Hanging around - Giant Jewel Beetle

This has a body length of about 1 1/2 - 2 inches in length. Everytime I saw him he seemed to be hanging onto something. LOL!! They are clumsy fliers and the female lays her very large eggs in the ground. (Sternocera orissa)

Common Milkweed Locust

(Phymateus morbillosus) These are large bodied with mostly red wings when they open them. Females lay eggs in late summer and they hatch in early spring.
When alarmed, they raise and rustle their wings and produce an evil smelling foam from the thoracic joints.

A hive of activity

As it is getting warmer, the garden is becoming a hive of activity. Right outside my window, there is an Albizia tree which get these little balls of flowers, each one being up to just over 1/2 inch in diameter. The insects really love this tree.
This extremely tiny bug seemed as if he was rolling around on it. Unfortunately, this is the only shot I could get of him before he flew off.
Then there are butterflies...

....and lots and lots of bees.....

The weirdest insect you have ever seen - Stick insect

A Giant Prickly stick insect which comes from Australia but found in pert shops here. Unfortunately a lot of people let them loose after a while and so they are found in bush areas. What a beautiful and unusual creature!!

Orange Weevil

After the rain, the insect seem to be coming out en masse.

This beetle I cannot find in any of the books or websites but he is obviously a wingless, ground-burrowing one. His body length is about 2 inches and closely resembles The Red-spotted Lilly Weevil.

Close-up of a butterfly

The Citrus Swallowtail (papilio demodocus)is one of our more common butterflies. It is large with a wingspan of about 85mm. They lay their eggs on citrus trees. I caught this one in the garden and he was frienly enough to crawl on my hand and let me take the following two photographs.
This is a close-up section of the wing. Sometimes I think I should get a microscope for pictures like these.

These were taken of one I found in the garden. He was on his last legs and sat perfectly still while allowing me to take these pictures.

Do they feel pain as we do?

I was outside and heard something falling and found this beetle lying on his back after coming off the wall. You can see the dent. When I came back and started to take pics, I noticed that his front, right hand side leg was missing a segment. I wonder if they feel the pain of the loss as we do??I think this is one of the Psammodes beetles (Toktokkies), but cannot find a name again.