Category Archives: Plants

Praying mantis and gecko

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.

Costus lucanusianus

Costus lucanusianus is a native of tropical Africa. It’s also known as spiral ginger or African spiral flag. It’s related to true gingers and the ‘spiral’ in the name comes from the arrangement of the leaves on the stems.

This one was at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.

Eyeball on the edge

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Edge.’ (See more offerings here.) My first thought was this image, but I hadn’t actually ever taken such a photo. So I took my camera outside and wandered around. It wasn’t long before I found an obliging gecko keeping a beady eye on my movements.

The reason I was confident of getting this photo is because this is a typical pose for geckos. They’re constantly peeking over the edge of roofs, around corners, and around the edge of the leaves they occupy. They’re constantly on the lookout for prey – and predators.

In this case, the gecko was on my side of the leaf when I approached, but zipped to the other side, before checking out what I was up to.

Gecko with wings

I peered down into a spider lily one day and this is what I saw looking up at me, a gecko with wings. The wings, of course, were those of an unlucky moth, which the gold dust day gecko had snagged from behind. The moth struggled a good deal, but there was only ever going to be one winner in this contest.