John B.

Hi mdbartolome, I have been looking at your beetle and I don't think it is a Illeis koebelei. I also don't think it is a Ladybird. I am trying to identify it for you, but maybe you could help me a little. Does the beetle in your photo have a clear, shiny, "see-through" cover that looks like glass? If you can answer that for me, I might be able to narrow down my search parameters.

Hi Pradeep, I see that you spotted this beautiful spider 8 years ago and it has still not been identified. So, I thought I should try to help. I started by reading all of the many comments you received and, of course, the most significant advice was given by PN Rangers Wild Thing and SukanyaDatta, both of whom felt that you should settle for the name of the family, Sparassidae. At that time, 7 years ago, I am sure that I would have agreed with them, but things have moved on and there is now a great deal more information available online. I will send you a Species ID Suggestion, showing that I think this spider is Olios lamarcki (Latreille, 1806). My main purpose in sending you this comment is to offer some advice about your spottings in general. I hope that you do not mind and accept my advice, in the spirit of friendship, in which it is offered. I have noticed that many of your spottings have very little in the way of Description, Habitat or Notes. This spotting has only the words “My 200th spotting in project noah” in the Notes field. That’s O.K., but there is no information about the spider. If you can’t think of anything to say in Description or Notes, that happens sometimes and is probably going to be understood by most people. However, the Habitat field is absolutely essential and you really should be able, in a few words, to say where you saw the spider. Your photos are beautiful, but some words in the Habitat field would greatly improve the quality of your spottings. In the case of this spotting, there is so much that could be mentioned in “Description” to make it interesting and informative. If this were my spotting, I would have said something like this; “You can see in the picture that this spider has grown a new leg (Leg No. 2 on its right side). Although this new leg is not yet fully developed, the dark markings are already beginning to show. The strong outer skin (exoskeleton) and the bristles (setae) will take a little time to develop and the spider is only slightly disadvantaged by this. However, I think I see something much more serious going on. If you look at both No. 1 legs (left and right) where the Femora connect to the Trochanters, it looks like Haemolymph (the equivalent of blood, in a spider) is seeping out. I also think I can see some similar leakage at the Pedicel (the tube-like joint between the abdomen and the cephalothorax). This kind of damage can sometimes be caused by a difficult moult and, If I am right, this spider has little chance of survival.” Now, Pradeep, please remember that I did not see the actual spider – I saw only one photo. So, I might well be wrong in my interpretation of the condition of your spider, but that does not matter. The point is that I have written some words to make the spotting interesting and hopefully slightly educational. If some biologist tells me that I am wrong, I will accept that and then I will be the one to learn. If you agree with my Species ID Suggestion and my interpretation of you photo, please feel free to copy and paste my words into your Description field (without the quotation marks) and, hopefully your spotting will look better.

Hi Pradeep, I have sent a Species ID Suggestion, giving Moths of India as the reference because its distribution map should confirm its presence in your area. However, you might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydesma_........ for additional information.

Hi Pradeep, that is an amazing photo of Apis florea, the Dwarf Honey Bee.

Hi pradeep, I have just sent you a Species ID Suggestion for the spider in this spotting. I provided a link to inaturalist.org (which has many photos) but I really wanted to recommend that you look at - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_ae........ This Wiki article is excellent, as far as the written information is concerned, but I need to point out to you that the picture displayed there is wrong. They have shown a picture of Argiope keyserlingi - a completely different species. I have just joined Wikipedia and intend to change their photo to a correct one, but I have not yet learned how to edit Wiki's images. I mention this so that you will not think that my ID suggestion is wrong. If you want to see a photo just like yours, please look at my spotting in Project Noah - https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/18...

Hi Pradeep, I am pretty sure that this Woodpecker belongs to the Genus Dinopium. If you look in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinopium..... you will see that there are only five Dinopium spp. and I think your Woodpecker is Dinopium benghalense. Please have a look and see what you think.

Hi Pradeep, arne.roysland was correct. The scientific name should be shown as "Hypolimnas misippus". Linnaeus was the scientist who first described this butterfly in 1764. It is customary to write it as "Hypolimnas misippus Linnaeus, 1764" (to leave no room for ambiguity) when mentioning it in documentation, for example in the Project Noah Description field, but, in the PN's Scientific Name field, it should shown just as "Hypolimnas misippus". I apologise if I caused you some confusion. By the way, your "Thank you" comment is much appreciated.

This looks like Hypolimnas misippus Linnaeus, 1764 and it is a male. In addition to the link in my Species ID Suggestion, there is a good article in - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypolimnas....

Great spotting, Tom.

Thank you, Rithmini Weerakkody. Your comments are very welcome and your knowledge of butterflies is excellent. I have learned a valuable lesson from our conversation. In Project Noah's rules, a little brightening of a photo is allowed, but there is no mention of "darkening". Now I know why. Since you brought this to my attention, a few days ago, I have played around with some old photos and I can see that a little brightening sometimes helps, but darkening is always a disaster! So, I won't be doing any more "darkening" - much better just to go out and take a better picture. Thank you again.