Jakes Hub

The dappled, greyish or reddish Ruffed Grouse is hard to see, but its “drumming on air” display is a fixture of many spring forests. It can come as a surprise to learn this distant sound, like an engine trying to start, comes from a bird at all. This plump grouse has a cocky crest and a tail marked by a broad, dark band near the tip. Displaying males expose a rich black ruff of neck feathers, giving them their name.

Drosera Capensis, commonly known as the Cape sundew, is a small rosette-forming carnivorous species of perennial sundew native to the Cape in South Africa. When insects are first trapped, the leaves roll lengthwise toward the center. This aids digestion by bringing more digestive glands in contact with the prey. The plant leaf surrounds the prey within an hour while tentacles continue to move to further trap the prey. Digestion takes well over 6 hours after a prey's original ensnarement.

Leafcutter ants, as their name suggests, are those often found parading leaf pieces along the rainforest floor of Central and South America. Leafcutter ants can be a serious agricultural threat, as they can easily remove foliage. These pests can lead to an annual decrease in crop yield in affected areas. In North and South America, crop damage from these insects can total a billion dollars.

Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas. They are specialized for feeding on flower nectar, but all species consume flying insects or spiders.

Malaysian Leaf Katydid {Ancylecha fenestrata}, an excellent leaf mimic originating from the rainforests of Western Malaysia.

Rainbow stags are called the most beautiful of stag beetles because of their metallic-rainbow colour. Not only are their wings a pretty rainbow colour, but their bellies are as well. They are quite laid back, but they can be seen every now and then fighting to protect their territories.

When you see flies rubbing their legs together, they are cleaning themselves. Flies rely on their compound eyes, antennae and the bristles on their bodies and legs to sense the world around them. They have to keep these sense organs clean so they can fly with precision to find food and mates and avoid predators. Flies spend a long time carefully cleaning their whole bodies; if you watch them closely you will see that they don’t just rub their legs together – they run their legs over their bodies, heads and wings too. Particles of dirt from the rest of the body are picked up by its legs as it cleans, and then the dirt is rubbed down the legs and away. It is estimated that whenever a housefly rubs its legs, lakhs of bacteria are discharged from the legs for each rubbing.

Phymateus aegrotus, sometimes called the blue bush locust or East African bush locust is a pest species of grasshopper. This species is present in Africa, Northeast Tropical Africa, Somali.