Islandoftiki's Hawaiian adventure!

[Tamberav]

Mantis shrimp/Stomatopod

 

Glad things are going so well for you! You need to find one of these guys... their personality sounds great and cool looking too!

 

http://www.marinelifephotography.com/marine/arthropods/shrimps/odontodactylus-brevirostris.htm

 

The SHORTNOSE MANTIS SHRIMP is a smasher mantis shrimp that burrows in rocky habitats around 80-100 feet. They’re typically very active in the day and can be spotted peeking out of its burrow hole, or scampering about on a scavenger hunt. They’re bright orange and white with a horizontal band going through their eyes, as well as a dark and light spot above and below their eyes. They tend to be a curious shrimp and don’t normally shy away from divers unlike other mantis shrimp.

[Mr. Microscope]

Glad to hear things are going well.

lol, love the donkey. What a novel little perk of your property.

Sigh, I miss my Saab 9-3.

When it comes time to build a mesh top for your tank, you'll be able to do a bang-up job now with so much screen experience.

Thanks for the update.

[FlowerMama]

Mantis shrimp/Stomatopod

 

Glad things are going so well for you! You need to find one of these guys... their personality sounds great and cool looking too!

 

http://www.marinelifephotography.com/marine/arthropods/shrimps/odontodactylus-brevirostris.htm

 

The SHORTNOSE MANTIS SHRIMP is a smasher mantis shrimp that burrows in rocky habitats around 80-100 feet. They’re typically very active in the day and can be spotted peeking out of its burrow hole, or scampering about on a scavenger hunt. They’re bright orange and white with a horizontal band going through their eyes, as well as a dark and light spot above and below their eyes. They tend to be a curious shrimp and don’t normally shy away from divers unlike other mantis shrimp.

 

Nice job Tamberav!! Good find.

[Islandoftiki]

Mantis shrimp/Stomatopod

 

Glad things are going so well for you! You need to find one of these guys... their personality sounds great and cool looking too!

 

http://www.marinelifephotography.com/marine/arthropods/shrimps/odontodactylus-brevirostris.htm

 

The SHORTNOSE MANTIS SHRIMP is a smasher mantis shrimp that burrows in rocky habitats around 80-100 feet. They’re typically very active in the day and can be spotted peeking out of its burrow hole, or scampering about on a scavenger hunt. They’re bright orange and white with a horizontal band going through their eyes, as well as a dark and light spot above and below their eyes. They tend to be a curious shrimp and don’t normally shy away from divers unlike other mantis shrimp.

 

It's on my short-list of species to find. With only four native species, my choices are O. brevirostris (My first choice), P. ciliata (My second choice) and L. maculata (kinda like keeping a pet hole in the sand). and one other that lives in tube worm shells and isn't interactive or probable even attainable. Of all of the people I know who go scuba diving regularly, none of them have ever seen a mantis shrimp, but I suspect they aren't even looking. They're probably more interested in the fish.

 

I'm working very hard this weekend to get the house slightly organized enough that it won't be embarrassing to share a video of it. It's really coming together, but we're in the process of getting everything unpacked, so it's in disarray and messy. I finally have my home theater/desktop PC hooked up and running, along with the DVD player, Roku box, Xbox and DirecTV setup. Next step is to decorate the room with all of my Tiki decor. Yay!

 

While I was unpacking household items, I ran across several hummingbird feeders! Too bad there are no hummingbirds in Hawaii...

 

Speaking of the donkey, Pamela captured this video of him racing our dog Samson... Apparently they were racing back and forth along the fence line several times before she shot the video.

 

 

Stay tuned for more, and I apologize for being so busy and not posting many updates lately!

[Islandoftiki]

I found my UV flashlight that I use for viewing corals when not under actinic lighting and went searching for scorpions last night. As you may or may not know, scorpions are fluorescent under UV light, just like most of our corals are! Now, how fluorescent they are, I really didn't know, so it was a bit of a snipe hunt at first. I spent about 20 minutes searching the property, initially in rocky areas where they tend to hang out, then I expanded my search to everywhere. No luck. Then as I was coming back into the house about to give up and in our breezeway between the bedroom building and the main building, on the wall, there it was. Wow, do they ever glow bright! I even found a tiny dead one on a corner, but this one in the pictures was alive. I was surprised at how flat they are. Anyhow, pretty cool. I'll see if he comes back to the breezeway tonight. The is the first live one I've seen.

 

 

 

Here's a crummy video of me hassling it to get it to move. I was trying to hold the camera, flashlight and a stick at the same time, but you can clearly see he's alive!

 

https://youtu.be/Upk69kVTsXg

[FlowerMama]

oh my gosh! Are they the kind that will hurt you?

[Islandoftiki]

oh my gosh! Are they the kind that will hurt you?

 

All scorpions are the kind that hurt you, but these are lesser brown scorpions and their sting is only about as bad as a bee sting, so they're not dangerous, only painful of you get stung. I think you'd have to step on one or have it get pinned to trapped next to your body somehow. It didn't seem aggressive at all, it just wanted to be left alone to hunt bugs.

[FlowerMama]

Do you ever feel at night like you're being watched by the scorpions and geckos????

[hypostatic]

 

All scorpions are the kind that hurt you

 

Haha, ain't that the truth. They're just trying to get along with their day, but these lumbering giants sometimes come and try to smoosh them lol.

 

Also, this is when I would start compulsively checking my shoes/clothes/sheets for scorpions 0.o

[Islandoftiki]

Do you ever feel at night like you're being watched by the scorpions and geckos????

 

 

Geckos for sure, they're always watching you. They're cute as heck though. The downside of geckos is that they are always leaving presents for you on the window sill, but those presents were bugs at one time.

 

The really freaky things are the centipedes. They have a nasty sting and they're aggressive. I've only seen one alive and I smashed it (Sorry Mr./Ms. centipede).

 

We have the outside of the house sprayed for centipedes, cockroaches and scorpions, but there will always be a few that get through since we use the least-poisonous options since we have pets. The stuff they use is citrus based.

 

Insects are a part of life in Hawaii. In our area, there's a plague of mice ever ten years or so. Fortunately, it happened last year, but it sounds pretty horrific. One of our neighbors said she seriously contemplated moving. It sounds like it was a plague of biblical proportions. Mice crawling up the window screens, squished all over the roads, etc. Today I spent the better part of the day making the breezeway inaccessible to mice. We had a couple coming in to get at the dog's food. I repositioned one of the screen/security doors so it sealed at the bottom and installed a sealing strip at the bottom of the other door.

 

Door #1, sealed at the bottom:

 

Door #1 sealed at the bottom:

 

Exit opening behind the water heater (for when we start collecting the grey water from the washing machine for watering the plants) temporarily sealed.

 

The holes drilled for the new gas pipe for the stove have been caulked and sealed off.

 

It seems like there's a never ending list of projects, but it keeps me from getting bored, right?

 

It just started raining for the first time in over a month here, so I'm taking a break from the house projects for an hour or two and relaxing. At least it's cooled off a little. About 78 degrees. It's been up over 85 the past couple of days.

[FlowerMama]

I don't know if it would work there but peppermint essential oil in a spray bottle w/ water works for mice, spiders, bugs- they don't like the smell so you're supposed to spray it along windows, doors, wherever. It's natural and easy to find peppermint essential oil so that may be worth a shot.

[Islandoftiki]

I don't know if it would work there but peppermint essential oil in a spray bottle w/ water works for mice, spiders, bugs- they don't like the smell so you're supposed to spray it along windows, doors, wherever. It's natural and easy to find peppermint essential oil so that may be worth a shot.

 

We're planning to line the outside of the buildings with plants that repel mice and insects.

[Islandoftiki]

Ok, because who doesn't love invertebrates? I'm becoming a scorpion stalker. I found this guy one of the mesquite trees out front. The next trick will be to try to get video of it acting more naturally and not reacting to my presence and the bright lighting. Oh, and somehow getting the camera to focus better under the unusual lighting conditions.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Glad to see you're getting the house sealed up well. Those scorpion vids are really cool. You may want to consider purchasing some yellow glasses to serve as a barrier filter for the blue light. Then, you'll only see fluorescence and I might make the scorpions easier to find.

[FlowerMama]

Ok, because who doesn't love invertebrates? I'm becoming a scorpion stalker. I found this guy one of the mesquite trees out front. The next trick will be to try to get video of it acting more naturally and not reacting to my presence and the bright lighting. Oh, and somehow getting the camera to focus better under the unusual lighting conditions.

 

https://youtu.be/W5wszqbxA-g

 

That's so cool the way it moves it's claws around upfront.

[dpoltsdsu]

This is one of the most interesting threads i have read on here! Great job, everything seems to be coming along nicely

[sedatedlabmonkey]

I enjoy keeping up with this thread. I think its great how everyone myself included are at least slightly phobic of big venomous inverts ie scorpions. If it was a reef safe venomous hermit crab that fluoresces under blue/UV/actinic light, we would all come up with ways to catch one and put it in our tanks! I have a few large pet spiders myself, they are fascinating animals indeed! (Scorpions too!)

[Islandoftiki]

Glad to see you're getting the house sealed up well. Those scorpion vids are really cool. You may want to consider purchasing some yellow glasses to serve as a barrier filter for the blue light. Then, you'll only see fluorescence and I might make the scorpions easier to find.

I have some of those yellow glasses that accompany the UV light, but I haven't found which box they're in yet. And I'm completely stumped as to where the Roku remote is!

I enjoy keeping up with this thread. I think its great how everyone myself included are at least slightly phobic of big venomous inverts ie scorpions. If it was a reef safe venomous hermit crab that fluoresces under blue/UV/actinic light, we would all come up with ways to catch one and put it in our tanks! I have a few large pet spiders myself, they are fascinating animals indeed! (Scorpions too!)

I can't wait to get down to some tide pools with the UV light and see what I can find. It'll make finding Zoas really easy. I gotta get a tank set up first. Maybe one of the Fluval Specs if I can work out how to sump it.

[Mr. Microscope]

And I'm completely stumped as to where the Roku remote is!

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

[Islandoftiki]

Here's some more scorpion fun for the day. I came home and found the breezeway scorpion on the wall next to the bedroom door. I think he got trapped in there when I mouse-proofed the breezeway this weekend. I collected him in a pint glass and re-homed him to a rock pile away from the house.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Cool! He's like, "there's some kind of force-field here."

[Islandoftiki]

 

This is my view every morning as I start my 45 minute drive to work. That's Mauna Kea on the left. At the top are some of the most amazing telescopes on the planet. Hotly contested by the "native" Hawaiian people is the proposed TMT, or Thirty Meter Telescope. I'll leave my opinion out of it except to say that I support science. Beyond that, feel free to Google it. It's a weird deal.

 

Missing from the above picture in the center/right are Mauna Loa and Hualalai, which are obscured by clouds. Regardless, it don't suck.

 

I have to say, it's getting to be more and more like home. The house is coming together. I'll take a video tour soon! I promise. I'm trying to get all of the moving boxes cleaned up! LOL. It takes so long to get the details sorted out. I'lll go make a video of the guest quarters right this moment, I promise... stay tuned.

[Islandoftiki]

Oh... this just showed up on my Facebook feed. This should give you some idea of how contentious this issue is.

 

http://bigislandnow.com/2015/04/30/oha-rescinds-support-of-tmt-location/

 

By the way, politics in Hawaii are just as bad as they are on the mainland.

[SquishyFishy]

John. We will definitely be up for an afternoon cocktail in Kona. I'll call when we get there and we can meet you somewhere close to your workplace, although now you've changed jobs, are you still in Kona for the day??? We'll be there Thurs the 21st.

 

​The only good Scorpion is a dead scorpion in our neck of the woods. Keep in mind they like to nest up in the attic or ceiling crawl spaces. So everyone here keeps Sevin dust up there. You wouldn't be so amused if you wake up one night with one in your bed! The sting feels like someone banged you with a hammer! One crawled up the pants leg of my hubby one night and stung him, very near the family jewels, wasn't amusing at all!

[spanko]

"One crawled up the pants leg of my hubby one night and stung him, very near the family jewels, wasn't amusing at all!"

 

Okay squishy it has to be asked...........was there any swelling?