naturalist_aditya's Favorites

Its a beautiful moment when I spotted this beautiful creature. I never seen like this before, when I spotted this its behaving like a Salticidae (Jumping spider) by moving up & down 1st pair of leg. but after clicked when I checked I understand this its not a spider something else & that time it was vanished on grasses.

Dressing/looking like a stronger - Best way to defend oneself .

Yesterday i went for small trek along with parents of my kid’s school (Arivu Vidhya samste). We went to trek small hillock near uchangi . Easy trek, but it’s not easy to walk with macro enthusiasts as we peep over every plant, turn every leaf to explore insect diversity.
Trek was very fruitful for me as I got many unusual sightings of spiders & insects along with scenic view of westernghats. There were many existing moments & its usual tendency to post the best in the begging of photo story. I thought of posting one interesting crab spider or one ground spider with its unique hunting technique. But just a phone call with my friend vipin made me to post this!
Yes.. This was my highlight from yesterdays walk.
While returning from Hill, we took stop near water stream & quenched our thirst. My son Amathya was little faraway searching for insects. He never call me, unless its unusual. Amathya kept on calling me. come fast. Here is something interesting . A hornet with its first pair of leg like praying mantis. I want near it. oh. a hornet.
Just a month back I had got painful sting from Hornet . This memory was very active so i decided to photograph from little distance . two to three pic, Hornet disappeared.
Today I was saying about this Hornet to vipin over phone & simultaneously I sent an image too. Looking at the image, he was super exited, which i was not on field !
ohh... you got a jackpot.
This is a Mantispidae/ mantidflies. Never seen such a Mantidfly which is total mimicry of Hornet, almost looking like dangerous. Vespa tropica.
I looked over image again.. oh.. i was fooled .. its not a Hornet . Batesian mimicry was successful. This mimicry fools many predators, just like how I was fooled.

( Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both)
Thanks to Amathya for spotting & Thanks to vipin again :)
Decemeber 2023
Uchangi
Kodagu.