Not every day that one will see this, as this was a very rare occasion.
They are Cicada skeletons left behind after they have metamorphosised, and the new ones flew away.
My wife called to show me this in our garden, and I carefully picked them up to share with all of you. Now according to my memories, I have shared a post on my blog of only one previously, and now here we had another two.
But what is a Cicada? Let's ask Wikipedia.
Cicadas have prominent eyes set wide apart, short antennae, and membranous front wings. They have an exceptionally loud song, produced in most species by the rapid buckling and unbuckling of drum-like tymbals. The earliest known fossil Cicadomorpha appeared in the Upper Permian period; extant species occur all around the world in temperate to tropical climates. They typically live in trees, feeding on watery sap from xylem tissue, and laying their eggs in a slit in the bark. Most cicadas are cryptic. The vast majority of species are active during the day as adults, with some calling at dawn or dusk. Only a rare few species are known to be nocturnal.
I have bolded a sentence in the wiki article above, to tell you more about their loud song. They are loud, especially on hot days, and one can never see them, as they hide in the trees.
The holes in their backs are where the new cicadas emerged from, leaving their old skeletons behind.
This is a tiny beetle that landed on my wife's arm.
And now what kind of bird will have only 2 millimeter sized eggs?
Not a bird, as these are the eggs of dwarf geckos. They are very small at birth and stay small when they become adults. The shell with the hole at the front shows where the baby emerged, and the egg at the back still has a baby inside.
So, we put the eggs back where we found them, and hopefully we will have a chance to see the new baby emerging from the egg. But I think that it is wishful thinking, as I think that they get born either late at night, or early in the morning. I would have asked Wikipedia again, but this post is getting too long, and that's not my norm. Insects and reptiles are very intricate, and one can learn so much from them, especially what they do in the eco-system.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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