An naturalist’s photoblog
Here is an unexpected shot… all I intended was to take a photograph of the spider on the buttercup, when in flew an unexpected visitor, the spider’s next victim. Notice how the spider hangs his victims from silk threads - ready to be eaten at a later time.
See also :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranunculus
Crab spiders often catch large insects such as bees. It seems this fellow was on his hors d’oeuvre. The fly in its jaws was so small that I didn’t notice it whan I took the shot.
This Dog Rose was neatly folded (resembling an orchid). It’s creator, a crab spider, lay in wait inside.
This colourful little beetle may look innocent enough as goes about collecting nectar - its private life, however, is something other. As a larva it lives in bee hives and feeds on young bees.
A similar species is Trichodes apiarius.
Hoverflies look very much like small wasps or bees but unlike these do not have a sting. These delicate insects are wonderful to observe in flight and a challenge to photograph.
Hoverflies, as the name implies, are flies. One thing that differentiates them from wasps and bees in that flies only have one pair of wings (wasps and bees have two pairs).
Pliny the Elder some 2000 years ago would have known this. Here is an extract from his Natural History.
There are some insects which have two wings, flies, for instance; others, again, have four, like the bee. The wings of the grasshopper are membranous. Those insects which are armed with a sting in the abdomen, have four wings. None of those which have a sting in the mouth, have more than two wings. The former have received the sting for the purpose of defending themselves, the latter for the supplying of their wants. If pulled from off the body, the wings of an insect will not grow again; no insect which has a sting inserted in its body, has two wings only.
Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD)
However, if you look carefully, you will notice a stick-like protrusion just behind the forewings - these are vestigial wings (also known as halteres). This is all that is left of what once was a second pair of wings.
