The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 225. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 206. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
Posted for Becky’s Squares: ‘Simply Red.’ See more responses here.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 129. You can see more responses here.
At Upolu Airport, there’s a mock orange hedge and through it grows a passion vine. The hedge used to be trimmed once in a while, but the flowers attracted to all kinds of insects and was teeming with life. Passion Vine Butterflies laid eggs there and their caterpillars ran amok munching on leaves.
These days the hedge is kept trimmed and is the poorer for it. It’s basically lifeless. I see the odd butterfly, an occasional caterpillar and that’s it. So Passion Vine Butterflies, which I used to see all the time, have thinned out considerably in that area. However, I did spot this one feeding on Blue Heliotrope flowers not too far away.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Fleeting Moments.’ See more responses here.
The orange and black spiky thing is a Passion Vine Butterfly caterpillar, which I saw munching on a passion vine, as they do. The fly didn’t register with me until I processed the photos, but it was definitely a fleeting moment.
I spotted these two lady beetles on the underside of a passion vine leaf. The top one is a Seven-spotted Lady Beetle, the other a Variable Lady Beetle. But what got my attention was the fact that they appeared to be interested in the yellow spots on the leaf, as were several ants.
I knew that some passion vines produce these colored bumps to make it look like butterfly eggs are already there. Butterflies don’t like to lay eggs where another butterfly has already done so, though the leaf bumps aren’t foolproof in this regard (see here).
What I didn’t know was that the bumps produce nectar, which attracts ants, as was the case here. And the ants will defend this food source against caterpillars munching on the leaves. Isn’t nature fascinating!
This is a caterpillar with a message and the message is ‘Back off.’ This is illustrated by the orange and black coloring and black spikes, which in this case conveys that these caterpillars are poisonous. Fortunately, I wasn’t hungry at the time so no harm done. Passion vine butterfly caterpillars, on the other hand, seem to be permanently hungry. Whenever I see them they’re munching leaves like old time video game characters.
Posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Past Squares – Spiky.’ See more responses here.
Graham's Island 