Beasts of Wiltshire

[stonberg]

Beasts!

The moth is a Privet Hawk Moth, the largest of the UK moths, (s)he's about as long as my hand. The dragonfly is a ... well, dragonfly. The beetle lady/chap, I have no idea; is there an insectologist in the house? At least it got snapped with a decent camera as opposed to an iKak or dog 'n' bone. The picture doesn't do its colours justice though, which were pretty spectacular.

[dawman]

Recently moved to Nashville area and never heard of Cicadas.
Literally billions come up out of the ground every so many years and sound like alien spaceships.
They breed then die but after growing to a big freaky looking bug and smashing themselves into
Windows and moving cars.
Saw a live one that flew into my car and sat next to me.
Very colorful. Several shades of red and orange.
Actually recorded them and use the audio clip mixed with crickets for songs that dont go over well.
Never in my life have I seen so many bugs before.
Lightning bugs actually blink neon yellow in the thousands at night.
Picked the wrong year to stop doing hallucinegenics......

[Nestor]

Wow! Thanks... nature is so wonderful...

[stonberg]

Cicadas use prime numbers to avoid predators munching too many of them; they emerge every 'prime number' years which is not easily divisible by a predator's population cycle period; the likelihood of a predator's 'boom' year coinciding with the cicada's emergence is reduced.

Maths works!

[jksuperstar]

Jimmy..it's never too late to start again.