Lepidoptera trip to Khao Yai

I do most of my insect outings in the central west of the country and mammals in the east, but this weekend I decided to mix things up. I went to Khao Yai (the east) to photograph insects for a change. Normally I would concentrate my time on margins and stream beds but I decided to leave the light and sit inside the forest. I really was not expecting too much but I had an entertaining day and ended up with a collection of arthropods, mostly Lepidoptera shots that I am really struggling to ID.

I also had my space invaded by elephants,one was less than 30 meters away from my little perch before I realised and my fleeing them caused me to accidently bump into Andy Merk of KhaoYaiNews.com who was following them. Its the first time I have met Andy. A very nice and very knowledgable gentleman. I had a fascinating chat with him and he was excellent company. Do check out his website he has some fantastic stuff there! Its at KhaoYaiNews

I concentrated in the Wang Jumpee area, on the valley side down to the river. Mostly I just sat off piste on my folding stool waiting to see what movement caught my eye. I got leached to hell but thats the cost of sitting anywhere at Wang Jumpee as it hosts one of the pockets of Tropical Evergreen forest in Khao Yai, this type of forest generally exists only south of Ranong in Thailand although some small pockets can be found further north, such as Wang Jumpee.

So what interesting arthropods did I suffer a leaching for? Lets see....

I saw 3 species of Miletinae, one I was able to identify as a common darkie but these have me confused

#1


#2

3 species of Zygaenidae, one was easy but but these two have me confused

#3


#4

No idea on these, the yellow one has a very different head shape to the other two though.

#5


#6


#7

No idea.......

#8

One I was able to ID the large black spiny ant - Polyrhachis armata

An assassin bug I am hopeful of tracking down an ID on later today.





A skipper that befriended me....

And some local redneck that came to see what I was up to

Painted wrote:

......... I have no photo of this species in my Thai Checklist( www.samuibutterflies.com/insects/butterflies/thailand_list/ ). Would you be prepared to allow me to link to your photo once/if it is uploaded onto your Envirosea site?

Les, you can use any of my photographs on samuibutterflies.com. I think its a great site and I admire what you are doing immensely. I am also eternally grateful for the ID help you give me.

Its my pleasure to help in any way I can.

Paul