Stag Beetles

This foto you see here is a Southern African stag beetle female and is a very rare insect in Southern Africa and is listed on the red data list. The stag beetle on this foto is a stag beetle I found in our yard while I was walking around. I were so surprised when I saw it. Stag beetles are not pests like everyone thaught it is. In fact it is a good creature cause stag beetles eat only rotten fruit that falls from trees and the larva eat only decaying wood. Stag beetles can,t eat solids- their huge mandibles are useless for eating and therefor they eat only soft stuff like rotten fruit, females use their large mandibles for digging into decaying wood to lay there eggs and males use their large mandibles for fighting. Here is a little foto of a male stag beetle, its mandibles are strong enough to chew a pensil! Here is a link if you want to see how a male stag beetle fight:Stag beetles fighting.

The baboon spider of Lydenburg

This you see on my hand is a golden brown baboon spider I found on a trip around Lydenburg area.Its latin name is Augacephalus breyri and it eats anything it can overpower and grows up to 6 cm long. I were so exited when I found it,offcause it was my dream to discover one of those. I first  wanted to keep it but then thought about my iguana that died (see label campaing against import of  alien  animals) and then decided to leave the spider in the wild where it belongs, even though I would have liked to study it for a while.


                                                                   
                                                                                                   (above)Baboon spider on my hand.

                                                              

                                                                                          Baboon spider on my arm(above).

                                                                
                                                                                         

My favorite Boney M music

My favorite Boney M music is her Christmas album and don,t kill the world.

Here are some more links beside "don,t kill the world".                      

Mary's Boy Child
I love this song because it is such an uplifting song.

Child of the Sun
I love this song because it speaks of the Creator.

Auld Lang Syne
I love this song because it also is an uplifting song.

Little Drummer Boy

I love this song because it tells of  the birth of Jesus Christ.               

Feliz Navidad
I like this song because of the Christmas feeling of it.

Zion,s Daughter
sometimes this song kind of sad but it is sooo
beautiful.

Jericho
This song is singed by 2 groups: Boney M and Goombay Dance Band it is fantastic!!!

Oh come all ye faithful

Campaing against the import of alien animals

 This is My iguana Roxie witch I got as a prescient from someone. I was so happy to get such an exotic
pet and when I got it she of course were very wild
but something was wrong, Roxie never got tamed.
We started to worry. For 2 or maybe 3 years she
never got tamed and one day it got so cold that we had to bring her inside. Everyone thought that she was totally fine except me. She was wounded and was bleeding and one day I found her behind My bed and when I picked her up she didn't move.  I was so sad because I thought she was dead so I called My mom. We then turned on the blow heater and we started to pray for her and suddenly she started to move and we were so glad. Mom then told me to bring a warm water bag to keep her warm.It was all we could think to do.The next morning she was dead.   I were so sad but also a bit angry to, i thought that this would have never happened if she weren't imported and also really sad  that she never even saw her real home one more time. About this i were really sad :/. I then decided not to keep an imported animal, and decided to never spread the word and encourage people not to support pet stores that sell imported animals, especially as exotic like these, it is not their best interest and they die often.

                     

Roxie eating flowers.

The cone snail

Cone snails (genus Conus) members of the family Conidae have conical shells, long narrow apertures, and short blunt spires. Outer lip thin and smooth; inner lip never toothed or pleated. Cones are predators and use hollow harpoon-like teeth to inject a potent neurotoxin. Conus textile and C. geographus are potenentially lethal to humans.There are over 600 different species of  cone snails. Cone snails are carnivorous and feeds on marine worms, mollusks, small fish and even other cone snails because cone snails are slow moving they use a venomous harpoon (called a toxoglosson radula) to capture faster moving prey sush as fish. the larger species, especially the piscivorous ones are powerful enough to kill a human being.

classification

kingdom: Animalia
phylum:   Mollusca
class:      Gastropoda
unranked:Gaenogastropoda
                Hypsogastropda
                Neogastropoda
superfamily: Conoidea
family: conidae
subfamily: Coninae
genus: Conus

The scorpion in the house and jonathan leeming

 This is south-Africa's second most deadly scorpion, I only know its 'afrikaans' common name its "Transvaalse dikstert skerpioen" its scientific name is parrabuthus transvaalicus. I had the privilege to care for it for a little while. When I got it I fed it a baby mice and the scorpion ate it.

 He could eat two crickets at a time, he hunted them without stinging them. I also fed him big stuff like grasshopper's.

Later the scorpion escaped but I found it again. it was a true horror. This is when we met uncle Jonnathan Leeming known as the scorpion king.He told us how dangerous this specie was and that we should immediately put it back into the field. We talked about scorpions and other creepy crawlies. The photo here shows uncle Jonathan,s book and the photo down here shows were uncle Jonathan singed my book.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Carnivorous plants

The sundew

Drosera commonly known as sundews comprises the largest genera of carnivorous plants which contains at least 194 species. Sundews trap prey like this, when an fly for example lands on it can't get of again because the plant contains very sticky stuff. For this reason the fly cannot get of  again. Once a meal is stuck on the plant the plant rolls up with the prey on it.




The trumpet pitcher

This is the trumpet pitcher (in afrikaans beker plant). The trumpet pitcher can't find enough water where it lives so it gets its water from insects when an insect gets to close to the mouth of the plant it falls in and drowns because at the mouth of the plant it is very slippery so the insect stay on it but why do the insect go to it in the first place? Well, the insect smells nectar and then go to the plant to collect it but instead of getting a meal it becomes a meal. Sometimes other animals like frogs tries to catch the insects before the plant does ,but if the frog gets to near the mouth the plant will eat him too. Other plants do pretty much the same, for example the cobra lily which gets its name from that it looks like a cobra, has a opening and when an insect goes through there it can't get out again.




The Venus flytrap

I have one of these myself. The Venus fly trap is the most easiest carnivorous plant to take care of. All it needs is it must be soaking in water and it only needs to be fed once a weak, it needs no fertiliser. The Venus flytrap catches insects by luring them with sweet nectar to the leaf and then it closes it. Venus flytraps is found originally in California. Venus flytraps needs up to 14 hours of strong sunlight everyday and can come in different colours like green and red.

There are to many different kinds of carnivorous plants to write about. For more information on carnivorous plants look on the net.