This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Yellow.’ (See more responses here.) Naturally, I thought of a butterfly with orange in its name on a very red flower.
This is a large orange sulphur butterfly investigating the feeding possibilities on a red Chinese hibiscus flower.
This paper wasp was working on a new nest attached to a loulu palm (Pritchardia affinis). In one of the cells – the top one of four on the left side – an egg has already been deposited.
A passion vine butterfly feeds from blue heliotrope flowers. What I liked about this was the lower image where the passion vine butterfly has spooked a lesser grass blue butterfly into flight. It made me think of the Hank Williams song, Move It On Over, and in particular the line, ‘Move over little dog cause the big dog’s moving in.’
The psamatodes abydata moth is also known as macaria abydata. Its common name is dot-lined angle moth. The moth was first introduced into Hawaii in 1970 and became established on all the main islands by 1984.
This one was perched on the window of a vehicle, giving it that splendid blue background and cool reflections.
A lesser grass blue butterfly reveals the reason for its name, at least the blue part anyway.
Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Blue.’ See more responses here.
Bright yellow mamane flowers are not only a cheerful sight, but also very popular with bees. They were all over these mamane flowers on the upper slopes of Pu’u Wa’awa’a.
Yesterday, I posted about the dangers geckos pose to a praying mantis that has been living on a spider lily.
Today’s post is about the advantage of that location for the mantis. The primary benefit is that the spider lily’s flowers attract wasps, bees and other insects. In these photos, the mantis has caught a good-sized paper wasp, securely held by its forelegs. It held the wasp in that position for a while, but once it began its meal, it made short work of devouring the wasp. Next day I saw it with a bee and a beetle.
As the spider lily flowers fade, new ones pop up on other stalks, so the insect attraction has been fairly continuous.
For the past three weeks, this praying mantis has been a fixture on this spider lily. The downside of this location is that the plant is a favorite spot for gold dust day geckos. The geckos would no doubt like to eat the mantis, but have so far not made a move that I’ve seen. I suspect that one reason for this is that the geckos have learned that, while the mantis looks like it never moves, when they do, they move fast. A few futile sorties against a mantis would make any gecko decide to seek easier prey.
Tomorrow, I’ll post about the upside of this location for the mantis.
