African Entomology Part 1

I've called this part 1, as I'm sure there will be many posts summarizing the cool creatures I've found.  In Africa, the large mammals get all the press, but there are some really interesting insects and other creepy crawlers.

Lake Nabugabu
A night exploration of the lake shores yielded the largest dragonfly (Libellulidae) nymphs I've ever seen.   They were crawling out of the water onto the surrounding vegetation and boats to emerge.  There were also some smaller, more normal sized nymphs.

I didn't see any emerge, my headlamp bothered them, but I think these may be the adults.

A cool millipede. (Potito in Swahilli)

Safari ants
Similar to army ants I encountered in Costa Rica, these ants have a caste system.  There are smaller workers and soldiers with HUGE mandibles.  They were in the sandy soil around the lake.  I made the mistake of stepping too close to their path in my sandals.  A soldier was immediately upon my foot and I narrowly avoided disaster my quickly tearing my foot from my sandal.  The ant latched onto the foam and would not let go, like a perfect solder.  I had to pop its body from its head to remove it.  I like the ants back home that don't bite.

Lake Binyonyi
Fungus termites
A termite alate flew into my drink.  Luckily there was a game ranger from Botswana nearby to tell me all about it.  In summary: the termites farm fungus.  The fungus and the termites have a symbiotic interaction and the fungus helps the termites in digesting cellulose and other difficult to breakdown plant products in their diet.  When the female leaves the nest to start her own colony, she takes a piece of the fungus with her. The piece of fungus was floating in my drink. Delicious.

Another millipede

The source of the Nile, Jinja Uganda
As I was eating dinner I was bombarded by these tiny tiny white flies, or so I thought. I looked a little closer and they were the smallest mayflies I had ever seen.  The heads were the size of periods.  I couldn't get a good picture because of their small size.

Kisoro, Uganda
Kisoro Uganda has some of the best honey in the area according to Henry, our driver.  I saw a few co-ops for beekeepers and even saw a hive on the side of the road. They look like grey barrels covered in straw, very interesting.  Sadly I was not able to try any of this famous honey. The man who was going to deliver some to us never showed up at the meeting spot.  The downside of doing business in Africa.