Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The insects of New Guinea are less known than the birds, but they seem almost equally
remarkable for fine forms and brilliant colours. The magnificent green and yellow
Ornithopteræ are abundant, and have most probably spread westward from this point as far
as India. Among the smaller butterflies are several peculiar genera of Nymphalidæ and
Lycænidæ, remarkable for their large size, singular markings, or brilliant coloration. The
largest and most beautiful of the clear-winged moths (Cocytia d'Urvillei) is found here, as
well as the large and handsome green moth (Nyctalemon orontes). The beetles furnish us
with many species of large size, and of the most brilliant metallic lustre, among which the
Tmesisternus mirabilis, a longicorn beetle of a golden green colour; the excessively brilliant
rose-chafers, Lomaptera wallacei and Anacamptorhina fulgida; one of the handsomest of the
Buprestidæ, Calodema wallacei; and several fine blue weevils of the genus Eupholus, are
perhaps the most conspicuous. Almost all the other orders furnish us with large or ex-
traordinary forms. The curious horned flies have already been mentioned; and among the
Orthoptera the great shielded grasshoppers are the most remarkable. The species here
figured (Megalodon ensifer) has the thorax covered by a large triangular horny shield, two
and a half inches long, with serrated edges, a somewhat wavy, hollow surface, and a faint
median line, so as very closely to resemble a leaf. The glossy wing-coverts (when fully ex-
panded, more than nine inches across) are of a fine green colour and so beautifully veined as
to imitate closely some of the large shining tropical leaves. The body is short, and termin-
ated in the female by a long curved sword-like ovipositor (not seen in the cut), and the legs
are all long and strongly-spined. These insects are sluggish in their motions, depending for
safety on their resemblance to foliage, their horny shield and wing-coverts, and their spiny
legs.
