.
Malcolm operates 'the probe' while I get the stars in place. The probe was $100K lens kit which allowed us to get amazing up close imagery with holywood style tracking moves.
Preparing a White-tailed Spider to meet up with a Black House Spider.
One of the complete segments - a Bullant meeting up with a Redback.
I spotted a tiny gathering on a leaf in our front yard recently which tweaked my interest, and I couldn't resist snapping a photo. It consisted of a Green Tree Ant (Oecophylla smaragdina), or part thereof, and a group of tiny ants (probably Monomorium sp.). Green Tree Ants are one of the most dominant scavengers in this region. Colonies can be huge, occupying and completely dominating multiple large trees and the surrounding forest. They can be seen carting away all sorts of animals, both complete and dismembered. I once witnessed them carrying a small python up a tree in the Northern Territory.
In this scene however, the tables are turned. Tiny ants carry away the relatively huge head of Green Tree Ant worker. In reference to food chains, you often hear the saying 'there's always someone bigger'. Ecosystems though are complex and not linear like a chain, but interwoven like a web. In this case it would be more apt to say there's always someone smaller...
Tiny ants, barely 2mm long cart away a nice morsel for their colony; a Green Tree Ant head.
We awoke to find this massive spider on the lounge wall this morning. It is clearly the biggest spider we have ever seen. We think it is the elusive Heteropoda aperirefollis; a single huge specimen was collected in April 1903 by biologist H.G Whells in 'northern Australia' - no other locality data available. The species has not been recorded since.
We also suspect that this big female arachnid is the reason for the disappearance of all the geckos in our house over the past week, and our neighbours’ kitten.
Unfortunately, just before today, the spider chewed its way through the plastic container and has disappeared. We are hoping it shows up again, but it may be another 12 months before we see another specimen like this one.
I was very excited to find my second endangered frog for the week. I have been hoping to see this particular species, Nictimystes dayi, for a long time.
Like the Waterfall Frog, the Australian Lace-lid has declined in numbers over the past 30 years and is now reasonably rare. This species favours clean running rainforest streams, and seems to have suffered as a result of Chytrid Fungus. It is a very distinctive frog - the only Australian species to have an eyelid with distinct venation, hence the common name.
The Australian lace-lid, Nictimystes dayi
While I was photographing it, it suddenly closed its eyes to reveal the amazing lace-lids.
A close-up of the eyes with the lace-like patterns.
Deanna was given a tiny baby snake to identify while dropping Tayen off at kinda last week. She immediately identified the snake as a Brown Tree Snake, Boiga irregularis. The person who brought it in had found her daughter playing with it, and had since found 15 more of them around the house. The snakes had obviously just hatched, and were beginning to disperse.
Brown Tree Snakes belong to the family Colubridae; solid toothed and rear-fanged snakes. This particular species has rear-fangs and mild venom, and although they can be defensive at times, rarely do bites on humans cause envenomation. At this size they are quite harmless, and this little one was not the least bit aggressive.
We released the little snake in a tree on our front lawn. If it is lucky it will find food in the form of small skinks, geckos and frogs. If it survives to an adult it will graduate to small birds and mammals. Like all young animals in the wild, surviving this first period is the toughest. These snakes don't get any assistance from their parents, so from day one they are on their own.
The newly hatched snake on Deanna's hand
The snake resting under leaves in a tree. In the morning it had moved on.
The snake's key sensor; the tongue collects samples from the air and transfers them to a specialised organ on the roof of the mouth.
I spotted a spider recently at night; it lit up bright white in the torchlight and at first I was completely bewildered at which species I was looking at. It was in a normal hunting posture facing downwards on a tree but something was a little amiss. On closer inspection I found the entire spider engulfed in fungus. This is the third dead huntsman I have found here in the wet tropics in such a state - over taken by something their incredible leg speed can't outrun.
The fungus seems to attack them in such a way that they end up frozen in a normal posture. A few years ago I observed a similar fungus in action infesting a small congregation of native bees that resided upon the leaves of a rainforest tree. The bees obviously returned to these same leaves regularly, but at some point the fungus would overtake them and they would remain and ultimately die. There were bees in various states of infection; some were dead and completely covered, and others had a partial covering or traces of the fungus. Some appeared healthy and free to come and go, oblivious to the slowly spreading threat nearby.
What appears to be a Brown Huntsman (Heteropoda jugulans) beneath its death shroud.
A close-up of the same fungus-covered spider.
The bees. A 'healthy' bee sitting in the foreground with infected and dead bees surrounding it. Some nearby leaves had more healthy bees with less fungal activity.
