Kaeng Krachan in November

As November marks the end of what I like to call "the bug season" in Central Thailand I had a few extended weekends in Kaeng Krachan to make the most of it before the insect lull starts.

As soon as the dry weather arrives diurnal arthropods become much much harder to find/spot with a few exceptions (spiders and certain butterflies in particular). So I had a few long weekends at Baan Krang to explore KM 16-18 on my own and see what I could come up with. Indeed the 3rd weekend was already bug free as the cool/dry season had taken hold in the forest already. But even so the forest was a delight and camping weather was perfect and I swung in my hammock nightly dreaming the eternal dream "...if only the weather in Thailand was like this all the time...", But then it would not be Thailand would it? By the 3rd weekend the winter camping crowds had started to arrive and my dream was over - crowds/noise and the forest are not a good mix for me so it will be mid week for my own camping forays until the humidity starts to pick up again.

My change over to Canon for macro has been interesting and I got some solid time to practice with the gear on the trip but am still refining my lighting setup which I hope to have sorted before long. All the pictures are with the Canon 5DM3 and USM 100 or MPE 65. With my mixed lighting, I have noticed the Canon's white balance gives me issues where the Nikon's handled it in their stride. When I get more used to the Canon I will write something about the differences between the two brands for macro - there are some surprises, good and bad on both sides.

Here are some of the highlights of my sightings:

A cute Jumping Spider:


My first time seeing an adult Tropidomantis tenera


Hamadruas-sp Lynx Spider with prey

The "masked hunter" Assassin bug one of the forest champions of camoflague

I very rarely see snakes (but in honesty ... I don't know anything about how or where to look for them) - this one was very small and asleep in a bush until I noisily woke him/her up. I was hoping I was going to see the tongue come out but it never did before it took off into the trees.

A Dolomedes spider with egg sac.


A planthopper nymph of somekind

A giraffe weevil (Attelabidae)


A well worn Sesiidae or clearwing moth Erebidae/Arctiinae/Syntomini (thanks to Les for ID correction)

And on my very last day this was the ONLY thing I saw, so I photographed it a lot :+)

Mating Pyrrhocoridaes (I think?)

Great images, Trekker!
I love the camouflaged assassin bug!
And of course the snake ;)
The snake looks like a Bronzeback species (Dendrelaphis sp.).
According to some documentation about the reptiles of the Petchaburi province 2 species occur. D. pictus and D. cyanochloris. My guess is that it's D. pictus.
Though the Dendrelaphis genus is a bit of a mess, and new species have been described in the last couple of years, and I don't know if more are to be expected, so I guess you would have to ask a real herpetologist to confirm ID.

I visited Kaeng Krachan twice for quite a few days in November, so I guess I could add some of my images to this post.
Found 3 Lantern Bug species, and various other bugs. I'll add some images, not nearly as good as your images, Trekker, but anyway I guess enough to confirm IDs.

I suppose you know this location, I spotted these while driving by. Coming from Ban Krang, a few hundred meters after the second river crossing there is a dry river sand bed on the right of the road and a large tree with quite a few of these Lantern bugs on it.




Rudolf the red-nosed Lantern Bugs were found along the 'Vanilla Nature Trail' and at Ban Krang camp ground.




Another species from the Ban Krang camp.




And then there were these, not sure if this is a cicada or something else...




And this tiny creature. No idea what this is.




An unusual spider



And is this a froghopper?




I was wondering if anybody of you can tell me the species name of the resident tarantulas at Ban Krang. I found two and they have been there for a couple of weeks now. I don't know much about tarantulas but I believe I once saw in a documentary that some species stay for years at the same spot (as long as they are not chased off), is that correct?
These two risk to get tents placed right on top of there holes, but maybe they got used to that...
Mr. (or MRS.?) Tarantula. Any ID??

Besides the bugs above, I got a few nice reptiles. Found 4 green morphs of the Oriental Vine Snake. One found at night resting at 10m high in a tree. The others were at a more photographable height.







And got to see a few other species like Red-necked Keelback, a few other keelback species that were too fast to confirm ID, a White-lipped Pit Viper, a Siamese Cat Snake, 2 Keeled Rat Snakes, a Mock Viper, and a Spotted Slug Snake.

The White-lipped Pit Viper


A question, have any of you Kaeng-Krachan-regulars ever seen Malayan Pit Viper in the park? And if so, where exactly?

And some of the more interesting lizards (at least for me) were Masked Horned Tree Lizards (Acanthosaura crucigera), Green Crested Lizards, Blanford's Gliding Lizard, and a Oldham's Bent-toed Gecko.

And some of the mammals seen were:
Dusky Langurs, I'm truly amazed how common they are. You can't really go anywhere without seeing them, or usually first hearing them jumping around from tree to tree.




Banded Langurs, one day both the Dusky and the Banded Langurs were in the same trees. The Banded Langur group was more shy and disappeared on one side of the mountain ridge while the Dusky Langurs moved away on the other side of the mountain ridge. They seemed to be reasonably tolerant to eachother.
I've already posted an image of these in the thread about the Tenasserim Lutung: www.wildlifethailand.com/forums/38-mamma...nasserim-lutung#2518

White-handed Gibbons
Pig-tail Macaques (could anyone confirm if KK has Northern or Southern Pig-tails?) Did not get a picture of them.

Stump-tailed Macaques



Black Giant Squirrels
Wild Boars
Indian Muntjacs
Golden Jackals




Yellow-throated Martens. I have mixed feelings about the practise of the park rangers of dropping the food leftovers behind the two restaurants, but at least it offers picture opportunities of species like this that are otherwise nearly impossible to photograph in the wild.

And some nocturnal stuff.
Masked Palm Civets



Also saw Asian Palm Civet but did not try to photograph it.
Large Indian Civets




Malayan Porcupines & Brush-tailed Porcupines




Ooh, and there was this less fortunate guy... nice to see the size of the tusks of these muntjacs.


And found leopard and dhole pug marks, and heard an elephant crushing through the forest but could not get any views.

Got to see some nice birdlife. Some of the more interesting species were Black-and-red Broadbill, Grey Peacock Pheasant, quite a few Kalij Pheasants, they seem to be quite common, and Brown Wood Owl in daytime.



That was about it.