A paper wasp drinks from a mud puddle.
Category Archives: Animals
Signs: No goats
These goats, part of a large herd wandering in the environs of a heliport, weren’t authorized personnel. I wasn’t about to go out and point that out to them, in case they didn’t take kindly to the message.
Green anole lookout
A green anole keeps watch from the leaf of a ti plant. I like the reptilian look of anoles, the details of their scales, and the colors around their eyes.
Got any change for a gecko?
This gold dust day gecko lives in this Pepsi machine and several times a day it emerges from the coin return slot to check out its surroundings. Sometimes it ventures farther afield on the machine.
The gecko seems to be doing fine in this environment. I just hope it’s not down there when someone hits the coin return button.
The nose has it
If I’m ever reincarnated as a ram, this is probably what I’d look like. I already have the nose.
Mango flower beetle
This mango flower beetle wasn’t on a mango flower, but on a basil plant. It wasn’t exactly lost though. A giant mango tree looms over the deck where the basil plant is growing.
Grasshopper at Lapakahi
Several weeks ago, when the Big Island had a couple of hurricanes in the vicinity, we were inundated with rain. Tired of staying indoors or slogging through mud, I headed down the road a few miles, to the dry side of the island, in the hopes of finding somewhere I could go for a walk.
I stopped at Lapakahi State Park, which holds the remains of an ancient Hawaii fishing village. It was dry and warm, though the trails there were still slick with moisture and closed to the public.
While I soaked up the warmth, I noticed this grasshopper (Schistocerca nitens I think) on a plant. It was hanging onto the stem and, despite my presence, seemed not in any hurry to move. It took me a while to realize there was something odd about it, but eventually I noticed that it was missing one of its hind legs. It’s not the first grasshopper I’ve seen in this condition and I always wonder how it affects them. The hind legs are the ones that launch them, so if they’re missing one do they ping off to one side? Do they end up going in circles? Or are they able to compensate?
I didn’t find out on this day as the grasshopper remained in roughly the same position the whole time I was there. Eventually I gave up watching and headed back into the gloom.
Hayseed bovine
There are a great many deeply meaningful and insightful blogs out there, but this isn’t one of them. Instead, here’s a photo of two beef cattle in a field. The reason I like it is for the stem of dry grass sticking out of the one on the left. I imagine him saying something along the lines of, “You ain’t from around these parts, are you?”
Graham's Island 