FILM DIARY

Our 114th night filming walk was the first in exactly four weeks, thanks to a combination of rainy weather and the difficulty of finding a crew. Mark & Hugh are no longer regularly available and a new-comer cried off last week. Ideally I would like to film at night once a week during the season (from mid September to mid May).  This evening we returned to Palm Grove where I filmed a tiny snail on a palm leaf, a cage built by a moth larva in which it pupates and a pair of mating katydids. Valerie’s Austin Bug Collection website provides a succinct account of an act which appears to be quite secretive and which she has never seen. “The male transfers a large jelly-like mass called a spermatophore to the female. This has two parts: a small packet of sperm which is inserted into the female followed by a larger glob of nutritious gel, a nuptial gift that the female consumes to help with egg production.” For the statistically minded, this is my 350th post.