The Common Brimstone Butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) is a medium-sized insect in the Pieridae family – white, yellow, and orange butterflies.
The male and female Common Brimstone Butterfly look different. The male has yellow wings with iridescence. The female has greenish-white wings with no iridescence. It has one small orange-brown spot on each of its four wings. Its body is dark-brown. It has medium-sized antennae.
The Death’s-Head Hawkmoth (Acheronthia Atropos) is a large insect in the Sphingidae family. It has an image similar to a human skull on its thorax, behind its head.
The Death’s-Head Hawkmoth is brown to dark-brown with yellowish-cream patches, zigzags, and stripes. It has a wide, plump, furry body with brown and yellowish-cream colours. It has short antennae.
The Caucasian Shield Bug (Apodiphus amygdali) is an insect in the Pentatomidae family, subfamily Pentatominae. It is also known as the Stink Bug because it has an unpleasant smell when it is squashed.
The Caucasian Shield Bug is blackish-brown with a trapezoidal shape (the shape of a shield). The shield is called a scutellum. The shield has yellowish speckled markings. Its antennae have five segments (Pentatominae means ‘five segments’). Its greyish-black legs, called tarsi, have three segments. It has forewings (front wings) called hemelytra, and it also has hindwings (back wings). It has a sucking mouthpart.
The Cambodian Short-Horned Grasshopper (family Acrididae) is an insect.
The Cambodian Short-Horned Grasshopper is bright green on its upperparts and yellow-green on its underbelly. It has a black line from its eye, running along the length of its body. It has a pair of wings and short antennae. Its back legs are enlarged, which enable it to jump long distances. Its legs have three segments.
The Tiger Longwing Butterfly (Heliconius hecale) is an heliconiid insect – in the family of brush-footed butterflies. It is also known as the Golden Longwing or the Golden Heliconian.
The Tiger Longwing has black wings with bright orange patches emanating from its body. It has white spotted lines on the edges of its wings. Its body is black.
The Tree Bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) is a common insect. It is also known as the New Garden Bumblebee.
The Tree Bumblebee is usually ginger-coloured on its thorax, with black hairs on its abdomen. Its tail is white. It has a rounded head and a short proboscis (nose).
The European Honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a small insect. It is also known as the Western Honeybee. It is the most common bee worldwide. It is a pollinator because it collects pollen from flowers.
The European Honey Bee has a head, thorax (chest), and abdomen with a stinger. It has a brown abdomen with yellow bands. Its wings are transparent. It has six legs, and large eyes.
The Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) is a common and widespread insect. It is the mostly widely distributed syrphid species in the world. A syrphid is the family of hoverflies and it is also known as the Hoverfly.
It is a bee mimic – because it looks like a bee, such as a Honeybee.
The Drone Fly is bee-like with yellow and orange or reddish markings. It has six legs, a pair of wings, and large brown-haired eyes.
The Grecian Shoemaker Butterfly (Catonephele numilia) is a small insect in the Nymphalidae family of butterflies. It is also known as the Blue-Frosted Banner or the Stoplight Catone.
The male Grecian Shoemaker Butterfly is black with six orange dots on its wings. The female looks very different. She is blue-black with a light-yellow band across the centre of her forewings (front wings).
The Small Postman (Heliconius erato) is a small butterfly. It is an insect, called a heliconid. It is also known as the Red Postman or the Crimson-Patched Longwing.
The Small Postman has black wings with red-orange patches and white patches on its forewings (front wings) and red-orange stripes on its hindwings (back wings). It has long antennae and a black body.
The Peruvian 88 Butterfly (Diaethria clymena peruviana) is a small insect in the Callicore tribe of the Nymphalidae family.
The Peruvian 88 Butterfly is black on its upperside with a diagonal band of metallic blue or green. The underside of its forewings (front wings) is white, black and reddish-orange-brown, and the underside of its hindwings (back wings) is black and white with a pattern that looks like the number 88.
What does a butterfly eye look like?
A butterfly has two compound eyes.
Each compound eye has up to 17,000 ommatidia. Ommatidia are smaller round eyes within the larger compound eye. Ommatidia are image-forming eyes or light-receptor eyes, each with a short visual focus, that acts like a kaleidoscope.
The Sunburst Diving Beetle (Thermonectus marmoratus) is a small, soft-bodied, aquatic, freshwater insect. It is also known as the Spotted Diving Beetle.
The Sunburst Diving Beetle is black with bright yellow spots. The bright spots act as a defence mechanism to warn away predators. It has a black shell, called a carapace. It has wings that are protected by the carapace. The male has a suction cap on each foreleg (front leg).
The Lemon Emigrant Butterfly (Catopsilia pomona pomona) is a medium-sized common insect.
The Lemon Emigrant Butterfly is white or yellow on the upperside of its wings. It has a faint dark border on its forewings (front wings). It has reddish-ringed silver spots on the underside of its wings. It has reddish antennae.
The Tailed Sulphur Butterfly (Dercas verhuelli) is a small-to-medium sized insect in the Pieridae family of yellow and white butterflies.
The Tailed Sulphur Butterfly has yellow wings tipped in the top corner with a brown-black patch. From the black patch is a faint streak of orange-brown, with an orange-brown blotch on the forewings (front wings). Its body is yellowish with short antennae. Its hindwings (back wings) look as if they have been cut short with scissors.
What is the difference between the Great Capricorn Beetle (Cerambyx cerdo) and the Rhesus Capricorn Beetle (Dorcadion carinatum)?
The Great Capricorn Beetle and the Rhesus Capricorn Beetle are both insects in the Cerambyx family of longhorn beetles.
The Great Capricorn Beetle and the Rhesus Capricorn Beetle both have hard, protective wing cases, called elytra, that are reddish-brown at the tips.
The Great Capricorn Beetle is thinner than the Rhesus Capricorn Beetle.
The Rhesus Capricorn Beetle (Dorcadion carinatum) is an insect in the Cerambyx family of longhorn beetles.
The Rhesus Capricorn Beetle has an elongated black body with short, segmented antennae. It has wing cases called elytra. The elytra are reddish-brown at the tips. It has short jaw-like nippers, or pincers, at its mouth.
The Madagascar Diadem (Hypolimnas dexithea) is a butterfly in the brush-footed family of butterflies. It is also known as the Madagascar Eggfly.
The Madagascar Diadem has black, white, and orange wings. Its forewings (front wings) are black with a white band and white spots. Its hindwings (back wings) are white with a band of orange. Its wings are laced with black and white edges. Its body is black.
What is unusual about the ears of the Praying Mantis?
Animals have two ears. The Praying Mantis is an insect and most insects have two ears.
But the Praying Mantis is the only animal in the world with a single ear.
Its one ear is located in a fold on the underside of its thorax.
The Giant Asian Mantis (Heirodula membranacea) is a large insect in the mantid family. It is a phasmid.
The Giant Asian Mantis is long and green and can be camouflaged in plants. It can also be brown, reddish-brown, or yellow-green. It has a hard shell, called an exo-skeleton. The male and the female have wings, but the wings of the female are too small for flying.