This afternoon, I was looking at the fig babies and noticed one of those assasin bug babies tooling around and decided to let it climb onto a piece of pinebark so it could be put up onto one of the fig leaves.

It got onto the bark just fine, but it wouldn't get back off. Every time I turned the bark to let it get off onto the leaf, it scooted back on top of the bark, so I turned the bark over to kind of gently scrape it off onto the leaf and it rolled over onto its back. Since the fig leaves are so hairy, the poor little bug got stuck in the hairs. I used a tiny twig to nudge it back over, but part of its camouflage was still stuck in the hairs.

Using my thumbnail, I nudged it around to herd it back to the debris it had lost in the hairs. When it ran into the debris, the bug stopped and began to put it back onto its back. They have pretty long pincers on their mouths and I could see it picking the debris up with the pincers and placing it onto its back. The debris had to be just so before it reached for the rest of the debris.

The baby even had picked up some ash to add to its camouflage. When they're burning off the sugar cane stubble, we will get black ash that floats around and gets onto everything. It could also be ash from someone burning off the marsh, not sure which.

The bug didn't seem scared, or upset with the goings on and just kept trundling off across the leaf. Reminds me of a teensy mechanical toy, or the Energizer Bunny.

noss