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Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs Queen Ant Limulus polyphemus Polyrhachis armata Prime Hook Beach, Delaware Virachey National Park, Cambodia Horseshoe crabs have been around longer A portrait of a queen ant from Cambodia. than most organisms alive now. Their lifestyle and morphology are so successful, they have survived changes to our planet that have wiped out thousands of more imposing lineages. In nearly half-a-billion years, they have changed surprisingly little and look the same as when dinosaurs walked the earth.

Foam Bushhopper Black-winged Clonia Dictyophorus spumans Clonia melanoptera Karoo National Park, South Africa Cederberg, South Africa The southern tip of Africa is one the world’s Spiny, with powerfully muscled legs out- most botanically diverse places. Its diverse stretched, a giant predatory katydid waits for flora supports an equally spectacular fauna a victim to saunter by. These large insects are of insects, including an abundance of classic sit-and-wait predators, pouncing on any grasshoppers. The foam bushhopper feeds animal that will fit between their first two pairs on poisonous plants and advertises this fact of legs. Massive jaws quickly disembowel cica- with its striking coloration. das, other katydids, or even small lizards, while extra spines on the ventral side of the thorax help keep the struggling victim from escaping. BIG BUGS • Dec. 31, 2015 - April 17, 2016 Virginia Living Museum • 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd. • Newport News, VA 23601 • 757-595-1900 • thevlm.org piotr naskrecki photo banners hanging in main gallery

Natal River Crab Leafcutter ants Potamonautes sidneyi Atta cephalotes Silaka Nature Reserve, South Africa Guanacaste, Costa Rica Freshwater crabs are highly sensitive to Leafcutter ants display a finely developed habitat disturbance, including introduction division of labor, often accompanied by of invasive species. In Africa, non-native extreme differences in body size. “Minims” North American crayfish were accidentally are tiny workers that hitch a ride on a leaf introduced and pose a serious threat to the fragment to protect the larger ones carrying survival of these animals. it from parasitic flies that attempt to lay eggs on them. Larvae of some species of these flies develop inside the head of the ant, eventually decapitating the insect.

Peacock Katydid Armored Katydid Pterochroza ocellata Acanthoproctus cervinus Sipaliwini, Suriname Karoo National Park, South Africa The South American peacock katydid is a Known in South Africa as “koringkrieke,” master bluffer; when faced with a threat it armored katydids are quite different from the lifts its brown, leaf-like wings to reveal a pair common green and long-winged variety. They of fake eyes. This usually is enough to give are plump and flightless, and their bodies the predator pause and allows the katydid to are well protected by painfully sharp spines. escape unharmed. Some species, in addition to their spiky armature, defend themselves by squirting their own blood at the attacker. BIG BUGS • Dec. 31, 2015 - April 17, 2016 Virginia Living Museum • 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd. • Newport News, VA 23601 • 757-595-1900 • thevlm.org