Praying Mantis catches Hummingbird

From the The Daily Telegraph.

Chantastic Phasmid

Phobaeticus chanii, the world's longest insect, has been named as one of the top 10 speies described in 2008. The Natural History museum (where the specimen is currently on display) runs the story here, but annoyingly doesn't link to the complete list of winners at Arizona State University's International Institue for Species Exploration.

Photo by Phil Bragg (who described the species) via IISE.

Incidentally, the IISE species page says that there is no common name for this species. While the use of common names is generally discouraged, "Chan's Megastick" is in common use - and is the suggested one.

Mystery Inveretbrate from Costa Rica

Mystery Inveretbrate from Costa Rica
Originally uploaded by edwbaker

I thought I'd give you all a quiz! Can you find and identify (just in colloquial terms) the invertebrate in this photo?

Model Leaf Insect

Model Leaf Insect
Originally uploaded by edwbaker

This is a model of a leaf insect in the reptile/invertebrate house at the Isle of Wight Zoo. Perhaps the largest leaf insect I have seen to date!

Isle of Wight Zoo

On Wednesday (27th May) I took a selection of stick insects, cockroaches, beetles and snails to the Isle of Wight Zoo for people to handle and learn about as part of the zoo's Science Week (for photographs from last years event see here).

I have also started to use Flickr for managing photographs - there are some photographs I took around the zoo here.

Nature Live

I am now back from Costa Rica - and have a fair bit to blog about over the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned!

Today I did two Nature Live talks at the Natural History Museum, London (essentially both the same). The subject was 'The Great Pretenders' - I hope you've guessed it was about phasmids. I would like to thank Mark Bushell (again!) for sending me some livestock to show everyone who attended. I will try and get the video somewhere you can all watch it as soon as possible.