114 images Created 19 Feb 2013
Madagascar Invertebrates
There was a veritable cornucopia of weird and wonderful invertebrates to discover in Madagascar. As with the frogs and reptiles, it was the ingenious evolution of camouflage that amazed me the most. Madagascar is home to a huge variety of insects, the majority of which are endemic. Thousands of species are present in some groups such as the beetles and moths. There are approximately 100,000 species of insects and counting in Madagascar. Distinctive species include the bizarre long-necked giraffe weevil, the huge comet moth and the butterfly-like Madagascan sunset moth. About 80 species of stick insect occur; the Achrioptera species are large and colourful while others are small and very well camouflaged. Many of the island’s praying mantises are also superbly camouflaged, mimicking dead leaves or bark. There are over 100 cockroaches, including the large Madagascar hissing cockroach.
I will be adding the locations for the majority of the photos in due course and identifying the individual species wherever possible. It’s always possible when photographing the smaller fauna in a country with so much biodiversity as Madagascar that I may have photographed something previously unrecorded by science, which always adds to the tremendous excitement and incentive that I feel when I’m exploring somewhere as amazing as Madagascar.
I will be adding the locations for the majority of the photos in due course and identifying the individual species wherever possible. It’s always possible when photographing the smaller fauna in a country with so much biodiversity as Madagascar that I may have photographed something previously unrecorded by science, which always adds to the tremendous excitement and incentive that I feel when I’m exploring somewhere as amazing as Madagascar.
