skinheaddave

J.cordifera seems a fairly good match -- but with coleoptera there should always be some sort of huge disclaimer about the stupid number of species out there. :-D

The Marty Feldman of bugs to be sure.

I'm not 100% on the frog. I was tempted to say Hyla squirella but after zooming in and looking for signs of patterning etc., I think H.cinerea.

Whoops. Apple beat me to it by a minute. Definitely looks like G.grisea to me but I had never seen one with its wings extended before. There are some pics on bugguide.net that match the wings, though.

Cheers,
Dave

ChunXingWong:

A few words regarding flipping things. First off, as you suggest by your comment, it is important to replace everything where you found it. Every time you remove things, you modify local microclimates. It may not be so quick in humid environments where water is abundant and the rate of change/decay is great anyways .. but in more arid environments you can do great harm by displacing ground cover. It is just good policy to put everything back where you found it.

It is also important not to place the items back onto animals. If you, for example, see a snake underneath the log, it is important to get it out before you replace the log. You can make sure it is placed next to the log afterwards .. but if you simply drop the log back on it it may not come to rest in exactly the same spot and you can do damage. So lift, do a good check for animals, remove any larger ones (small bugs etc. are generally fine) and then lower the cover.

Lastly, a word on safety. Lots of things live under logs. Some of them can be dangerous. It is often a good idea to pry up the log with an implement rather than your hands ... or at least thick gloves if the local concerns are all of the stinging arthropod type rather than venomous snakes (many of which can punch right through gloves). The other important tip is to lift the item away from you. That way if you spook something like a venomous snake, it will flee away from you rather than directly towards your legs.

A funny diversion. I was leading a little field trip for some children etc. to go look for scorpions with a blacklight at night in Texas. There was a guy there in his late teens and he took to helping the younger children out. Quite nice of him. I had impressed upon him earlier the importance of lifting things away from yourself. He started doing so. At one point, however, I see him gathering some children around a piece of bark with their blacklights. He very helpfully lifted the bark so that the children could look for scorpions underneath. He opened it away from himself and towards all the children. There were no rattlers underneath so it was funny as anything .. but still not the recommended technique, you know.

Anyhow, that's my advice on flipping stuff. If you haven't been doing so already it will potentially result in many more good finds for you. Just be mindful to minimize the damage you do and keep yourself and those around you safe. Happy hunting.

Cheers,
Dave

That is a shame but is the nature of weeds .. they do far better when displaced than in their natural environments where all the competitors, parasites, diseases etc. have evolved along with them.

I remember visiting a zoo in England maybe 20 years ago where the first display as you entered was a racoon. There it was this neat, cute, interesting animal from the Americas. I had to joke that they had put it in a woodland setting rather than a back alley foraging through the garbage.

The smaller ones in Florids are found by looking under small rocks, pieces of wood etc. You have to look carefully because they blend in with the dirt under the rock etc. .. and particularly with the wood you also have to look on the underside of the item you are lifting as well. Since I am often looking for scorpions, these guys are found as a byproduct .. though they don't fluoresce under a blacklight and are thus more easily missed.

The bigger ones in Costa Rica were all found on tree trunks at about waist to head level. Simply a matter of walking around and shining a flashlight on every surface imaginable. Things are different there, though .... every surface has something living on it .. and every surface of those finds has something else living on it. It wasn't a matter of finding things to photograph as trying to decide what order to photograph everything in.

The problem is that they are an invasive species here where they outcompete some native species for nesting sites etc. So someone might well post on one of my other sparrow spottings that I'm lucky to have seen them due to dwindling numbers ... and list these guys among the theorized causes.

If you are looking for bigger, check out: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/802... from Costa Rica. The biggest ones had legspans much larger than my hand. With that sort of stretch they were lightning fast too so you end up chasing them around and around trees trying to get a picture.

Cheers,
Dave

I took that shortly after an egg sac emerged. So those would be babies (you can see a second, out-of-focus one behind the lettering).