Cabbage White
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A Small Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) from our garden. These little beauties are often overlooked because of their plain coloration, but they are among my favorites. I see the adults most often enjoying Queen Anne’s Lace, but the caterpillars feed mostly on plants of the Brassicaceae (cabbage or mustard family). Next year we plan to plant some horseradish in the garden, which will hopefully attract more of these little beauties and let me capture the entire life cycle for Larval Images.

There is a chance to capture some of that life cycle now as the small white will continue to be found here until the hard freeze comes. They hibernate in pupae form and will be the first butters we see in the late winter or early spring.

Of course, this is also one of my favorites, because it’s the N.American cousin of the Large Cabbage White (Pieris brassicae) of Eurasia. P. brassicae is the species that I blogged about at The Other 95%. Some recent research showed it is in the middle of a three way evolutionary arms race with its host plant and a parasitic wasp, because the male’s ejaculate attracts parasites both direct and indirectly.

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Lepidoptera

Family

Pieridae

Genus

Pieris

Species

Pieris rapae

Life Photo Meme

One of two horseshoe crabs, Limulus polyphemus (Linnaeus, 1758), seen on a recent trip to the beach. The horseshoe crab is an ancient resident of the shores of Eastern North America, having changed very little since the early Paleozoic Era some 450 million years ago.

The name horseshoe crab is a bit of a misnomer as they are not crustaceans as crabs are, but are chelicerata like spiders, scorpions and ticks. All chelicerata lack the mandibles of crustaceans and other arthropods to chew food, but have pointed appendages called chelicerae (think spider fangs) to bring food to the mouth. Because the lack chewing structures though most chelicerates drink blood (ticks & mites) or inject digestive enzymes into their prey to pre-digest they food so they can then drink it. Horseshoe crabs are scavengers, eating molluscs, worms and bits of flesh. Lacking jaws they use their legs to tear food up and a gizzard filled with gravel and sand to further process the food.

Horseshoe crabs are primarily used as bait for fishermen. Unfortunately they are hacking up enough of them to significantly contribute to recent declines in the number of horseshoe crabs. Another contributing problem is beachfront development and traffic. Horseshoe crabs make their nests on beaches on the spring tide. There females make 15-20cm depressions in the sand just below the high water mark and lay a batch of eggs in the nest before dragging a male, clinging to her tail with special claspers, across the nest to fertilize the eggs. In total a large female may lay 60,000 eggs. On the next spring tide the eggs hatch and the larvae emerge. They will swim in the plankton for 5 to 7 days before settling to the bottom and spending a dozen years molting and growing before becoming sexually mature. They can live another 10 15 years as adults.

The egg nests are important for a number of migratory shorebird species which time their return to be on the beaches of the Del-Mar-Va peninsula and especially Delaware Bay during the horseshoe crab nesting season. Unfortunately with decreasing number of adults breeding there are significantly fewer nests. The cascading impact was enough to prompt New Jersey to ban taking horseshoe crabs for any reason other than for medical purposes.

The medical industry uses horseshoe crab blood to test serums for contamination as the blood of horseshoe crabs has a unique substance that clots in the presence of harmful bacteria. Horsecrabs are gathered and “donate” blood for use, then are returned to the sea where their blood volume quickly returns to normal levels. Oh, like cephalopods (and other molluscs) these are true blue bloods, since their blood does not contain iron based hemoglobin (like ours) but instead copper based hemocyanin which turns blue when exposed to oxygen.

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthopoda
Subphylum Chelicerata
Class Merostomata
Order Xiphosura
Family Limulidae
Genus Limulus
Species Limulus polyphemus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Monarch, 1st Instar
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

We watched the mother lay her egg on a butterfly weed plant in our garden. A few days later the egg was gone, along with a sizable chunk of leaf. Looking around carefully I found the caterpillar under another leaf on the plant.

Unfortunately we have not seen the caterpillar since. We are thankful that the the mother felt our garden was good enough, especially considering where it started from and all the work we’ve put into it. The garden was designed for the birds (lower garden) and butterflies (upper garden) and I think having a butterfly mother lay an egg in the upper garden was a mark of success. Hopefully, if we are here next year we will be able to report a successful egg to adult life-cycle from within the garden.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Suborder: Macrolepidoptera
Family: Danaidae
Genus: Danaus
Species: Danaus plexippus

I’m ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

“We’re watching you!!”

or maybe “Let your conscience be your guide….but screw up and it’s an invert in your ear!”

With a flash and all three of my extension tubes (68mm) on the 100mm macro lens, I was able to get this shot. It took 6 shots to get this one, each one nudging the focus a hair forward from what I thought was close but maybe to far back (it was). I think this one is on focus best. Next time it’ll be a tripod and flash, higher ISO and more depth of field.

Rotated in Lightroom. Can anyone provide an ID?

Tower, request permission…
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A good day.