My last walk at Lake Arrowhead State Park. At least for this trip. 🙂
It was a big speedy animal, the normally nocturnal Giant Centipede (Scolopendra heros)! They are the largest centipede in North America.
I followed them around. At one point they buried its head. Presumably for a tasty morsel. Then suddenly for some unknown reason they went berserk. You won’t see this in the movie because I tipped over trying to back away. LOL. I didn’t want them crawling up my leg. 🙂
At first glance the Carolina Mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) appeared to be just a leaf in the road. Almost fooled me.
A Differential Grasshopper posed for their photo. LOL.
Aphids on a Common Sunflower (Helianthus annus).
The playground at sunset. And it was our last evening walk at the park.
The trip was over and the A3 comet is certainly fading from view. In fact, I could not make the comet out any longer by eye, only the phone camera could still pick it up.
It had been a great trip. Additionally I came away with a new impression of Lake Arrowhead State Park and would visit again. 🙂
Wow that is some centipede!
And on iNaturalist I learned from one of the experts that the Carolina Mantis is incorrect in Texas. Lots of posts of it as carolina but ends up that our species is Stagmomantis conspurcata. But that ID is not accepted yet on iNat so you can’t type it in. They all appear as carolina until that gets changed.
And wow what a close up of the grasshopper!
Thanks for the heads up on the mantis. I looked it up and found it is complex for them. One paper only mentioned that they found S.conspurcats in south Texas. Papers I found were published in 2020 and 2021. None since that I found. Maybe more will be forthcoming. And FYI I used my books and not iNat. Which were published about the same times as the papers.
Kathy on my books …. The books were probably already at the printers when the papers came out. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Let me know if you hear anymore please.
Isn’t that centipede and iridescent green? With orange legs? I remember seeing them at the farm but the ones i saw were beautiful. Green in the right light and orange legs. Maybe not the same one but the ones i saw were huge.
I have to admit that if one of those centipedes crossed my path, my first reaction would be to shriek. I hope I will evolve.
😂
Wow that is some centipede!
And on iNaturalist I learned from one of the experts that the Carolina Mantis is incorrect in Texas. Lots of posts of it as carolina but ends up that our species is Stagmomantis conspurcata. But that ID is not accepted yet on iNat so you can’t type it in. They all appear as carolina until that gets changed.
And wow what a close up of the grasshopper!
Thanks for the heads up on the mantis. I looked it up and found it is complex for them. One paper only mentioned that they found S.conspurcats in south Texas. Papers I found were published in 2020 and 2021. None since that I found. Maybe more will be forthcoming. And FYI I used my books and not iNat. Which were published about the same times as the papers.
Kathy on my books …. The books were probably already at the printers when the papers came out. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Let me know if you hear anymore please.
Isn’t that centipede and iridescent green? With orange legs? I remember seeing them at the farm but the ones i saw were beautiful. Green in the right light and orange legs. Maybe not the same one but the ones i saw were huge.
I have only seen this color. But since it is supposed to be the only large species… it must be the same ones??? Interesting!
Thanks!!
I saw one of those centipedes here recently – they can definitely burrow down in the leaves pretty darn quick.
After reading the crow article I think I will never ever give them reason to attack – they do that plenty with our local resident owl.
When it finally stayed under some leaves, I poked around to find them. No luck. ☺️
I would also back off if the centipede told me to!!