WHEN AUTUMN FEELS LIKE SPRING
Colorful bugs, Graphosoma lineatum, are gathering together, it's a sunny morning ... a sunny Monday morning that happened a few days ago ...
... and, although situated firmly in the early autumn, that Monday looked like spring.
Many plants were blooming ...
... the white Pieris rapae butterflies were flying around ...
... and I saw many ...
... but really many ... Pisaura mirabilis spiders ...
... on this juicy plant ...
... Ecballium elaterium ...
... also called the exploding cucumber ... because these fruits when ripe, squirt a stream of sticky liquid containing its seeds.
Spiders were resting on the large leaves ...
... and strange hairy cucumbers ...
... and all those spiders ...
... were pretty small ... half of the size of an adult ... or smaller.
It looked like a bunch of juveniles ... a gang of, not exactly babies, but still young, teenage spiders ...
... has invaded this pretty peculiar cucumber.
This spider has caught a winged ant ...
... and was interesting to see another spider resting quietly nearby ... it seems like nothing special, and maybe it is just this - nothing special, but I never saw this situation and never have taken a shot like this :) so for me is kind of cool ... and special.
Here is a more lateral, non - enlargeable view of the same scene.
This small spider ... with a drop of dew above his head that shows you approximately how small the spider is ...
... has caught some different kind of prey ...
... on the grass that grows below and in between large leaves, yellow flowers and squirting fruits.
I can't say what he's holding in his fangs ... it looks like some larva ... but ... I don't know.
It was a sunny day ... but there was humidity in the dense vegetation ...
... so some small snails were pretty active ... in their slow, snail - paced way.
This one was crawling along the upper surface of the cucumber leaf ...
... while this other, sleepy one ...
... preferred the quiet place in the center of the flower.
Meanwhile ... on the neighboring flower, the bee mimicking Eristalis tenax fly was feeding in the center of the flower.
Some other plants around the Ecballium elaterium were also in bloom ...
... like this Verbena officinalis, ad example.
Some of those tiny verbena flowers were falling all around on surrounding vegetation ...
... creating stylish floral arrangements ... like this lovely yellow - violet combination of verbena and Ecbalium ...
... or this artsy composition on the blade of grass ... involving some minuscule wasp as well. All these arrangements look pretty cool ... but the one on the following photograph ...
... it's a real self seeding masterpiece :D
Some dandelion - like seed got attached to verbena flower by a silky thread, probably left by some spider or larva ...
... and then a fallen verbena flower was glued on the same thread ...
... under the seed ... and the best thing about this composition ...
... is that it's a mobile. Just a gentle touch - and it twirls for a while.
And now ... here ... approximately in the middle of the post ... is time to take a break from this macro view and obsessive focus on details ... and take a look at the wider picture ... to see the place where all this minuscule creatures and situations are set. It's a nice, but pretty unremarkable place at the outskirts of my small town. A mix of vegetation typical for this area, some shrubs ... dominated by blackberries ... a small grove of pine trees ... some generic meadows ... nothing special, but very interesting and full of life.
Back to the exploding cucumber plant ...
... is time to meet some grasshoppers.
They look like wingless nymphs ...
... but mate like adults ... I don't know the exact species.
This interesting small wasp ...
... from the Ichneumonidae family, I think (but I'm not completely sure and confident) ...
... was exploring the leaf for a while ... and then flew away after this shot.
On another leaf ...
... the scorpion fly (Panorpa communis) was sniffing around and feeding on sap ...
... but this is not her main source of nutrients ... although this species sometimes feeds on sap, and occasionally on living aphids, its main focus is on dead insects.
The small cadavers are often taken from spiders webs ...
... so it's not a coincidence that this one went exploring the area around the young Pisaura mirabilis spider ... after eating a bit of sap from the upper surface of another leaf ... on the shot you saw a few shots before.
On yet another leaf not far from there ... while sitting in the same place ... I took a glimpse of the minuscule Heliophanus kochii jumping spider ... before he disappeared somewhere deeper in the dense foliage.
Nearby ... another minuscule jumping creature was resting on the long leaf of grass ...
... a leafhopper ... I mean, a young leafhopper's nymph ... I don't know the exact species.
Here you can see ... I mean :) barely see because is really minuscule, more micro than macro - a wingless nymph of some thrips species ... crawling along the edge of the long and straight blade of grass.
Another leaf - another creature ... a shield bug this time ... the Eysarcoris aeneus.
I don't know the species of this small, pretty generic looking gray fly ...
... about half size of the common housefly ...
... she just cleaned her feeding apparatus and then flew away ... it was a very short encounter ... on the following photograph ...
... you can see another, much smaller species ... producing a lovely little droplet.
Although the morning was mostly dry ...
... in the areas exposed to the sun ...
... with only an occasional droplet here and there ...
... the dew was much more persistent in the shady places ...
... especially on these leaves ...
... of the Lamium purpureum plant ...
... covered with a multitude of thin hairs.
The water trapped on these leaves created a rich, trippy universe. A joy to behold.
Some droplets reflected fragments of surrounding landscape ...
... it looked like the grass ended up caught inside the sticky pearl ... attached to a blade of giant grass.
Some droplets were just shiny ... and looked empty.
I found a small, mosquito like fly ...
... with fluffy antennae ... posing near this slightly larger droplet.
I found also some mushrooms growing on the carpet of moss in this pretty humid corner ...
... I don't know what species is this.
Not far from there ... on the fresh Lamium purpureum sprout ...
... I saw this very photogenic scene ... that demanded to be photographed by using only soft natural light ... the slightly iridescent larva of some leaf beetle .... covered with droplets ... it looked a lot like the giant creatures from that spectacular old cartoon, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ... and I felt transported in another world... I'm not sure about the exact species ... I usually see plenty of mint leaf beetles (Chrysolina herbacea) in this area ... so maybe ....
Here you can see another interesting larva.
It's very small ...
... but it looks pretty scary with those long fangs. It's a predatory larva, covered with the shield made of various debris, that include remains of her previous meals.
This is the larva of some lacewing species ...
... and it looks extremely cool :)
Here you can see another small predator ...
... some crab spider ... but I'm too exhausted from all of this searching, writing and image uploading to find the exact species.
This is a short look at another plant common in this area ... the Solanum dulcamara ... a potato and tomato relative ... with quite similarly shaped flowers.
Posing for this photograph, is the brown nymph of the Graphosoma lineatum bug ... which leads us ...
... to the beginning of this little exploration ...
... to the very first shot ... where you can see some stylish, colorful adults of this species ... which means ... that this circular post continues in a loop, instead of ending ... well, kind of :D ... as always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.
Thanks
@tipu curate
You put the rest of us to shame with such a blog. What a post.
He,he heavy words ... but hey :D wow - thanks
I love all your species, spiders, beetles, bees, hops, drops. flowers and everything ... beautiful everything.
Thank you :) glad you like these little crawlers
I love all your species, spiders, beetles, bees, hops, drops. flowers and everything ... beautiful everything.