Actually a very beautiful animal, this red palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus), is widely found in southern Asia and Melanesia, where it feeds on a broad range of palms including coconut, sago, date, and oil palms. It is a serious pest of palms, particularly coconut. For example in Tamil Nadu, India, yield losses of 10-25% have … Read more
On that Sunday I was looking out for critters in my garden. I found this black bee like insect with deep bluish iridescent wings (similar to carpenter bee but far slimmer and smaller than them) on an Indian almond (Terminalia catappa) flowers. On a closer inspection it turned out to be a wasp than a … Read more
After I got my Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens, I wanted to use it as single lens for both birding as well as macro. I have used Canon EF 300mm f/4.0L IS USM successfully in the past and got pretty good result. It was a great macro lens but the reach for bird … Read more
It was raining heavily on that day, I saw a brown hairy moth sitting the shade of Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) leaf. It had dull yellowish body, pale yellow hindwings and rufous brown forewings with yellowish white patches. I used Canon EOS 5D mark II with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens using Rayflash … Read more
Monsoon had just begun. It was late evening. Through the incessant drizzle I noticed a small yellow brown butterfly sheltering on the bi-lobed leaves of Malabar Bauhinia(Bauhinia malabarica). On closer inspection it turned out to be a male Chocolate Albatross butterfly (Appias lyncida). I wanted to take a closeup photo but it was impossible with … Read more
I found these strange eggs on the under surface of Oleander (Nerium oleander) leaf next to my house. Each egg was attached to the top of a hair-like filament. I had not seen such an egg laying on filamentous structure and on searching for info I found that it was from Lacewing (Chrysopidae). I used … Read more