Cicada Pupa

Cicadas are insects belong to the order Hemiptera, The same order as aphides, milibags, leafhoppers and spittlebugs. They have large compound eyes, a sound producing organ called tympanum and usually transparent, well-veined wings.
There are approximately 2,500 species of cicada around the world mainly distributed around the tropical and sub-tropical and temperate countries of the world. Many of the species are still not identified. Their presents can be easily regained due to their acoustic talents (sound producing skill). Many of the adult cicadas do not possess mouthparts infect most of the feeding is dun during the juvenile stage and as a adult it’s main function is to mate and reproduce. Recently while removing a plant for transplantation (Bamboo grass) I stumbled into a string looking creature after closer inspection I found that it was a pupa of a cicada which looked as though it was in its final stages of development. It was found barred 16cm inside the soil and measured 6cm long. It was reddish brown and blackish brown in color. The air breathing tracheal openings are also clearly visible on the abdominal segment. The entire pupa is covered with a lumines hard exoskeleton. Which help protect the delicate body of the developing cicada.

By Philip Mathew

Cicada Pupa

Cicadas are insects belong to the order Hemiptera, The same order as aphides, milibags, leafhoppers and spittlebugs. They have large compound eyes, a sound producing organ called tympanum and usually transparent, well-veined wings.
There are approximately 2,500 species of cicada around the world mainly distributed around the tropical and sub-tropical and temperate countries of the world. Many of the species are still not identified. Their presents can be easily regained due to their acoustic talents (sound producing skill). Many of the adult cicadas do not possess mouthparts infect most of the feeding is dun during the juvenile stage and as a adult it’s main function is to mate and reproduce. Recently while removing a plant for transplantation (Bamboo grass) I stumbled into a string looking creature after closer inspection I found that it was a pupa of a cicada which looked as though it was in its final stages of development. It was found barred 16cm inside the soil and measured 6cm long. It was reddish brown and blackish brown in color. The air breathing tracheal openings are also clearly visible on the abdominal segment. The entire pupa is covered with a lumines hard exoskeleton. Which help protect the delicate body of the developing cicada.

Sisus qudrangularis

Botanical Name: Sisus qudrangularis

Common Name: Hade sante
This plant gets its appropriate Botanical name from its quadrangle shaped stem, which is a phylloclade stem. Xerophytes are plants which need less water to grow. It is found in sub-tropical parts of the world. It grows in well drained soils, and is usually planted in soils mixed with sand.
Propagation: through stem cuttings, the stem is cut with one or two nodes space and should have at least 2 auxiliary buds.
I usually, push the cut stem into the soil, with one node inside the soil.

This is a medicinal plant and the use can be easily known from its local Marathi name: Hade sante: sante roge means arthritis. The stem of this plant is believed to have properties of strengthen the bones due to it’s high level of calcium content found in the plant.
The stem of this plant is crushed to extract the stem residue or the musillenagious juice. This juice is spread in a flat plate, where it is let to dry and the dried residue is scrapped from the plate into a bowl and a small content is consumed daily. This helps people with low calcium levels.

This painting is dun in hand made paper
Medium: water color
Size: hight-38 width-28 cm
Price: Rs. 400/- with out the frame.
For people who are from out side Pune city the painting will be send through courier. For more details contact :
Philip_mathew85@yahoo.co.in .
Or call me at: 9423581047.

Millipede:

Millipedes are found in dark and damp places. Usually with a good amount of decomposing leaf or wood material. The cuticle is very tought and hard. The body is cylindrical, and is divisible into a head and a trunk. The trunk makes up the majority of the segmented body. Except the first three segment of the trunk (which has only one pare of legs) all the other segments have 2 pairs of legs in each pair of segment. Millipedes feed on decaying animal and plant matter; this shows how important these arthropods are in the ecosystem. When disturbed they crawl into a spiral with the head at the centre. They possess paired glands called stink glands which produce an unpleasant odor.


I observed this pare of millipede crossing a walk way in a garden on 26/6/2007 after 3 days of conduce rainfall. It was rusty red in color and has a dark brown head with an antenna of 7to8 segments which scan the ground for any obstacles. The eyes are compound and bulges out words. Compared to the rest of the body the eyes are very small. In the act of copulation the female moves with the male millipede on top of her body. The Anal circus deposits sperm into the female’s genital pouch while it moves. This is done to avoid competing males from mating with the female.

Scelifron wasp

The Scelifron wasp

There are several species of this wasp genus found all over the world epically in tropical, sub tropical and desert ecosystem. The particular wasp that I observed is of metallic green to blue in color with a very thin outwardly protruding first abdominal segment. The thorax is well built and all the three thorasic segments fused well to form a rounded and upwardly bulging thorax. This wasp also has a powerful sting, which can give multiple stings to its victim. (The sting of a honeybee has barbs which hook on to its victim and detach. But the wasp’s sting does not have barbs).
This wasp feeds on nectar produced by flowers but hunts spiders which it paralyses before laying an egg on its victim, which later incubates on the body of the spider.

Habitat: Urban areas, forests, woodlands, and Savana ecosystems.

This wasp builds its nest on socket holes or any rounded, circular hole, like in crevices of wood, concrete, stone etc.
Before building a nest the wasp takes a survey of the prospective nesting areas for 1 or 2 days after which it checks out the hole and confirms that it is big and large enough for its, victim and for the development of its eggs.
Then the wasp goes out and hunts spiders. The wasp meticulously carries each spider in its jaws back to the hole. Layer by layer, it arranges its spider victims inside the hole with an egg laid on it. It covers the hole with a paste made by mixing mud with saliva to create a paste which hardens after application. Finally it applies a white colored substance over the nest to seal off completely.

The new observation is from Bhimashankar where I observed that these wasps ware congregating in a group of 14 individuals in a jute thread tided together out side a door way.

Acknowledgements:
1. I would like to thank my friend Mr. Nachiket Kelkhar for helping me identifying Scelifron wasp for me.

2. I would also like to thank Soman Sir for helping me understand some of the habits of the wasp.
References:
1. Many of the observations for the article was retrieved from my observations and notes.
2. I also used wikepedia webs site to get many of the taxonomical information.

sphecidae wasp

This is a drawing of a sphecidae wasp and I found it hunting a cricket under a tree in the leaf litter. These wasps may be seen hunting on several orders of Insects like Orthoptera- (grasshoppers and crickets), Bliattaria (cockroaches), Isoptera (termites). It also feeds on beetle larva which it digs out from small crevices either from bark, earth or leaf litter. It also feeds on larva of Lepidoptera (Butterflies and moths) etc. I could make only one observation of this.

Contact me: philip_mathew85@yahoo.co.in

The Petioleoid Wasp

The next wasp is the petioleoid wasp, which gets its name from the beautifully elongated petiole which is a segment just before the abdomen or gaster.
Petioleoid wasp belongs to the handsome group of wasps from the family- Vespidae. A good majority of the vespidae has a well shaped body with a hardened ketenes exoskeleton. The body in most of the vespidae is colored yellow and brownish red.
Vespoids are both solitary and social in nature. And has a well developed brain. Vespoids build very good and beautiful nests, which are engineering marvels, for e.g. I remember observing a very pretty and large nest of the paper wasp from Empress garden in Pune. The nest was attached to a branch of a tree and was hanging from there. The nest had a pendulous apex and the nest was oval in shape.
It was made completely with wood pulp, which was mixed with wasp saliva for hardening. It looks some what like this.

Vespidae generally as a group uses a wide range of nesting materials available in nature.
The nests of most species are constructed out of mud, but polistines and vespides use plant fibers, chewed to form a sort of paper (also true of some stenogastrines).

Here are some of the subfamilies….
Eumeninae: potter wasps
Euparagiinae
Masarinae: pollen wasps
Polistinae: paper wasps
Stenogastrinae
Vespinae: yellowjackets, hornets

The Vespidae are a large (nearly 5,000 species), diverse, cosmopolitan family of wasps, including nearly all the known eusocial wasps and many solitary wasps.