We are in the plague season in our suburb. Surprisingly, in a city of 25+million people, we have about 5 vacant plots of land around us, all covered in thick jungle. I think this contributes to the abundance of critters around here. (I haven't mentioned about another snake in my Jakarta garage have I......mmmm I am trying to block this memory. What is it about snakes and my homes? These links are to the stories and photos about snakes (plural!!!!) in my Australian home)
On dusk about 2-3 times a week we get a swarm of flying ants.
The staff call them rayap, which I translate as termites.
Here are some links.
These critters are attracted to the light, so all lights go off and we sit in the dark for about 15 minutes and then it is time to clean up. The floor is usually littered with hundreds of wings.
We now let the kids get out the bug zappers
and they run around zapping hundreds every minute.Another interesting tidbit from life in the tropics.......
Posts
6 comments:
They were rayap/termites, but in their flying phase many jakartans prefer to call them "laron".
I really hate the mess they make at my home, after their mass suicide.
we call them nuddie bugs on account of the way they become dewinged!
Zapping them sounds like fun. I never noticed these bugs in Palembang...maybe because we have the entire house covered with mosquito screens.
Do you get those stinky black bugs? They seem to come in the night when we're sleeping. Woke up one morning and the entire outside of the house was covered in thousands of them! And it happened to all the houses.....
...and suddenly, I'm not *quite* as jealous of your life as I was just 5 minutes ago. ACK! I WOULD LOSE MY MIND!!! (I'm not so good with flying bugs!)
People in java suburb eat them. Seasonal delicacy. You may try "rempeyek laron", instead of peanuts or anchovies. Termites (laron) swarms early in rainy season.
Be careful with them, since each is potential queen of a termite colony, whenever it founds a suitable place and become fertile.
Like Jaka said, people from central java eat them. My helper once made that "rempeyek laron" when I was a kid.
I didn't have the courage to eat them :-(
But you have to be careful with the termites, I've to renovate my house because of that termite :-(
Post a Comment