Island Hoppers

Whenever I'm away on a family holiday or working abroad, I try to catch a few incidental bits with the camera. Here's a few from Zante last week ..... and you can take the IDs with a pinch of salt as all are best guesses following a bit of internet trawling. Except the last couple!

Calliptamus barbarus

Blue-winged Grasshopper (Oedipoda caerulescens)

Mediterranean Slant-faced Grasshopper (Acrida ungarica)

Red-winged Grasshopper (Oedipoda germanica)

Egyptian Grasshopper (Anacridium aegyptium)

Balkan Wall Lizard (Podarcis tauricus)

Moorish Gecko (Tarentola mauritanica)

Loggerhead Turtle (Caretta caretta)

Another Loggerhead Turtle ... honestly!

Migratory Monster

I was confronted by this enormous beast at work this morning ...




It's even more impressive than the Pine Chafer we had.

My precise reaction was "fucking hell that's big!" - and this was pretty much the same response from everyone subsequently shown it, apart from the women who all screamed. It was sitting on top of some pallets. We'd recently off-loaded some from a lorry bringing packaging in from one of our southern Spanish plants which seems the most likely explanation for origin. I guess it wasn't too happy about arriving in Leicester, as it didn't put up too much of a struggle when being bundled into a plastic bag.

It's an Egyptian Grasshopper, and at just under 3" long (excluding antennae) it is an impressive insect. It's not very colourful apart from a bold red stripe on the back of its massive jumping legs. I'll try and get some better photos on a more appropriate prop in daylight tomorrow - assuming it is still alive. After that it's either one for the Leicester Museum reference collection or freeze dried bird food.