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By Ben, on September 3rd, 2010
Lots and lots of insects are small. Even butterflies, those showy, gaudy, colorful things, can be very small (they can also be pretty big, of course). The other day I was out weeding the front yard when I noticed this little teeny tiny butterfly in the grass:
In this photo, which is backlit, you can see the faint yellow patterning through the wings. But since I couldn’t see that through my viewfinder (it’s a small butterfly, remember?), I decided to crawl around to the other side, so I could have the sun behind me:
And that’s when I was able to see [...]
By Ben, on August 5th, 2010
Thanks to the wonderful ID skills of the folks over at bugguide.net, I can confidently say that the moth of the day (seriously, there are hundreds of them in my backyard–the only problem getting pictures of them is that they don’t alight often and they’re skittish on approach) is Melanchroia chephise (White-tipped Black – Hodges#6616):
This one is resting on the frond of a small Sabal palmetto (Cabbage palm) that still has a bit of the overnight rain (or the morning sprinklers, not sure which) on it. It’s already hot and humid, and these black-winged moths definitely prefer to rest in [...]
By Ben, on July 27th, 2010
This morning I was able to get organized early enough to go for a bike ride with little e before breakfast and work. After each ride, there’s usually a decompression session where we play outside–him in the dirt, me with a camera if there’s something I can see. And this morning I saw, for one of the first times I can recall, the phenomenon of a butterfly “puddling.” There was a Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phileus) on the hood of my car, drinking up the fallen dew:
H. phileus is a widespread species in North America, most common in the South, but [...]
By Ben, on June 29th, 2010
There aren’t a ton of animals visible in the steamy sunny heat of late June here in Boca; those few that there are, apart from the omnipresent mockingbird and his counterpart in red, the cardinal, tend to be insects. Here’s a blue dasher dragonfly that seems to favor a perch on the spicewood tree on the side of our house:
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As you can see from the red eyes, this is a not-quite-mature male (the adult male has green eyes). But he’s got the adult male body coloration: blue abdomen with black on the tip, and yellow on the sides [...]
By Ben, on June 15th, 2010
Sean Carroll, writing in the New York Times, posted a very interesting article yesterday about an ecosystem in Costa Rica that has developed thousands of caterpillar species: more from this one small area (77 square miles of Costa Rican rainforest) than in all of North America. Among the species described in this three-decades-long research project are hundreds of caterpillars (and even chrysalises) that appear to have evolved a deterrence against predation: eyespots.
This strategy is not new to science: in the 1860s, Henry Walter Bates developed a hypothesis of mimicry among animals whereby tasty treats like caterpillars and butterflies experience selection [...]
By Ben, on December 14th, 2009
A couple of weeks ago (December 2, actually), I happened to be outside and found this larva of Agraulis vanillae, the beautiful Gulf Fritillary, on our maypop (passiflora) vine. I can’t get over how those little feet work so well to keep these guys attached to whatever they’re clinging to at the moment.
Seeing this caterpillar was a bit of a surprise, because most of that entire fence on the side of the house is covered with a very aggressive Aristolochia vine that these fritillary caterpillars can’t eat. But way back when we planted, we had two (or maybe it was [...]
By Ben, on October 29th, 2009
Last month, I finally managed a decent snapshot (still not a great picture) of the Polydamas Swallowtail (Battas polydamas) butterflies that enjoy our pipevine:
I still haven’t been able to get the entire animal in focus, but at least it’s better than some of my previous attempts:
These guys just love our Aristolochia vine; I’ve seen half a dozen in flight at once on the side of our house when the weather’s nice and the season’s right. These days, they’re not flying so much anymore, and I haven’t seen any eggs in a few weeks, either.
As you can see from the background [...]
By Ben, on June 3rd, 2009
The results are in: larvae of Polydamas swallowtail who grow up eating Dutchman’s pipe leaves in Boca Raton apparently prefer to pupate on neighboring cocoplum plantings. The caterpillar that we saw in Monday’s post has indeed gone on to pupate. Pictures and commentary across the jump.
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