Readers’ wildlife photos

The last photos we had from Aussie reader Tony Eales were spiders he snapped on a trip to Borneo. But wait—there’s more! Here are some other arthropods from the same trip. Tony’s notes are indented:

Continuing the Borneo photos. This time:  Hymenoptera.

Really the only annoying thing at the field centre was the constant harassment by bees. I sweat, I sweat a lot, and this made me very attractive to the bees. And on the first couple of days I made the mistake of putting electrolyte tablets in my water just for flavour. This meant I was the most popular person out of everyone with the bees. I couldn’t sit still outside for more than five minutes without being covered in bees. And Asian Honeybees (Apis cerana) here aren’t small. Several of us got stung at one point or another as the floors were littered with dying bees and our clothes left out to dry were covered in bees. They weren’t aggressive, but it was hard to move without trapping them in some fold of clothing.

There were also about half a dozen different species of stingless bees (tribe Meliponines) They were small and cute and… you know…stingless. Far easier to deal with.

JAC: Aren’t they cute? And harmless!

While I was exuding electrolytes I was also loved by the friendly and nearly harmless Giant Forest Ants (Camponotus gigas). These photos are of minor workers. They are impressively large but we did catch a glimpse of some soldiers one night and they were half again as long and as stocky.

The field centre complex had lots of nests made by Hover Wasps Eustenogaster calyptodoma. Chewed plant material is used to create these paper funnels.

Another ubiquitous inhabitant were the weaver ants (Oecophylla sp.) which strike these amazing threat poses whenever you get too close.

We found a spectacular alate of a species of Tropical Spiny Ant (Polyrhachis sp) and a beautifully coloured wasp, probably one of the digger wasps (Sphex sp.)