I know I have been remiss these last two weeks in my blog posting, blog reading.. blog everything really…
My apologies to all but we have been really busy these school holidays. We have been… ummm… doing stuff. Lots of it too. Nothing I can really put my finger on but by the state of the house clearly it has been taking up much of my time.
Normal transmission will probably resume next week once the boys go back to school and I get the washing under control.
We were constructive today though and I have hard evidence that we actually did something. I had a pile of firewood delivered at the crack of dawn this morning. So early in fact that despite the drive here when the trailer arrived it was still covered in ice after being parked out in a paddock all night.
Number 1 and I gloved up and started stacking it on the verandah, discovering along the way that we had been delivered of not only a pile of wood, but that we had also received a shipment of cockroaches.
Now, before you panic they were the good sort, bush cockroaches, not the kind that make you want to turn your kitchen into some sort of spraycan induced biohazard.
Our Native cockroaches are not pesty ones and don’t even like coming inside. They live happily out in the garden eating bits of wood or plants and give our lizards and frogs something to eat in turn.
The guys who arrived unexpectedly this morning were Native Flat Cockroaches, my favourite because they are like tiny, armoured doormats. These guys are perfectly designed to fit in narrow spaces, like under the bark of the wood I want to put in the fire!
We found so many tucked away in the pieces of wood that we ended up making a corral for them so we could move them up the hill to a more appropriate home than one that was about to go up in flames.
Once we were finished stacking, Number 2, the bug lovingest son, helped me relocate the group to what was supposed to be a secondary compost heap but now has come to be known as my barkpost instead, as it ended up containing only bark, dried leaves and sticks.
Because of that mix this pile has become the perfect dumping ground for disturbed lizards, bugs and pretty much anyone else we find when we poke around in the garden who needs to stay out of sight of the birds. Now it has a colony of Flat Cockroaches living there too.
mmmm… delicious wood…
These two were the only ones I could get to stand still long enough to get a picture of. When they have all their appendages tucked away it is hard to tell which end is which and considering how far their armoured plates extend it is amazing how quickly they can flip themselves onto their legs and zoom off if they end up on their backs.
Buried words and Bushwa. 
We have them… But we call them woodlouses. I wonder if they are the same, but they look like little armadillos!
We have wood louse here too, we call them Slaters and the curling-up ones are called Butcher Boys. These guys are much bigger, the size of a thumbprint and with their antenna and eyes underneath their armour rather than on the edge of it like the wood louse.
They are a bit like armadillos, they trundle along like them too. 😀
I love a bit of taxonomy research. Turns out that your cockroaches are insects whilst the woodlice that they resemble are crustaceans. So whilst they occupy a similar niche, they evolved from rather different ancestors… convergent evolution!
Oh, and we call the little woodlice that roll into balls ‘pill bugs’
Apparently these Flat guys are also referred to as Trilobite roaches as well because they look so similar to one. 😀 http://australianmuseum.net.au/Flat-Cockroach
It is amazing when two completely different kinds of critter are so alike and yet so different. 🙂
Now I know their true size I don’t think we have an equivalent here though I thought at first they were woodlice too. Our kids break up for the Summer holidays for 6 weeks on 19th July so I’m having 3 days away next week before all the prices go up. I hope the boys haven’t grown too much during their break, getting new clothes can be a constant battle.
Nice to have you back skiver.
xxx Hugs xxx
Wood lice/slaters are much plumper than these guys too. These ones are very flat when they lie down and their plates touch the ground all around. They can be very hard to get a twig under to winkle them out of a gap, they are very good at clinging on!
Good idea of yours to go on holiday before they change the price tags on everything, I’m sure you’ll have a good time, especially as there won’t be hordes of unattended children roaming the streets.. 😉
If there were my advice would be to take an extra jabby walking stick away with you.
Yes, the boys have grown, seemingly overnight! It must be something about holidays. Ihave already had to shell out for new pants for No 1 and shoes for No 2. I have threatened them with tying bricks to their heads to stop anymore of this getting bigger caper… 😀
Hugs to you. 😀
Oh! Thank you so much for that pic, and thanks to the little guys for standing still long enough for you to take it. I’ve seen lots of these little guys out in the garden but never knew what they were. I’m so glad you and the boys rescued them.
It was a pretty cold morning so I think the only reason they stood still was that these two were probably the most frozen of them all! We all love these guys and always save them if we can. Really, we are suckers and save pretty much everyone! 😀
lol – yeah you guys are pretty buggy. 😀 Sorry, couldn’t resist.
😀
They look like Star Trek bugs. Of course they got a gig at your house! Your native cockroaches are so much cooler looking than their northern brethren… Ours just look like bigger uglier indoor cockroaches which insn’t very smart because there’s little grace for them. I killed a humungous one who had ventured inside at TA then felt bad when I thought about it… I could have chucked it back outside if it promised to change its wandering ways. Had it been one of yours the visual cue would have been there.
It would have to be bugs that got you out of your lovely holiday hiatus 🙂
Yep, I’m a sucker for a bug. 😀
There are a few garden cockroaches here that look sufficiently similar to the indoor type who end up being fed to the chooks if I come across them. I feel slightly guilty but they should have stayed out of my way… These guys though, they are definitely alien-like enough to warrant positive attention.
I love watching these ones move about, their plates all seem to move independently so they are surprisingly flexible.
Infested with fleas at the moment……..
It is hard to put those flea repellent drips on the back of your own neck isn’t it….
!
They look like our roly polys or pill bugs. I’m not all that acquainted with the bug world but we do have the flat-types too that look like this. But usually we just group them all into the same category (scientists would cringe) – roly poly. Oh and I hope this isn’t as big as it looks in the photo: http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcStqRX6fp6X6K3eu3_yNpRY35bHmsCotqAHBsr9uZFSfyFc1t58OQ
I’m not feeling overly fond of bugs today. A yellow jacket latched on to me while walking and stung me. He’s lucky he didn’t end up squished. 😉
A biting bug is never as popular as one who just walks about looking interesting! Even though I love bugs if they give me a bite they get the boot… 😀
I was totally unfamiliar with “good” ones. Glad to hear they exist. The ones here in New York are extremely unpleasant and are likely to outlive the human race.
Yes, there are good ones. I was hesitant to put anything cockroachy in the title in case everyone went ewwww and ran away!