Many greetings from the rainforest in Western Kenya. As an entomologist in search of bugs, one quickly learns that many different kinds of insects are experts at hiding. They are masters of camouflage, and can make themselves ‘invisible’ even in broad daylight by blending in with their surroundings. Here is an example of a remarkable ‘con-artist’ that I came across while strolling through the Kakamega Forest in Western Kenya…

One of the reasons that insects need to hide because many of them would make a quick and tasty snack for the many different kinds of insect-eating birds in the rainforest.

Here is a scene from one of paths in the southern part of the forest. Can you spot the hidden insect?

Yes, there is an insect hidden in this picture!

OK – I agree that it’s hard to see, here is a closer look..

Now can you see the insect?

Hmmm – let’s try and look even closer (you’re looking for a leaf-like katydid)…

Hint: lower middle to the right...

And zooming in even closer allows for the true beauty of this leaf-like katydid to be fully revealed:

"I'm just another bit of leaf, nothing to see here... please move on"

Remaining hidden is not just about shape and color. This katydid is an expert at staying still, and by holding close and pressing against the surface of the leaf, it helps eliminate shadows and reduces its outline. This all combines to create a near-perfect illusion and a beautiful example of camouflage.

More from the wonderful world of bugs soon!

Dear All

Firstly, thanks everyone for the kind comments, questions and poems posted over the past year. Sorry that I don’t always respond as I am often in remote sites with limited access to the internet.

I have been very lucky to spend the holidays in the Kakamega Forest in Western Kenya. After a busy year of looking at bugs, studying bees, writing and research in many remote, beautiful places, what better way to spend the holidays than sitting quietly by a stream deep in the heart of the forest…

As I waited by the stream, watching the coming and going of countless marvelous insects, two exceptionally beautiful damselflies made a special appearance. The first was a Red Jewel. This rare creature is found along forested streams in Western Kenya and Uganda. It lays its eggs in the clear, flowing waters where oxygen levels are high and the water pure and sweet. It is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful of Africa’s insects.

The Red Jewel spent most of its time chasing off other damselflies and even the much larger dragonflies from its special vantage point in the sun along the stream. Occasionally it swept out and grabbed a snack in form of a passing mosquito or hapless flies that became trapped on the waters’ surface.

I watched the Red Jewel flashing about and perched, carefully recording when it captured prey. As I followed its behaviour keenly, a leaf rustled beside me and I looked up to find myself eye-to-eye with another beauty. This one was watching as me much as I was watching it. It was draped in the dappled light gazing out at the world, its tongue flicking in and out.

Yes, I flinched when I first spotted it, and it responded with the same and a warning hiss. Then, as I realised that it was not the least bit interested in me, but merely enjoying the warm, liquid golden sunshine that flowed down through the canopy far overhead, we both relaxed and shared the view of the stream and its myriad inhabitants. (Yes, you might have guessed already that this creature was a snake – a lovely little Green Bush Viper)…

As the Green Bush Viper and I both relaxed again, my attention wandered back to the flashes of colour moving around the stream. And then on a leaf right in front of me appeared another of the forests’ jewels – The incredible Sapphire, another of East Africa’s loveliest damselflies…

When one is honored, inspired and awed by beauty such as this – I can’t help but think of how special and precious all our forests and all our biodiversity is on this planet. I feel that in witnessing and exploring the wonders of nature, I also have to point out that we need to conserve it for its beauty and interest as much as its utility and practical contributions to our daily lives. What a joy to be able to find spaces wherever they may be, that are filled with species who have come about through millions of years of evolution and share with us their home and our home on this lonely little planet.

Please keep the ‘little creatures that run the world’ in your thoughts during the holidays…

More from the world of bugs soon!

Dino

…

I recently participated in an expedition through parts of northwestern Kenya to look at different kinds of bees.

The first thing that surprises many people about bees is that there are lots of different kinds of bees – in fact close to 20,000 species have been described! The honeybee, which is familiar to almost everyone, is just one kind of bee (a single species called Apis mellifera).

One of my favourite bees in East Africa are the Amegilla bees. They are beautiful, fast-flying, hard-working creatures that zip about and fly with a characteristic high-pitched buzz that is most evident when the approach flowers. Amegilla are solitary bees. This is another surprising fact about bees: most species are solitary, with females building and caring for a nest on their own. Honeybees are social and live in colonies, as do a few other bees, but for the most part, the bees are loners.

Female solitary bees have their nests to go to at night or when they are not out feeding from flowers. However, males don’t have anywhere to go. They end up having to sleep on stems of plants, grasses being a favorite perch… In some species, such as Amegilla, the males will often gather at particular sleeping areas in the evening. These are often near a stream or edge of a wetland in a sheltered spot – sort of like a male bees’ version of the pub I guess…

We found this aggregation of Amegilla males sleeping at the edge of a swamp near Bogoria recently… They are really charming creatures…

More from the world of bugs soon!

To learn more about National Moth Week and see fabulous pictures of moths from around the world, please visit this site:

http://nationalmothweek.org

To look at moths in Turkana this involved looking at moths (and many events were held around the world). I was in northern Kenya at the Turkana Basin Institute at the time, and it had been fairly dry in the desert so there weren’t as many moths around. Here are a few photos of what we found:

Within a minute, the first moth had arrived (I think that it is a member of the Tortricidae Family):

A few minutes later and there were a lot more insects gathering at the light:

Several different moths came by for the few hours that we were able to run the light, here are just a few of them:

More from the world of bugs, soon, including some amazing moths from Western Uganda!

Mad About Moths!

Have you ever wondered about what to do on hot summer night?

Well, if you are free and in the woods this week, you might want to take part in the National Moth Week that runs all this week.

Convolvulus Hawkmoth approaching a Datura flower with its long tongue unfurled...

Moths are just one group of the planet’s incredible insect diversity. With over 160,000 species described, there are many different kinds of moths that range in size from minute clothes moths and meal moths that damage stored clothes and foodstuffs to gargantuan and gaudy emperor moths who colorful wings bear striking eye-spots.

Some moths are well known as pests, devouring large fields of crops as in the case of the African armyworm moth, and sometimes even entire forests in the United States where the gypsy moth occurs.

A Nephele hawkmoth investigates some Carissa flowers

Moths are also incredibly useful, as the global silk industry can attest having exploited the silk moth (Bombyx mori) for many centuries. Some moths are important pollinators, especially hawkmoths or sphinx moths (Sphingidae) that pollinate papaya trees and many orchids too.

Many moths are still waiting to be described and even species that are known can be better studied through watching and photographing them. If you want to get involved, please take a look at the National Moth Week website: http://nationalmothweek.org

I am currently in Turkana in northern Kenya and plan on spending a couple of evenings in the company of the local moths myself!

A day-flying moth from Turkana...

More from the world of moths and other insects soon!

(All photos by Dino Martins.)

Greetings – have been travelling with limited email access (and time!). A few weeks ago I was in northern Kenya at the Turkana Basin Institute looking at bees and other insects. Here are a few photos of the beautiful and amazing bees from Northern Kenya for you to enjoy.

A yellow-flowered legume, Crotolaria, was blooming and the hungry bees were making the most of the opportunity to drink their fill of nectar and gather pollen for their nests.

The most striking bee we found was this Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa sp.) that had the most incredible bright blue eyes! It flew around quite aggressively occasionally chasing off other Carpenter Bees that ventured too close to its patch of flowers.

The most common bees visiting the flowers were various species of Leafcutter Bees (Megachilidae). These are bees that cut circles from leaves and use them to construct their nests by joining them up and lining a tube. They are also among the most elegant and beautiful of bees… They also fly very fast and zip about nervously from flower to flower so I had to be both patient and fast so as to capture some photos of them.

There were several different kinds of Leafcutter Bees around, including this large grey species:

There were hundreds of bees flying about at the same time. Some of the bees chased each other away, but some of them were happy to share the flowers…

Feeding from flowers lower down was this interesting solitary bee species in the Halictidae family… beautiful with its black-and-white stripes…

More from the world of bugs soon!

I would like to thank everyone for reading this blog over the past few months and sending in your kind comments to me via insects.eanhs@gmail.com and on the blog.

A few days ago I visited the Kerio Valley in northwestern Kenya. It was a hot, sunny day so I decided to stop and rest in the shade of some giant fig trees by a stream…

As I was sitting by the stream I noticed some of the rocks were covered with what appeared to be insects…

I took a closer look and was blown away by what I found – one of the most bizarre and wonderful insects in the world – the Stalk-Eyed Fly!

Yes, those are the flies EYES on the ends of stalks. This bizarre and wonderful arrangement is thought to be the result of sexual selection. Basically female flies chose males based on the width of their eyes. The wider the eyes, the sexier the fly seems. As a result, this amazing structure has come to be.

I watched the Stalk-Eyed Flies gathering on the rocks and leaves by the stream. There was a lot of jostling and showing off by the males…

One of the Stalk-Eyed Flies eyed me as I was photographing it and rubbed it’s front legs together… (you can guess what happened next!)

It landed on my knee and started licking the sweat off me! You can see it’s amazing mouthparts extended in the photograph below:

It was joined a few minutes later by a larger fly (that did more than tickle) so I had to shoo them away…

The fly returned to its perch on a leaf and posed obligingly for more photos…

Best wishes to all for the New Year and more from the wonderful world of bugs in 2012! Please make one of your New Year’s Resolutions to spend more time in the company of the weird and wonderful insects all around us on the planet!

I am back in Kenya after various hectic travels. There is a sunflower on the breakfast table and I watched a honeybee visit it this morning in the dreamy African sunshine…

The honeybee was after pollen – here is a close up of the anthers:

The honeybee lifts itself into the air and hovers, gently combing the pollen from its body into the pollen baskets on its legs.

Without honeybees, the sunflowers would not be well pollinated and would not produce the sunflower seeds that are made into oil and many other useful and delicious things. The honeybees on the sunflowers are both beautiful to watch and also to know that they are making the sunflower seeds happen through pollination.

The honeybees collect the pollen for their own use. They feed it to their larvae, which helps them grow into healthy strong bees. The sunflower produces lots of pollen, and the honeybees spill it and rub it around as they move about the flower. This results in pollination. Both honeybees and sunflowers benefit from this arrangement. A truly balanced partnership (or love affair!) from Nature.

More from the world of bugs soon!

One of the truly wonderful things about teaching as a scientist is working with students. Good students can help catch more bugs, run around in the sun and ask new questions that help further both science and conservation. While working in Turkana recently, I had three students from Hillcrest Secondary School (Elleni Stephanou, Nekesa Morey and Tashi Maseland) visit and volunteer with me in the field for a few days. Here are their thoughts and first impressions of bees and the environment in northern Kenya…

Setting off on an adventure

First Glimpses of Bees…

By Elleni Stephanou, Nekesa Morey and Tashi.

Students from Hillcrest Secondary School in Nairobi, Kenya.

What comes to mind when most people think about bees? Probably swarms of the common black and yellow striped honey bee that one finds on the pots of honey in a supermarket or perhaps the buzzing bumble bees seen flying around the garden or illustrated in many children’s books. In fact, this is a common misconception as there are over 20,000 different types of bees. It was only when we, three Hillcrest Secondary School students, Elleni, Tashi and Nekesa, spent a week up at Turkana Basin Institute with entomologist Dr. Dino Martins, that we discovered the truth about bees.

Tashi and Elleni working in the hot sun - this was the first lesson - being patient!

Nekesa poised ready for a bee to visit the tiny flowers on the ground

Our first glance into the world of bees began on a farm developed by Ikal Angelei of the Friends of Lake Turkana and Turkana Basin Institute on the day of our arrival, where we encountered a variety of species ranging from the tiny stingless bees (Hypotrigona sp) who were attracted to our sweat, to the large bulky Carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.) that were buzz pollinating the aubergine crops and the Leafcutter bees we saw slicing circles of capsicum leaves  for their hives. So far, around twenty different species have been sighted on the farm, none of which die after their first sting. After this unfortunate enlightenment, we tentatively attempted to catch and transfer them from net to vials for closer inspection in the lab.

A tiny stingless bee hovering near a flower

We were also surprised to discover that female bees of most species, unlike the males, are diploid, and only lay eggs of female gender if they happen to have mated with a male. The female bees that were most common on the eggplant flowers live in burrows up to 10 cm deep in the ground, while their male counterparts never return to a burrow once they have hatched from it.

A Ceratina bee visiting a desert flower

Another unidentified leafcutter bee

On our second day in Turkana, we were lucky enough to witness the second rainfall in over a year and a half. Although it only lasted about ten minutes, it led to a phenomenal influx in insect life. Our next challenge was to catch a few of the freshly hatched butterflies to add to Dino’s ever growing database.  We followed this up by catching butterflies on another site about an hour from the institute the next day, where we caught the same species for future cross referencing and DNA comparison.

Chasing butterflies is good exercise

Colotis butterfly visiting Cadaba flowers that blossomed after the rain

We thoroughly enjoyed this trip and look forward to future expeditions with Dino to different parts of Kenya where we will further develop our new interest in insect life. We would like to thank Dino and the entire team at TBI for hosting us and making this an exceptional experience. The one thing we learned is that Kenya is blessed with amazing insect diversity, even in the desert.

Jumping for joy and bees

An Amegilla bee approaches a Cadaba flower

In the Mororot Hills taking a break from chasing bugs

For more information about Turkana, please visit the Turkana Basin Institute website:

www.turkanabasin.net

Yesterday Kenya and the world celebrated the life of Prof. Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 who recently passed away. As part of the activities in her honour, across the country communities came together to plant trees. The Turkana Basin Field School students joined the Friends of Lake Turkana, Forestry Department officials, members of the IRC committee in Lodwar and students and teachers of the St Michael Kawalase Primary school in a tree planting exercise.

The activities were organized by Ikal Angelei, who is a leading champion for local social and environmental issues, as well as coordinating many of the activities of the Turkana Basin Institute. Ikal is a passionate and able spokesperson and activist leading the fight for a better environment, livelihoods and justice in Turkana. It was a great honour and privilege for the students and myself to participate in this humble and powerful exercise.

Ikal Angelei and the headteacher Mr Keem address the students, as Mr Kenyaman, the scoutmaster and a champion for tree-planting looks on.

We planted trees at two different locations: at the St. Michael Kawalase Primary School as well as at a camp for Internally Displaces People near Lodwar. Ikal noted how the example and life of Wangari Maathai had inspired people all over the world and how important trees were for human life and livelihoods in the drylands of Turkana.

Ikal plants the first seedling of the day at the school

Ikal carefully fills in the earth around the seedling

Then it was the Field School students’ turn to get their hands into the soil…

Hui gets her seedling ready for planting

Roy helps fill in some earth around the seedling

Elaine waters the first seedling planted by the TBI students

Sarah waters her seedling

Kait gets her seedling ready for planting

The Forestry Department helped plant several of the seedlings

After the seedlings were planted, the students thanked the school and community members for the opportunity to help out.

Wes thanks the students, teachers and tells the students the importance of studying hard

The humble act of planting trees and caring for the environment is the first step towards making the world a better place for us all…