Dispatch From the Spice Islands

I’ve been in Penang for a little less than 36 hours. I’m here for ICBES, the International Congress of Butterfly Exhibitors and Suppliers.

It has been an exciting visit so far. Above is the view from my hotel room. Most of yesterday until mid-afternoon was taken up with various meetings related tot he butterfly display industry. I sneaked out for a few minutes at lunch and walked across the street to the beach. My first-ever view of the Indian Ocean was not terribly inspiring (from our location, you see mostly a blank expanse of sea) but I got a few photos of shorebirds on rocks. Nancy’s field guide to birds of southeast Asia says that this one is a common sandpiper. On the way back in to the meeting, I photographed a huge metallic bee. This species makes the huge carpenter bees that I see around Tucson look like sweat bees.

Common Sandpiper

Big-ass Bee

Just how packed our time is going to be was hinted at by the fact that we did not start doing anything outside the meeting room until nearly 3 in the afternoon. We bundled up into a couple of buses and headed up the road to a spice farm. It was interesting to see the nutmeg and clove trees, but much more interesting was the diverse insect life that we began to encounter almost immediately. There is a stream running through the spice farm, and there were dragonflies everywhere.

A couple of the colorful dragonflies from the spice farm

There were some fascinating grasshoppers.

Another bird grasshopper (Schistocerca)
Similar to what I saw in Florida, only bigger and more colorful

I love the tropics!!!

I could have stayed longer, but the group was loaded back on the bus to visit a batik factory. Then we visited the butterfly farm that is hosting this year’s conference. We saw both the public display area and the area devoted to butterfly production. The host farm is one of our suppliers of butterflies, so it was pleasant to be able to see the facility.

Breeding Room at the Tropical Entomological House (TEH) Butterfly Farm


Lacewing Butterfly (Cethosia) at the TEH butterfly exhibit


Lacewing Butterfly Larvae at the TEH Butterfly Farm

Dinner was at a seafood restaurant that featured a floor show of regional dance. Between the jet lag and a late night I’m pretty shot right now- yet later this afternoon brings the promise of more of Malaysia’s natural beauty. First, it’s downstairs for some more meetings.

Semi-traditional dance (the music was Bollywood soundtrack)