Thursday, October 2, 2008
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
Friday, September 5, 2008
This
Psyllobora vigintimaculata (Twenty-Spotted Lady Beetle) was found on the underside of a leaf of common milkweed (
Asclepias syriaca) we brought home from near the library to feed to Cater who is now eating so voraciously we fear he may start on the drapes if we do…ok not really but he is eating two to three medium sized milkweed leaves per day…
Before refrigerating the leaves we check them for predators and other hitchhikers. This Lady Bird Beetle was a scant 1.8mm in diameter. I checked it first under the microscope, then put everything I could into the macro to get a half decent shot. For hand held I think it holds up pretty well. Gotta work on flash techniques though.
Unlike most lady bird beetles, this tiny beetle feeds primarily on fungus found on leaves and stems of many plants.
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Arthropoda
- Class
- Insecta
- Order
- Coleoptera
- Family
- Coccinellidae
- Genus
- Psyllobora
- Species
- Psyllobora vigintimaculata
Life Photo Meme
Originally I had a special guest photo lined up for the Life Photo Meme, but somehow I forgot it’s Invert Thursday! The guest photo is definitely not an invertebrate. So I guess that posting will have to wait for next week!
Life is hard, but beautiful. Like all monarchs this little caterpillar will need to go through 5 instars then pupate before it can emerge as an adult and migrate south early this October. All along the way many predators will eat it if they discover the caterpillar. The compounds in milkweeds do help, but they are not a complete protection against all predators.
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
Or if you prefer..,
“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?
