Here’s a TORTOISE BEETLE, one of the beautiful creatures we beheld on our trip to Thattekad, Kerala, where and I visited the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary.

I’ll post later about the details of our journey, and the comfortable homestay we had; but this post is going to be about the various small creatures we saw in the Bird Sanctuary, and on the Periyar. I have already posted about the lizards, but here are some others:

Here are all the signs at the entrance of theSalim Ali Bird Sanctuary:

We saw a wonderful variety of insects and butterflies….

Here's the SIGNATURE SPIDER, making the "X" that is part of its "signature" on its web: This one's the LUNA MOTH: We found this un id-ed, but beautiful, CATERPILLAR on the bamboo trunk: I like SPITTLE BUGS, with their frothy nests... This DAMSELFLY also looked very ethereal and pretty: I know only a few dragonflies by name, but the PADDYFIELD SKIMMER is one of them. Here's the male: And the female: I thought of when I saw this snail. Id, anyone? Sudeesh told us this one is a YAMFLY: Karthik id'd this one tentatively as a FLAT. I could get a picture only because the rain stopped briefly and it was flying about: We also spotted this MALABAR RAVEN: This SLUG was crawling along on the trunk of a tree, all wet and slimy, as if the weather wasn't wet and slimy enough! Everywhere the GIANT WOOD SPIDERS had built their webs, and we often had to move out of their path: On one tree trunk we ...er... spotted this LANTERN FLY: And here's a SKIPPER, which Karthik id'd for me as a CHESTNUT BOB: The sun, when it came shining through in brief intervals, shone on these webs: I have never seen RIVER CRABS before; I thought crabs were only found by the sea! The first evening, Sudeesh took us along the lane near our homestay, and we found this UN ID FROG (Adarsh says it is a bronze frog): Here's another frog in profile: </lj-cut> The most amazing sight, of course, was the sight of two frogs mating right next to this UN ID SNAKE (Olive Keelback, is Adarsh's tentative id): Here's Adarsh's picture of it, on INW: http://www.indianaturewatch.net/displayimage.php?id=53607 The post about the various creatures mating in the monsoon rain is here and the one about the Draco is here Next post, the birds....and then, possibly, the trees....and then the mammals....;