A new one, but it’s Taiwan-focused, so I think you’re in the right place
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That was in taiwan??
They are venomous still, see the tail. Just not.incredibly.so. they keep those as pets worldwide, with so.E similar species cause they’re big.and not.dangerous.
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No. Nope.
Those things are the main reasons I still dislike boots.
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You mean they hide in your boots?
I get toads. I always have to upend my boots in the morning to get the toad out.
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they’re still venomous, only their sting doesn’t hurt humans much. the venom is not very strong, and they’re more likely to deal with prey by using the hands.
a good rule of thumb for scorpions is the ratio of the tail width to the hand width:
skinny tail, big hands = not dangerous
thin hands, fat tail = lethal
For example, the Androctonus genus from north Africa/middle east is known as the fat-tail scorpion and they will kill you stone dead very quickly. Not bad for a 2 cm animal…
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Don’t know what these are called in Taiwan. I like the butterfly, it was just coming out of its cocoon.
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The first one, a common beetle in Taiwan Dorcus formosanus
Last is a millipede, no idea what but quite interesting being grey.
These photos were taken at Sha po dang (Hualien) a few days ago. An excellent place for all sorts of wildlife.
Oh cool. We drove up and.did some.herping in hualien. 3 days ago. Also found a ton of millipedes but that grey one never seen and quite like it! How long was it?
About 50-60mm. It was on the track leading down to the first waterhole.
Here is a better photo.
This could be helpful
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These are the ones that I think are more commonly found in this area:
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My little friend looks a lot like the centipede on the site provided by ‘tempoagain’. Interestingly, this is supposed to be endemic to the Ryukyu Islands, and also may have bioluminescence which I would like to see. I think a walk up there at night is in order.
I have a friend who studies frogs at Dong Hua University. I will ask her when she gets back from holidays.
Does anyone have any Taiwanese contacts who study these things and may know what it is?
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This dude was on my car…
After long hours of lazy hesitation I decided to take the camera and enter the Realms of Shit (Linkou) in a search for critters and creatures in general.
I felt quite stupid when, after getting off the bike, realized that I didn’t have any light on me except for the cellphone’s. Me, that I have been countless times in the dark illuminating the obscure secrets of the dirty Taiwanese creatures of darkness.
Still my determination of being Steve Irwin for a moment in the dark outweighed my rational side, so I turned on my cellphone’s light, started to walk into the mysterious wild, and stopped almost immediately when I sensed the presence of that alien in Earth.
Since when do we have brown praying mantis in Taiwan???
That was the most common (boring) colour for mantis in my (boring) country, but I never saw any like that in Taiwan. I’ve seen mainly green (and huge) mantis, and even super tiny, ninja-looking black ones. But brown?
I decided that Steve Irwin’s death was stupid enough and even though I wasn’t too close to coast and rays, I bottled the unlucky bastard into plastic confinement, got on my bike and rushed (slowly, kinda) home. Once there I could unwrap the naked beauty of the shy mofo, taking obscene pictures that I will post shortly today.
It seems the local name is 扁背馬陸
So I started the photoshot with some good ideas but I gave up soon because the poor thing was more in the “please leave me alone” mood than in the more photogenic and typical of this bug “what are you doing? don’t dare you to touch me!!”.
In the end I felt pity and released it in my plants. Last time I saw it, it was preparing an ambush for some tiny flying sucker.
Bonus:
Actually I was hoping for some action pictures when I trapped this other thing. The mantis looked famelic and a bit weak, and apparently this was in a degree greater than optimum for trapping this disgusting insect:
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juvenile cockroach perhaps of the Supella genus? Maybe Supella longipalpa?
I think it’s more like Supella Hijadeputa
lol don’t be rude now.