Info shelters

Information shelters often hold more than information. This one at Tennant Creek had a number of these longhorned grasshoppers in the shade under the roof. Look at the length of those feelers!

And another shelter gave us a geocache and some very interesting information about an aboriginal sacred site called Kunjarra (The Pebbles) that a mining company wanted to destroy. The women of the local aboriginal community held a protest camp there until they succeeded in having it protected. So many crazy things have happened in this world.

And we found some information boards of a different kind as we entered the town from the north. Talk about visual pollution. It could be such a grand entrance.

At dusk we drove to the lookout anticipating a spectacular sunset because of the clouds around. It turned out to be a fizzer but the scenery made up for it.

Another grasshopper

Another type of Matchstick or Morabine Grasshopper - he found us at the beautiful swimming lagoon at Airlie Beach.

Hoppers on Hotham

On our walks around Hotham and Dinner Plains last weekend we found a few of the amazing flightless grasshoppers called Southern Pyrgomorph or Spotted Mountain Grasshopper Monistria concinna. This one thought I couldn't see it hidden in a rock crevice.

Last summer we found them at the Baw Baw ski village but they had different colouring - apparently there are about eight forms. They have the ability to survive in the freezing conditions because of an antifreeze substance in the haemoglyph (blood-like fluid).

There were quite a few different grasshoppers, including many small ones I didn't bother chasing, but these three stayed still long enough to have their portraits taken. I don't don't what they are yet.

Grasshoppers

Both of these little grasshoppers were on an eremophila in my garden today. I don't have a good reference to find out what they are. The brown one was about 2 cm long and the green one shorter (if you don't count its very long feelers).