Tag nymphs

Silverfish

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The Silverfish (Lepisma saccharinum) is a small insect in the Lepismatidae family. It is silver, but it is not a fish. It moves a bit like a fish.

The Silverfish is a wingless insect with a metallic silvery-grey body covered in scales. Its body is a squashed oval-shape that tapers (narrows) towards its tail. It has six legs and long thin antennae. It has two long appendages at the end of its tail, called cerci (one is called a cercus). It has two small compound eyes. It can regenerate its cerci and its antennae in 2-4 weeks if they are damaged or drop off.

It moves in a wriggling motion, like a fish. It can run quite fast.

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Pink Wing Stick Insect

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The Pink Wing Stick Insect (Sipyloidea sipylus) is a phasmid insect in the Sipyloidea family of stick insects.  It is also known as the Madagascan Stick Insect. It is related to the Praying Mantis. 

The Pink Wing Stick Insect is long, thin and stick-like. It has a light-brown body that is camouflaged to look like dry straw, or dry grass. Both the male and the female have wings, but the wings of the female are too small for flying. 

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Black-and-Red-Bug

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The Black-and-Red-Bug (Lygaeus equestris) is an insect in the Lygaeidae family of ground bugs. 

The Black-and-Red Bug has a red-black pattern on its exoskeleton. Its hemelytra (front wings) are black and red with an oval-shaped white dot. It is also red and black on its scutellum (head shield). The scutellum has tiny hairs. It has fully-developed wings and long, strong legs. It antennae are long.It has a sucking mouthpart. 

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Juvenile Firebug

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The Firebug (Pyrrhocoris apterus) is a common insect in the Pyrrhocoridae family. 

It is hemimetabolous, which means that it does not undergo full metamorphosis. Instead, the life cycle includes only nymphs (juveniles) and adults. 

The juvenile Firebug does not look like its parents. It has the same shape and the same colour as its parents, but it does not yet have the same black markings. Instead, the juvenile has one black strip on the back of its head (not two), an M-shaped black mark at the top of its shell (not a triangle), and three small black dots in the middle of its shell. 

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Giant Katydid

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The Giant Katydid (Stilpnochlora couloniana) is a leaf-like insect. It looks like a grasshopper.

The Giant Katydid is lime green to dark-green. It has brown eyes. Its wings look like a leaf on a tree. The male has a narrower body and longer antennae than the female. It has strong hind (back) legs for jumping. The male can produce a song (to the female) by rubbing its legs to its wings. 

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Hissing Cockroach

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The Hissing Cockroach (Gromphadorhina oblongonota) is an insect in the roach family. It is also known as a Wide-Horned Hisser. 

The Hissing Cockroach is dark-brown to black with red-brown on its thick, waxy exo-skeleton.  It has orange-brown sections with small spots on each side. The male has thicker, hairier antennae than the female. The male also has horn-type structures on the pronotum (the front section of its thorax). Unlike most cockroaches, the Hissing Cockroach is wingless. It has 6 legs, with pads and hooks on its feet that enable it to climb. It can even climb smooth glass.

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Magicicada Great Eastern Brood

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The Magicicada (Magicicada) is a 13-year or 17-year periodical cicada, an insect in the order Hemiptera.

The Magicicada photographed are from the 17-year periodical cicadas of Brood X (Brood Ten), called the Great Eastern Brood, which emerged in 2004. Periodical cicadas are grouped into broods based on the calendar year when they emerge from the ground. There were an estimated 1.5 million of them in 2004. Every 17 years, it tunnels to the surface of the ground to breed. The next emergence of the Great Eastern Brood is in 2021. 

The adult Magicicada Great Eastern Brood had red eyes and a black thorax. Its wings are translucent with orange veins. The underside of its abdomen is black, orange, or striped with orange and black, depending on the species.

 

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Macleay’s Spectre Stick Insect

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The Macleay’s Spectre Stick Insect (Extatosoma tiaratum) is a phasmid insect, related to the Praying Mantis. It is also known as the Giant Prickly Stick Insect and the Spiny Leaf Insect.

The Macleay’s Spectre Stick Insect can be brown, white, cream, green, reddish, or yellowish and is camouflaged in plants. It has a long, rounded body. Both the male and the female have wings, but the wings of the female are too small for flying. The male has spikes on his face, and the female has spikes on her body and face.

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Desert Locust

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The Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is an insect, similar to a grasshopper.

The Desert Locust is green, grey or brown to match the colour of the foliage (plants) around them. During the swarming phase, it becomes yellow with dark markings.  When they are grey, their underbelly and face are pink. When they are older, their underbelly is yellow. It has long antennae. It has long wings and long legs.

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African Armoured Ground Cricket

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The African Armoured Ground Cricket (Acanthoplus discoidalis) is an insect belonging to the subfamily Hetrodinae – armoured ground crickets – in the family Tettigoniidae – bush crickets or katydids. It is an insect.

The African Armoured Ground Cricket is sandy-brown to camouflage with the earth. Its abdomen is dark-brown and snail-like with armour, and its thorax has a speckled brown plate of armour. On the thorax plate are tough spikes or spines. It has 6 light-brown jointed legs from its thorax. Its head is round and brown with a pair of pink-brown antennae.

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Swamp Bluet Damselfly

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The Swamp Bluet (Coenagrion lyelli) is a medium-sized insect in the Coenagrionidae family of damselflies, similar to a dragonfly. It lives across the globe in most climates, near streams, pools, and lakes.

The Swamp Bluet male is bright blue with black markings. The abdomen is long and slender with ten segments. It has compound eyes (like house flies) and three simple eyes (ocelli) on its forehead. It has small antennae.

The joint between head and prothorax is flexible, which enables the damselfly to swivel its head.

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Toxic Milkweed Grasshoppers

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The Toxic Milkweed Grasshopper (Pyrgomorphidae) is an African grasshopper in the order Orthoptera.

Orthoptera insects include grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts. They have a cylindrical body with long back legs for jumping.

Adult Toxic Milkweek Grasshoppers are generally green, but juvenile grasshoppers, called nymphs, can be black. Other species may have different coloured nymphs.

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