Category: Nature

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Nature

Harry’s advent calendar of insects, day 16: Elephant Hawkmoth

Probably the single most glamorous moth in the UK, this is an elephant hawkmoth:

What a stunner.

It’s like a furry stick of rock.

And as well as one of the most amazing moths in the UK, it’s also about the most amazing caterpillar:

It’s a monster! Every year I hope to find one of these in the rosebay willowherb in the garden, but no luck so far.

» ‘Elephant Hawkmoth, Deilephila elpenor’ is © Drinker Moth and used under a CC by-nc-sa licence. ‘Garden mothing 2011 #18, 25 May’ is © nutmeg66 and used under a CC by-nc-nd licence. ‘elephant hawkmoth 6’ is © kantc2 and used under a CC by-nc licence.

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Nature

Harry’s advent calendar of insects day 15: Aspidomorpha miliaris

I found Udo Schmidt’s amazing beetles photographs on Flickr and was like a kid in a candy store. I was very tempted by this longhorn beetle which looks like it was upholstered for a 1970s bachelor pad, or this one which is clearly a piece of military hardware. Or this scarab, apparently on his way back from a rave.

But then I found the leaf beetles, the Chrysomelidae. This is the insect of the day: Aspidomorpha miliaris, from India.

Amazing. Let’s not stop there! Here’s a bonus leaf beetle, Eugenysa colossa, from Peru:

And one more for luck, also from Peru, Stolas discoides:

All pictures are © Udo Schmidt and used under a CC by-sa licence.

 

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Nature

Harry’s advent calendar of insects, day 14: Beautiful Demoiselle

This is the Beautiful Demoiselle, Calopteryx virgo, a kind of damselfly. It is apparently found in Britain, although I’ve only seen its less spectacular but still gorgeous relative, the Banded Demoiselle.

So shiny.

» ‘Blue Damselfly’ is © Annamaria Kaiser and used under a CC by-nc-sa licence. ‘Bosbeekjuffer – Beautiful Demoiselle male 2’ is © Arend Vermazeren and used under a CC by licence.

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Nature

Harry’s advent calendar of insects, day 13: cochineal

Cochineal is Dactylopius coccus, a rather undistinguished looking scale insect that lives on the prickly pear cactus.

But when you squish it, it does this:

Which means you can do this with it:

When it’s a dye, we call it carmine. Apparently it’s not used much for fabrics or paints anymore, since the invention of artificial dyes which are cheaper and more colour-fast. But it is still widely used in food, not least because it can be labelled as a completely natural additive.

And if you’re creeped out by the idea that your sweets, strawberry yoghurt and tandoori chicken contain bug extract: the artificial alternatives are made from coal-tar sludge. Which you may or may not think sounds more appetising. Personally I’m able to put it out of my mind at least long enough to eat a tube of Smarties.*

* By which I mean Smarties, obviously, rather than Smarties. Although according to Wikipedia, the UK Smarties no longer contain cochineal anyway: instead they use red cabbage. Which has less of an ick factor, but isn’t exactly an ingredient that brings to mind sugary childhood treats (the US Smarties still have the crushed bugs, though).

» ‘Dactylopius coccus (Barlovento)’ is © Frank Vincentz and used under a CC by-sa licence. ‘Ground Cochineal’ is © Travis S and used under a CC by-nc licence. ‘March 2009 Etsy update, pinks’ is © knitting iris and used under a CC by-nc-nd licence.

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Nature

Harry’s advent calendar of insects, day 12: velvet ant

Perhaps velvet ants are one of those things that seem especially cool because we don’t have them around here.* But come on, it’s a black and red furry ant! Surely that’s cool by anyone’s standards.

This one is Dasymutilla coccineohirta, apparently.

They’re not actually ants, they’re wingless wasps, and they have such a painful sting that their colloquial name is cow killer. A name which, admittedly, passes right through ‘cool’ and into ‘cheesy’.

This one is Dasymutilla occidentalis:

They are such fab looking things.

* To be strictly accurate, there are actually some velvet ants in Europe, and even a few in the UK. But I’ve never seen them, and they aren’t nearly as spectacular as the black and red species from North America I’ve illustrated here.

» Velvet ant is © Ken-ichi Ueda and used under a CC by-nc licence. Cow killer is © Zack Bittner and used under a CC by-nc-sa licence.

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Nature

Harry’s advent calendar of insects, day 11: Uropyia meticulodina

I know I’ve already done a couple of mimicry posts, but I just never get tired of them (check out this beetle pretending to be a fly!). And this one, which I discovered while googling for pictures of something else, is just wonderful.

It is, obviously, a moth. And there are lots of moths that look like dead leaves. But the way it creates a convincingly three-dimensional illusion of a dead leaf curled round in on itself, just by the patterning of the wing, is stunning. It may not be the best camouflage in the natural world — it’s not quite up there with the frogfish, or the octopus — but I can’t think of a comparably amazing bit of trompe l’oeil.

One more for luck:

So fab.

» The first photo is © Wei-Chun (維君) Chang (張). The second is © Shipher (士緯) Wu (吳). Both are used under a CC by-nc-sa licence.