I always feel a bit sorry for cows that are plagued by the masses of flies that gather on their bodies. But I also find interesting the patterns made by the black and white cows, the direction of their hairs and the black spots of the flies themselves.
A grasshopper (schistocerca nitens) suns itself on the edge of a leaf.
This praying mantis had been hanging out on this spider lily for a few days. I don’t know whether it was working hard there, but I did like how it mopped its brow in the second photo.
A bee, already heavily laden with pollen, flies in to examine a rose jatropha flower.
It might not be on a stick, but this stick insect blends into it surroundings of green and dry grass.
This passion vine butterfly was feeding on passion flowers, but it will feed on many other flowers, too. It gets its name because passion vines are the host plant for the passion vine butterfly’s caterpillar. Those caterpillars spend their days munching leaves, many of which have little yellow bumps on them. The bumps, which can be seen in the photos, are the plants’ way of trying to fool the butterflies into believing that there are already eggs on the leaves and so it’s not a good spot to lay more.
It’s hard to know how effective this ruse is. I’ve seen many butterflies laying eggs on these leaves, but perhaps some are discouraged. Regardless, the caterpillars will move from leaf to leaf while chowing down, but they never seem to defoliate the plant, which is, in any case, a robustly growing vine.
The Red Admiral butterfly is a European native that arrived in Hawaii in the late 1800s. Despite the longevity of its time in Hawaii, it’s a butterfly that isn’t seen a lot. This is the first one I’ve seen in six plus years here. I was on my way to go snorkeling when I noticed it and, of course, I was immediately distracted and snapped a couple of photos before it disappeared from view.
A large orange sulphur butterfly feeds on a bougainvillea. This was one of the few butterflies I’ve seen on a flowering bougainvillea. Not sure whether that’s usual or not.
