Albert CardonaVisual acuity test: find the grasshopper.
#VisualAcuityTest
#VisualAcuityTest
Hint: it’s big. Spans about half the width of the image!
Stephen Royle
Sally Lowell@steveroyle @albertcardona Me neither, but I see a pattern of repeating dots on the 'grass' to the right of Steve's yellow circle -on two brown things that might be back legs and a a green thing that might be the back of the body. Even then I can't see the whole thing. Amazing!
@CellySally @steveroyle You got it: to the right of Steve’s circle. Acrida ungarica are masters of camouflage. I assure you the whole grasshoper is in full view. The abdomen to the right has evenly spaced tracheal spiracles – the dots you see. The hind legs are spiky and angled upwards like in all grasshoppers. The head is hard: slender, with thin eyes barely bulging from it, and a snout extending well beyond the eyes.
If it helps, the eyes seem to have a black pupil (although that's a visual artifact, it's not a real pupil.)
Pete Carlton@albertcardona @CellySally @steveroyle
We have this kind of grasshopper in Japan, there are a few thousand in my yard right now… :)
Mary Fesenko@CellySally @pmcarlton @albertcardona @steveroyle Wow 🤩 That is an amazing creature! I initially thought it was the thing Steve circled too, clearly underestimated the size because in my mind grasshoppers are “small”
@albertcardona Damn, this is hard! I thought I spotted it by a slightly brighter shade of green relative to the grasses, but, upon zooming in, I saw that it was a leaf! Here’s a more conspicuous green critter I saw in the lab yesterday evening. Do you know what species it might be?
GrantOak Bush-Cricket
I should add how easy it is to identify insects/flowers these days. If you have an iPhone (I don't know about other devices, but it's available AFAIK)... here's a post where I describe how to do it. Very simple once you know:
Grant (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] No, not an app. Very simple. It uses "Visual Look Up" • Take a photo of an insect / flower / animal and a few other things. • Click - little square image (bottom-left) to see the photo. • Scroll down If the subject can be 'looked up', there will be 'Look Up ... ' text plus an 'arrow'. • Click the arrow to see examples. • If you don't want to keep the photo - Delete. If you're looking in a book/magazine/web-page • Take a *photo of the photo* and do as above. 😊
The #iNaturalist app has an automated species/genus/family/order identification system that works rather very well. Plus entries are then curated. It's worth it – and entries contribute to the @gbif database, in use in numerous scientific publications to track invasive species, climate change-induced population migrations, and more.
@albertcardona @gsymon @gbif Thanks Albert, I tried the iNaturalist app and it did identify the insect I saw as an Oak Bush Cricket (Meconema thalassinum)👌I will enjoy using in when I’m out and about and “get excited about animals and plants” as my partner always tells me!
@albertcardona Difficult!
David C. Norris 🇺🇦@albertcardona Weirdly (since I do poorly at this kind of visual task generally, I think), I saw it instantly. But I get so much exposure to exactly this kind of grassy background (from walks with my dog Plato and picking up after him) that the difference popped out immediately.