MENTHA PULEGIUM AND SOME INSECTS AROUND IT

A month ago, on the 16th of October, I spent a bit of time in one of the meadows not far from where I live. A kilometer or two from the village of Shishan, and about six or seven kilometers from Medulin, my hometown.

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I spent only an hour or a little bit less there. And all that time was spent around only one plant. The fragrant and beautiful Mentha pulegium, which like all mints, is a joy to have around.

As always, I had a macro lens with me, so I was able to magnify the plant's tiny flowers ...

... and some insects that were crawling and feeding on it.

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This is a flea beetle. The genus is Longitarsus, and the family is Chrysomelidae. If you enlarge the picture by clicking on it and take a good look at the beetle's anatomy, you'll notice that the hind legs are considerably longer and thicker than the other two pairs of legs. Just like in grasshoppers or fleas, those formidable legs are able to propel the insect into formidable jumps. Since these beetles are small, they resemble fleas from a distance. Especially when they jump. Through the macro lens, however, the similarity with the fleas disappears quickly and completely. When it comes to the name of the species, I can't tell you that because quite a few very similar ones are present in the area making the identification confusing.

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Here you can see the clusters of Mentha pulegium flowers photographed in three different ways. With the flash. Without the flash. And some kind of combination of the two methods where the flash is used but because of the longer exposure, the ambient light has a subtle influence on the final look of the picture. The flowers, just like the other parts of the plant are strongly scented, but only when crushed.

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In this photograph, you can see the minuscule Plagiolepis pygmaea ant that was entering the flowers to collect the nectar.

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Very near, a bee from the Colletidae family was collecting the nectar on the Crepis capillaries flower.

This caterpillar was chewing the base of the leaf on the Mentha pulegium.

Another, slightly different caterpillar of more or less the same size, has built a silky shelter under the leaves in the lower part of the plant. In both cases, I can't tell you the name of the species. They both look like moth larvae.

The mint was surrounded by grass ...

... and since the day was only partially sunny and pretty humid ...

... the springtails came out to feed.

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In this photograph, the backlight has accentuated the translucent parts of the leaf where the springtail has eaten the surface cells of the leaf. It looks like this springtail was feeding only on the upper side of the leaf, and I think that the cells on the underside have to be eaten as well to get a completely translucent area. In the following photograph ...

... you can see how this may have happened. The two springtails shown here, harmoniously eat the same stretch of the leaf, each one on its side.

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These little creatures look a lot like minuscule insects but they are part of a separate order of insect-like hexapods.

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The springtails shown in the post are the Sminthurus viridis springtails from the Sminthuridae family. All Sminthuridae species are commonly known as globular springtails. With the following photograph ...

... the narrative is returning to the Mentha pulegium, the plant that serves as the main character or a backbone of this post. From a certain angle and distance, it really looks a bit like a backbone.

This beautiful beetle is the last insect I photographed on that occasion.

Apion rubiginosum is the name of the species.

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The family is Brentidae.

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.ukbeetles.co.uk/apion-rubiginosum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentha_pulegium
https://uk.inaturalist.org/taxa/177254-Longitarsus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sminthurus_viridis

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