A homopteran and a pteridophyte breakfast

My field assistant and I had no curry to take along with rice the other day because we left really early (330 am!) to sight birds by sunrise to a site that was an hour's walk, so Army (that is really his name!) cut down a Pandanus plant and within each leaf were these stink bugs (Pentatomidae family, Order Homoptera) that he said we could eat, alive and whole! At first I hesitated, then put in one, tasted exactly like cinnamon, quite good actually, so I had few, no, many more! There is also another similar species that they find in the river below stones, Gandhi pok, he had brought that too, it was grounded with salt and chillies and he told me that some people are allergic to this bug. For days they end up sick and get hallucinations during the affected period. So I was a bit hesitant and just tasted a bit, I preferred the cinnamon flavour instead. This is the picture of the bug, so if you find one, you could pop it in!

The previous field visit too, we had gone into the forest with only rice sprinkled with millets. So my field assistant then (Nyelik) quickly materialised a banana flower and an edible fern plant. This fern called Dekia saag I had eaten it before, it is quite tasty. So after an hour of fire, we had this sumptouous meal.

Food is often a problem in field, so I tend to adjust to what’s available in the plate, or in the Phrynium leaf in this case.  Phrynium sp., which is found close to streams, is always the leaf in which an Adi bento meal is packed.

On another note, I saw this beautiful Oak leaf butterfly besides lots of other beauties. Will upload an exclusive butterfly post sometime.