Echidnas, and an Entomological Enigma, Etc.

Eeeeek! - I seem to have missed a few letters for ABC Wednesday ... Actually this post got saved as a draft and missed a couple of rounds! ... I started writing a post for B ... but then I got Busy! ... but just Before I got too Busy, I found the perfect C post half done and saved as a draft on the same blog I did the A post on ( http://spot-theblog.blogspot.com/ ) although I was also planning on doing a C post on here (Covering some stuff about Crochet, and Cairo ... and maybe even Canberra and a few other C things) ... and I was too Disorganised to catch up in time for D (I did think about Doing a late D post about a Deluge, but I think I prefer to call it a Flood anyway so it can be part/all of my F post, if I don't get too busy again) ... so now we are up to the letter E
but I didn't post this when I wrote it almost a year ago ... I must have run out of Evening, or "Eventually" didn't happen yet, or something ... can't remember if I did an E post last round ... this is the one after! ... this time around I did do posts for A, B and C ... but they were all a bit late ... and I missed D (pity - I had 2 ideas for that and Didn't get to Do Either of them ... but they can get Done later/Eventually ;-)

I was thinking of what to post about, like a lot of my ABC Wednesday posts, this one is probably rather Ecclectic - but someone has already called their post that - lol
I did think of calling it "Emu, Etc" seeing the Emu is one of the creatures on Australia's coat of arms ... but I am not sure if I have a photo of an Emu that is Easy to find ... but I should be able to find at least one of my photos of the last couple of Echidnas I have seen ...

Except that I have probably already put them on my blog  ... in fact there is a close up of one in this post - http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2009/02/fur-nd-prickles.html  yes - my F post for a previous round of ABC Wednesday - lol - and my E post just before that ( http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2009/02/eek.html  ... er ... I nearly called this post "Eek!" - but luckily I did have a vague memory that I may have already used that title, and thought of something Else - LOL) has more photos of the same Echidna. But ... I think I have taken a photo or 2 of another one since then and I have a sneaking suspicion that I have probably already blogged about that one too ... hmmm ... there was another round in between those Echidna posts and now (but my E post didn't have any photos ... and it was Extremely weird ... )
I guess I should open up my image Editing software and have a look for it (I could just look for it on the computer without using the program I am just opening - but if I want to crop the photo or fiddle with it Etc then I already have the program open, and the photo there ready to play with - lol)

Found it - and it looks like I probably didn't get around to posting it anywhere because I don't have a cropped or otherwise fiddled with version saved (which I probably would have done - because I just did that now - lol) ... so here is the Echidan I saw about 1km from here, in July last year:
(er - make that July the year before last ;-)

hmmm - I didn't notice that broken top of a toy car next to it when I took the photo!

I possibly could have Done a Dodgy and used this photo in a D post if I had Done one - I took the photo while I was out walking the Dog, here in Dunlop - we were walking along the Dirt path next to the Dunlop grasslands and I heard a noise beside me - so I looked over the fence and there was the Echidna - Digging Down into the Dirt ...

Er ... I am now running out of Evening ... actually I did run out of Evening - hopefully I will remember to come back and finish this E post ... hopefully tomorrow ... or if not - then Eventually ... Er ... I guess it is now "Eventually"?

had a few other things I was thinking of including jotted down here

Entrails?

I will be nice and spare you from that one now (mainly because I don't know where those photos are and don't have time to look right now)

Energy ... what engergy? (my get up and go got up and went)

... and I am still looking for it I think.

E is also for Event ... like the Four Wheel Drive show that I was involved in on the weekend (Er ... about this time a year ago actually - LOL) ... but that may be the topic of my F post ... (which I did mention might be about Floods ... which it still will be if I post about the 4WD show - because it kind of rained ... rather a lot ... lol) ... although I might change my mind and post about Fungi ... (although I could leave them for next time around, or include them in G for greeblies or something ...)

oops - don't think I did any of those ...
(the Fungi idea should happen Eventually ... I have an Excess of funghi photos - I seem to keep taking them - lol - so they can be either F for fungi or maybe M for mushrooms and mould or something - lol)

I was also thinking of doing my E post about Extreme weather (and using the stuff I was going to put in my half typed D post I forgot I had started Doing) but I decided that seeing I still had a pile of photos and stuff to go in there I might just do that some other time ;-)

hmmm ... if I post this now, it might even be Early!!!!!

Except tea is cooked, and I was going to see if I could find an Extra photo or 2 to Extend this post a bit ... lol

[Andrea goes and eats tea ... and ...? comes back Eventually?]

ok ... it is now about 3 hours later - I have Eaten my tea, Entertained myself in front of the TV for a couple of Episodes of TV shows we had recorded, and Excercised the dog ... and as the Evening is almost over DH has gone to bed, and I should do likewise, seeing I also have to get up for work in the morning ...

but first ...

one more E thing, that is both recent and old (well that seemed like a good Excuse to make it fit in with the rest of this Eccentric post ;-)

I recently found the answer to an Entomological Enigma ... Entomology being the study of insects, and the Enigma being something that was puzzling me ...

A few years back, Er ... it would have to be about 7 or 8 years ago considering where this started - at the school I used to work at before the one I am at now (and I have been there for at least 6 years) we had a glasshouse, with some tree seedings being propogated in there - and I found some weird looking caterpillars on the seedlings ... also found a few around here (at home)... and a couple of members of the Landcare group I am in also noticed them Eating a few of the plants around the area ... I just happened to have an old leaky fish tank handy at work, so I decided to "adopt" a few as pets ... turned out to be Easy to look after because I found that they wouild Eat all sorts of weeds/etc that I put in there for them to munch on ... and they Even pupated, turned into really weird moths, which bred with Each other and laid Eggs ... which hatched into more fuzzy caterpillars!

hmmm ... just realised I can work out when I had those caterpillars - from the dates I took the photos I am just about to put here - LOL - back in 2002 ... (found them the other day when I was looking at puppy photos - we got Diesel (our dog) in 2002 ;-)

Talking about Diesel - here he is on Christmas morning - sound asleep with his head hanging over the table leg!

I guess he was Exhausted after all the Excitement of the unwrapping of presents and stuff ...
(btw,  I moved the dog's head OFF the table leg just after I took the photo ;-)

Now for the caterpillar/moth/etc photos:

A couple of caterpillars - one on my finger and one on a box:

 This is when I had them in the old fish tank at work.
(at the end of the school year I brought the fish tank of caterpillars/etc home, so I could keep looking after them)

This is looking down into the fish tank - a caterpillar on the right, and the weird lumpy looking thing in the corner of the tank on the left is actually a female moth.

Here are some eggs, laid on the remains of the cocoon the femal emerged from - they don't go far away to lay the eggs because the females don't have wings to fly:
(the males are attracted to the females and come to them to mate)

Here is a female moth, some eggs on a cocoon (that might be a pupa in there still, or it might just be the skin the female crawled out of) and a sligty scruffy looking caterpillar:

and here is the male moth, who can fly:

and here are some more caterpillars ... on the thing I was using for a lid in the fish tank (glass over most of it and this wooden frame with fly screen mesh on it so the air could get in)

At the time I didn't have a clue what they were, and I wasn't sure where to go/look to find out ... I might have done some searching on the www, but there might not have been so many good insect/etc websites out there at the time ... that or I didn't find them ...

But the other day someone in the landcare group found a caterpillar (different sort than these) and e-mailed a photo ... and it looked like something I had seen before so I got curious, and did a bit of "googling" and found a really good insect website or 2, and found out what that other caterpillar was ... then I remembered I had been looking at dog photos and found these ones, and wondered if I could find out what they were as well - and yes - I did ;-)

- They are a species of Tussock moths  ... probably Painted Apple Moths

The website I found that info on is here - http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/ 

For those not in Australia (and those who are but want to know about the rest of the world ;-) these 2 websites are also quite interesting:

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/category/caterpillars-and-pupa/moth-caterpillars/tussock-moth-caterpillars/page/2/ (that link goes to the info about Tussock moths, but you can click on the title or a link to look around at other stuff ;-)

http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

and now it is Extremely late (well not as late as I was staying up a couple weeks back ;-) 
... I spent an Excessive amount of Extra time looking at a whole pile of Entomological stuff ... and now I must Exit the room and Exhibit some sleeping behaviour before I again have to Emerge into the cold hard world of getting up and going to work in the morning ... sigh ...

btw ... it might be a point to Excercise some caution if you are as mad as me and like picking up fuzzy caterpillars, or their hairy cocoons (or even poking your fingers around where they have been and left hairs) - some species have hairs that can be irritating (or in some cases even poisonous) and they can cause irritation/itching (in some cases to anyone who touches them, in others it might only be those who are sensitive to them)