a butterfly tattoo for gabi

A little present for my girl-friend; I only fear it is a rather temporary tattoo, and that it won't last long. But that remains to be seen!

wasp spider

I know, I haven't been active here for some days, don't you worry - I haven't abandoned my blog. Just have been occupied with other things, like with this lovely spider here.

woolly monster

the mob - der mob

stretching wings

wild sow

Isn't she a beauty?

woodpeckers did it!

new species discovered!

Just take a look at this one:

Incredible, isn't it?!

That's a brand new species discovered by me recently: I checked, it hasn't been described neither by botanists nor by zoologists, and no wonder as it obviously is a cross-breed between animal (some Sauropsid?) and plant (Populus nigra!) - it seems that neither kind of biologists felt 'responsible' for this poor creature.

I could have named it after me, but I am not so vain, I do not consider myself so very important to name a new taxon after me. Instead, I baptised it with the pretty name of Navigium populocrustix subsp. auto-navigabilis.

isn't she lovely?

lobau

Today I found a hornet's nest in Lobau, and even though I know that they're pretty much harmless (or much more harmless than most people think!) I can tell you that I was quite nervous around them, especially when one bumped into my head, which happened on one or two occasions.

(After all their stings do hurt, one shouldn't forget that.)

i hate animals

Because usually they never stand still, or keep a position which would be advantageous, photographically, and even if they do, which they do on occasion ...

... they're hell to determine.

So here we go, two grasshoppers doing 'it', and I don't have their Latin names at hand!

caterpillar

beaver

You can't see the bugger?

Nor could I! And I sat there for the best part of an hour, without even the slightest trace of a beaver crushing the surface.

lobau monsters

fox

A young one, posing for my camera. I actually spent the best part of a quarter of an hour there, watching the fox hunting small game (mice and such), which didn't bother the fox at all (it must have noticed me by then).

an insect from outer space

hot

It's way too hot, said even the turtle ... ... and went splat! some ten minutes after this shot was taken, after taking carefully into consideration the options it had (which, simply were to dive, or not to dive, that is here the question).

stag night

some visitor from outer space

Hello there, guy, how's it going beyond Alpha Centauri?

yes you're frightening!

You wouldn't believe how stubborn salamanders could be. Take this one here:

That guy was sitting on a mountain bike track where, I can assure you, your ordinary biker wouldn't even care to look whether or not there's an animal on the track. And this one here sat there, and did not move at all for minutes!

I tried to convince the poor bugger that his bright yellow colours wouldn't work as a deterrent against bikers; and when he insisted that they be deterred I even assured him that I found him very much frightening, and that I wouldn't get near to him no matter what circumstances. (I did though, but didn't care to tell him.)

Well, the end of the story is short: I just put him aside, on a place safer than the middle of the road. However I fear that he didn't take long getting there, imposing and impressing the bikers on the track; I only hope the bikers were of the kind which is susceptible to such threats.