Eristalinus taeniops

What remarkable eyes, the specific name "ribbon-eyed."
 

An Elegant Grasshopper

At least I think so, the Elegant Grasshopper (Zonocerus elegans.) one of the foam grasshoppers. It is widespread in RSA, here sitting on an Acacia karroo.
 

The canals of Mars

Ever since reading of the canals of Mars in my treasured possession of my childhood, Arthur  Mee's Children's Encyclopedia, I was enchanted by the planet. Of course the Mariners spacecraft of the sixties found no canals or seas, only craters like the moon. Despite being well aware of, this during the opposition of 1971 with very good seeing I recorded these canals; essentially the mind connecting the dots on the planet with lines.
The observations were made with a small telescope, 4" object glass magnification 180x. They were made over a period of 2 months.
The major dark patches (albedo markings) can be recognized.
   

Parapioxys jucundus

I rescued this bug from our swimming pool. Having shaken itself dry it left with an ungrateful click. It is a planthopper bug, feeding on tree sap. (family: Issidae.)
Apparently it has a bright red read abdomen underneath which I missed.
 

Pin-tailed Whydah

Bird photography is an art of its own, and a highly competitive field. I don't intend competing, but I was rather pleased with these pictures taken with my point and shoot camera.
This is Vidua macoura. What an amazing tail. The male is an aggressive little thing, chasing off other birds. He has several wives, who parasitise the Common waxbill (KN).
   

Lestes plagiatus

The Common or Highland Spreadwing.
This is a male, and the superior anal appendages are characteristic for the species, being prong shaped with a single prominent tooth.

I have added these pictures of the bronze form. It is parasitised by mites. I don't know if the mites affect the colour of the damselfly.
 

Babiana rubrocyanea

Wine-cup Babiana, and aptly named.
Impossible colours, but this is how the camera saw them. We found a number of these flowers at Darling, Western Cape. It is very similar to another W Cape bulb Geissorhiza radians.
 

Phrynobatrachus natalensis

This frog goes by the delightful name of the Snoring Puddle Frog. This one was in the stream that went through our garden, and it certainly appeared to be mud-puddling.
The pupils are horizontally elliptical, there are no adhesive pads on the toes and the back toes are webbed about halfway down.
 

Genet

A damp patch appeared on our ceiling. I went up to investigate: sure enough I found a midden. Apparently it is not uncommon to find a genet in a suburban ceiling.
One afternoon I heard a commotion on our roof. I thought monkeys were involved. I managed to photograph this Genet before it was off in a flash.
I think this is our Small-spotted Genet (Genetta genetta.)
 

Mantis and camouflage

I think the top are of our Giant or Common Green Mantid. The middle is that of the young, characteristically with their tails raised. Green is a good colour for for an ambush predator among leaves. Below is the camouflage of what is probably a Bark Mantid, adapted for a quite different environment. Compare the camouflage with that of our Rock and Tree Agamas.
   

Hyperolius, Reed Frog

I think the Yellow-striped Reed Frog (Hyperolius semidiscus.) 
The pupil is horizontally elliptic, there is a suggestion of red on the inner sides of the limbs, and, not seen here, the toes would be padded. Again I think the yellow strip would fit with H. semidiscus.
The one at the top I think is pretending to be asleep.
 

Gladiolus alatus

The Western Cape in spring, this at Darling, a town made memorable by Hildagonda Duckitt and her Nemesias.
Afr. Kalkoentjie: little turkey; or in Latin: The winged (petals), little sword (leaves).
 

Ceriagrion glabrum

The Common Pond Damsel, or the Common Citril, found quite frequently in the NBG-KZN.
Citril probably because of the bright orange colour of the male. At bottom is a female, much dowdier than the male, (and is I think, from the delicate appearance, a teneral.)

Two agamas

Both masters of camouflage.
At top, the Tree Agama (Acanthocerus atricollis.) It is not uncommon to see this lizard peeping with his blue head from behind a tree. Only the male has a blue head, yet it is still well disguised. Presumably atricollis is a reference to a black neck.
Below is a Southern Rock Agama (Agama atra.) I found this individual on the Robberg, Plettenburg Bay. Like the Tree agama, only the adult male has a blue head.
At bottom I have put in an enlargement of the head,it doesn't really help much in picking out the Agama.
 

Selaginella and Butterflies

The fern was incidental to the butterflies. At the time I wasn't sure what the moss-like plant was. It is in fact a fern, a Selaginella (probably S. dregei.)
At top the butterfly is a female Colotis antevippe (the Red Tip.), below Cupidopsis cissus (the Common Meadow Blue.)
 

Bufo gutturalis

The guttural Toad. He lived under a slab in the garden. In our wet summer months we would often hear his his guttural croak on a cloudy evening and at night. Its call was more intermittent than than the more continuous chorus of our Raucus Toad. In the suburbs the two species often hybridize during a mating frenzy.
     

Lampyridae (Glow worm)

A glow worm (at least I think so.)
Usually the male takes on the form of a beetle with wings and elytra, the female usually as a "glow worm." I don't know if this is a larva, or a larviform female.
   

Grey Heron

Again, pushing the camera to its limits, and it performing remarkably well.
The Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea), an occasional visitor to our pond, and always rather shy, leaving as soon as it felt it was being watched.
   

Moon 1st quarter

I think the dramatic pictures taken from space probe these days has taken something from the excitement of astro-photography (and in particular observational astronomy.)
Well, I was taking the camera through its paces. Here the moon just a tad before first quarter. For a "point and shoot" it performed remarkably well. The telephoto 90mm (equv 500mm) showed the craters quite nicely (the Ptomelaeus group on the terminator.) but the chromatic abberation was marked. Converting to black and white removed most of it. (For normal photos this abberation was less important; eg see next post of the Grey Heron.)
 

Asplenium rutifolium

The Carrot Fern, found frequently at Ferncliffe, and living up to its common name: resembling carrot leaves.
It may be either epiphyte or lithophyte. The oval sori are on the underside. They are mostly on the medial side of the lobe, the indusium opens on that side.
 

Lachenalia

The Cape in spring, this Lachenalia from Darling among the wild flowers. The genus is mostly endemic to the Western Cape. What a remarkable colour combination.
This plant a namesake of Werner de Lachenal, a Swiss botanist.
 

Paragomphus cognatus

I found this Common Hooktail on the banks of Kingfisher lake, NBG-KZN. The widening of the tail, and the foliations are a feature of most of the Gomphid (Clubtail) family, as well as it having no anal loop in the hindwing. Also the eyes do not meet in the middle. The anal appendages are those of a female.
 

Palystes Rain Spider

The Rain Spider would often come into our house during our wet season. Despite its large size and rather frightening appearance, it is harmless. Nevertheless our method of putting it outside was gently getting it caught up in a feather duster, then depositing it outside. During this it would rear up and raise its front legs in an aggressive stance. Once put out it would nearly always return in a day or two. The palps are amazingly large.
Its size, stance and white "mustache" are characteristic of the genus.
 

Natalina cafra

The Common Cannibal Snail, family Rhytididae.
This large snail is not all that common, being endemic to our province, KwaZulu-Natal.
It is recognised by its large size, the marked umbilicus and the feelers, the lower of which are modified with an extension that are used to track prey.
Cannibal: because it is carnivorous, feeding on a mixed diet that includes other snails, including possibly its own species.
At bottom feeding on an Agate Snail, possibly a previous prey, but now using the shell as a source of calcium.
 

Assassin bug

Certainly an Assassin, judging by its looks. Probably family Reduvioidea and genus Rhynocoris.
An ambush predator with an amazing snout through which it injects a paralytic toxin.
   

Ferncliffe Nature Reserve

Ferncliffe, on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg, is a paradise of ferns. It is a delightful reserve, mainly a riverine forest (there is a Lemonwood walk), streams, streptocarpus, clivia, birds and fungi, as well as butterflies (abundant Bush Beauties), and of course FERNS.
Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do in that line. --Thoreau.
Neil and Tanza Crouch have put together a charming booklet: The Ferns of Ferncliffe a Ramblers guide in which they identify 67 species in the reserve. The ferns on this blog were mostly from here, but some from our garden or the KZN-NBG.
 

Fishing Spider and Damselfly

I found this pair of Sprites about to mate. I think that the white on the male's forehead (on the right) probably makes these Kersten's Sprite (Pseudagrion kersteni.) While watching, the male suddenly left, the female after a momentary struggle fell the victim of the fishing spider. I felt rather sad.
The spider I think is a Thalassius sp. (family Pisauridae: presumably related to fishing.)
 

Grielum humifusum

The Duikerwortel (Afr.) so named because the Duiker impala has a predilection for seeking out the roots. We came across this flower on a farm while coming back from the Cedarburg.
The seeds are flattened with burrs on top, and rely on the trample burr method by animals  for dispersal  (big word - ectozoochory.)
The pale centres probably make this G. humifusum.