HALF AN HOUR ON THE EDGE OF THE MEADOW

The 10th of July 2022 was an unusually busy summer day for me, but I found a bit of time in the evening, so I drove six or seven kilometers and stopped by the side of the road, somewhere between my hometown and the village called Valtura. I left the car at the edge of the meadow and walked in search of something interesting to photograph through the macro lens.

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I didn't take many photographs on that occasion but I was pretty satisfied with the little I was able to get. The main reason was this picture. The opening picture of today's post. The ants were consuming a small droplet on the upper side of the leaf. The leaf belongs to the small tree, the Acer campestre. The ants can be seen everywhere in the meadow and the taller vegetation around it, but to find a group of ants that have created such an elegant shape around the droplet is highly unusual and visually appealing. Another unusual detail was the presence of the small amber-yellow ant, among the group of bigger, darker ones. With quite a few very similar small ants present in the area, I can't tell you the name of the species shown in the photograph.

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In this shot, you can take a look at the meadow surrounded by shrubs, trees, and the road.

This young grasshopper was photographed in the grass near the edge of the meadow.

This is the nymph of the Euchorthippus declivus grasshopper. In the following photograph ...

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... you can see the adult male of that species.

When it comes to the Pezotettix giornae grasshoppers, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between a well-developed nymph and an adult male. Males and females of this species look more or less like nymphs all their life. The females are bigger and more robust so they stand out, but the smaller males look very much like bigger nymphs. With that said, you surely understand why I'm not sure about the age of the Pezotettix giornae shown in this photograph. I'll say that is a nymph, but there is a good probability that I'm wrong.

Here you can see another small tree that grew in the dense wall of vegetation around the meadow. The Prunus fruticosa. Among the leaf of this plant ...

... I found a bushcricket. Barbitistes ocskayi is the name of this colorful species.

The leafhopper in this photograph was found on the Acer campestre. This is some species from the Cicadellidae family. Can't say which one exactly.

On the way back to the car, I came across two bugs ...

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... a mating pair of Gonocerus acuteangulatus ...

... from the Coreidae family.

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The following links will take you to the sites with more information about some of the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Coreidae/gonocerus_acuteangulatus.html
https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Croatia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leafhopper
http://www.pyrgus.de/Barbitistes_ocskayi_en.html
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/338535-Euchorthippus-declivus
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/333530-Pezotettix-giornae

AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.



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14 comments
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I love it when you take lovely pictures of these grasshoppers.

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These are lovely shots. It seems those shots were taken during evening period right?

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Very nice and colorful post with those insects, instructive ;))

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Wow perfect timing of clicking photo when they assembled 👌😍😍

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Very funny cover picture. !BEER

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The photo with ants is cute, htey all around a drop of water, great moement that you luckily captured. Looking first of the photos of green trees and grass it seems that it is not much happening but obviously there is a rich world of insects that is a part of little world aorund us.

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I find the picture of those Ants visually appealing too. The bush cricket looks like it got hit by a red paintball or something, I love the mix of the red and green😍

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We appreciate your work and your post has been manually curated on behalf of Insects Of The World Community. It will be added to the weekly curation report. Keep up the good work.

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