A stinking good surprise!

We brought a bunch of Autumn leaves home today after our early morning adventures in the park and were looking up on the Internet how to preserve Autumn leaves with glycerin, when suddenly we spied a bug on one of the leaves...what is it?

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"A stink bug," said Emma, warily keeping her distance. As the chief gentle catcher of all sorts of living creatures in our garden, she has had a stinky experience with this creature before - "Don't touch it she warns! Stinky stuff comes out from there if you annoy them."

(All photographs copyrighted and the property of Joy Murray, not to be used without permission) Could it be an adult Rice Stink Bug? And would it be in our park?  Help, identifying this creature  is not easy! Does anyone out there know what it's proper name is?

 And if you think finding this creature was our stinking good surprise then you are quite wrong and you are in for a good surprise yourself - for take a look at what was happening under this creature....amazing! How we whooped an hooted with surprise and joy, crowding around her with bursting bustling and shoving...I am so pleased that she was too busy laying her eggs to use her stinking defences as we peered and peered at her. She now has a giant container to live in the middle of our lounge room and Emma is desperately hoping that we will one day have baby stink bugs to add to our menagerie. 

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Yes, for real this bug is laying eggs!

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Perfect Eggs!

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Don't be deceived they may look big in the photograph but they are tiny.

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Minuscule really.

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White and each perfectly shaped.

 

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And yet so many for so small a mother!

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How did she fit them all inside? Poor woman!

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She is actually laying eggs!

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Absolutely amazing!

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How we wished the eggs were transparent so we could see what was going on inside the eggs. (When we had silk worms we could see inside the cocoons.)

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What an awesome Creator we have - to have made an animal where each and every egg is the same perfect shape!

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Legs designed perfectly to fit around her eggs!

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Front and middle legs strong enough to hold her up.

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Feelers twitching just enough to let us know she is alive while standing perfectly still over her eggs.

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I don't imagine that even Charlotte Mason could have found anything more interesting than this amazing little bug laying eggs! 

Let us know if you can help identify her properly...