On the Beach with the Butterflies
Friday, May 6, 2011 at 03:50PM It's amazing what can happen in just half an hour on the beach...and by hanging around just one single clump of flowers too. This is what all the fuss is about, the flowering riverside plants, kanahia laniflora with their lovely white blossoms, seen here in big close-up:
These flowers are attracting an incredible profusion of nectar-loving insect life, and had it not been for the inconvenience of having to go to back inside to work, I could have stayed there all day, photographing one form of insect life after the other.
Most conspicuous are the African Monarch Butterflies (danaus chrysippus aegyptius), striking in their burnt orange wing finery and polka dot bodies (as on-trend as Sam Cam with her burnt orange scarf at the Royal Wedding)...
Looking a little closer, one notices some hanky-panky going on between a pair of rather handsome Harlequin Bugs, hiding away in a dried seed pod:
Somewhat outdone in the wow-factor stakes, this small brown butterfly (I'm guessing a Skipper of some kind) is making the most of being nobody's centre of attention:
Talking of wow-factor, the White-barred Hawk Moth (leucostrophus hirundo) - one of only three hawk moth species which are active by day - may not be the most colourful of creatures, but it more than makes up for this by being the most consummate of flyers, hovering expertly by a flower while inserting its long proboscis deep inside to suck out the sweet nectar. Apparently, this hovering capability has evolved only three times in nectar feeders: in hummingbirds, certain bats, and these sphingidae moths - an excellent example of "convergent evolution" between different types of animal.
The hawk moth is put off neither by a dull brown butterfly...
nor by a gorgeous orange Monarch...
And deftly continues to show off its incredible flying ability, like some creature of the deep ocean with its stabilizing rear "fins" and big eyes, a fine example of nature's perfect design capabilities:
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