Excursion to Bruny Island, 8 Feb 2009 Don Hird took us to help check his Pygmy possum nest-boxes, near the airstrip, north of the neck on Bruny Is.
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Don explaining the Pygmy Possum Project, alongside one of the nest boxes. GF |
A Pygmy possum has just crawled out from its nest material in the bottom of a nest-box. The possum was in a torpid state and is now warming-up, uncurling its tail and inflating its ears, a process that takes about 5 minutes. AT |
Another nest-box, showing a nest made by a Pygmy possum. The possums bring-in their own nesting material. GF |
Stopped for morning-tea, some seats more conventional than others! GF |
Corunastylis_tasmanica orchid. AT |
This Leptospermum (tea-tree) had many galls on it, bigger than its nuts. On breaking one open, we found a grub inside. GF |
A spider on the stringy bark of a eucalypt. GF |
This lacewing camouflages well. AT |
Two views of a mantisfly, about 15mm long. AT
GF |
Cranefly. AT |
Bee-fly. AT |
A huntsman spider infested with mites. Huntsmen often have mites, GF |
AT |
Grasshopper. AT |
Hatchet wasp. AT |
This wasp is a flightless female tiphiid, Thynnus zonatus. SG |
Seastar Patiriella calcar apparently consuming the egg-mass of a sea-hare Aplysia sp., a sort of herbivorous sea-slug. Photograghed among the rocks and boulders between Miles Beach and Cape Queen Elizabeth. SG |
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Photos by Abbey Throssell, Geoff Fenton, Simon Grove |