Observations on the habits and natural surroundings of insects made during the 'Skeat expedition' to the Malay peninsula, 1899-1900 / by Nelson Annandale.

  • Annandale, Nelson, 1876-1924.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Observations on the habits and natural surroundings of insects made during the 'Skeat expedition' to the Malay peninsula, 1899-1900 / by Nelson Annandale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    11/36 (page 845)
    Moreover, the upturued position of the abdomen is common to many Mantid larvae, for instance those of several species of Hierodula and Pseudomnntis, though in the adults of these forms it becomes an impossible attitude when the insects are at rest, owing to the outgrowth of the wings; and these larvae have the habit of leaping to the ground v^ hen disturbed on the tree-trunks on which they vatch for prey, and always straighten their body before they leap. But that this action has a secondary significance in the case of ffymenopus bicornis is proved by the deliberate and gradual way in which it takes place when the insect is seated on an inflorescence. It seems to me that its secondary object is to display the brown lines on the dorsal surface, in order that, as the flowers wither, the flower mimic may appear to wither also. It must be remembered that in the tropics the process of fading, in the case of most flowers, is an exceedingly rapid one. It is difficult, however, if this be the true explanation, to see why the Mantis should leap to the ground when the flowers of a single inflorescence begin to fade, for we can hardly assume that it looks round to see whether other flow-ers on the same branch are fading also, and MeJastoma is not a plant on which all the blossoms naturally fall off at the same time. In the case when it could find no proper concealment on one twig of a branch, the insect did not behave in this way. It is quite possible that its instinct may warn it to seek for other shelter whenever the petals begin to droop, for flowers of this plant close at night and in very bad weather. Under either of these conditions the insect must find it impossible to get its prey, and may be exposed to death from cold or from the violence of the rain, should it remain in an exposed position. Most probably it takes shelter among the undergrowth during storm and dark. When placed in a dark box it deserted the flow^ers to which it clung while they were plucked from the bush with considerable violence. Malay Beliefs.—The Kelantan Malays call this insect “ Kan- chony,’’* but they consider it so rare that my desire to obtain more than a single specimen w as ridiculed as being quite extravagant. I was told that few men ever saw more than one such Mantis in the course of their lives. It was agreed at Aring that the Kanchony is not a “ helalany ”' (the general term in Malay for any Orthopteron which is neither a cockroach, ^’'Upasf nor an earwig, “ sipit-sipit ”)% but a flower which has become alive. “ Its origin is from the flowers.” The blossoms of the “ SendudoTc ’’ give birth to it, in the same WTiy as the leaves of the Nanhaf or Jack-fruit tree {Artocarpns inteyri- foUa), give birth to Heteropteryx dilatata., a large prickly Phasmid ‘ Belalavy are named after the Lalang Grass {Imperatia koenigii), which affords a favourite shelter to many orthopterous insects. ^ Sipit are the tweezers with which the Malays pluck out the few hairs that naturally grow upon their chins. The reduplicaliou of a word in Malay eitlier gi\es it a metaphorical sense or turns it into a plural of indefinite multitude. Thus, mata-mafa, from wata an eye, means a policeman ; macham is a kind or sort, 'mMiham-macham all sorts.