Chiang Mai - Collection of Insects
Baby Elephant at the Maesa Elephant Camp and a beautiful Buprestidae at the Chiang Mai Zoo
Chiang Mai is among my favourite places in Thailand. It is not too hot there, the air is fresh and not too smoggy. There are many free time activities, such as jungle hikes, rock climbing, etc. offered, and the city itself is beautiful, not to forget the Night Market, which, with a bit of negotiation skills, is really cheap.
I did not really go for a collecting expedition, especially as there are new laws, which prohibit under the sentence of high fines even of imprisonment the export and collection of local wildlife. This might explain, why recently it became quite difficult to receive beetle life stock from Thailand. But if nothing else, I managed to make quite a few nice photographs. Chiang Mai, is more like a huge Park with Temple in it and lots of old Architecture, rather than a big city. The most impressing temple of Northern Thailand is Wat Phra Doi Suthep. It is located on about 1300m above sea level. When I was there I could find a small Lucanidae beetle, which is most probably Neolucanus latus and many different Cicada species, as well as Xylotrupes gideon.
Butterfly at the Elephant camp and framed insects for sale at Wat Phra Doi Suthep
The next day, we went to the Chiang Mai Zoological Gardens, which really is a huge park, not too many big animals for display, but hundreds of insects were flying around there. Among them I caught a nice Buprestidae and a huge True Bug, as well as some nice Cerambycidae species. We also went to the Maesa Elephant Camp. The big Surprise was that they had an eleven day old baby elephant. The Camp has about 50 elephants. To me, in comparison with several zoological gardens, the elephants seemed to be quite happy, as they were working a lot, even playing soccer, painting and seemed to be more active and healthy than those in Zoos. We also went to a snake farm,. where there were most of the Thai poisonous snakes for display, the show was really impressive, as they were milking Cobras and even had King Cobras for display. Lizards, like several Agamas, Tokehs (Gecko gecko?) and others were seen along the roadside quite frequently, same as many species of butterflies.
All in all, Chiang Mai was a fantastic stay, and as my travel, which lasted 10 weeks, was slowly turning towards its end, I think it was a nice and relaxed place to celebrate the last days of my holidays. If you still have any questions, please write to me.
Framed Insects on the night market
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