SUMMER ADVENTURES - Episode 31 - A VERY GROUNDED COMMUNITY : part 1
There is one stretch of the coastline, here in the most southern part of the Istra peninsula... northern Adriatic... Croatia ... with unusually thick and rich soil ...
... and here among the many cultivated fields filled with potato, melons, and cabbages ... there are fields that were also cultivated a few years ago but now are left to rest for some time ...
... and they are now temporarily covered ...
... with an intricate ...and interesting mix ...
... of self-seeding plants ... most of them growing and spreading very near to the ground ...
... and with many food and shelter opportunities ...
... in this sort of flat, horizontal jungle ...
... there is a rich and varied presence ...
... of many small invertebrates ...
... especially ...
... caterpillars ...
... many of them have almost the same shape ... and movements ...
... but the colors are different ...
... this one ...
... has some eggs ... or parasites ...
... attached ...
... some of the caterpillars here ...
... are really minuscule ...
... some have intricate camouflage patterns ...
... and this one ...
... comes in a lovely green - orange combination ...
... and looks a bit like a little extraterrestrial with a very cute face ...
... various crickets ...
... are also ...
... voraciously ...
... munching ...
... these juicy plants ...
... this small beetle ...
... is present here in big numbers ... and it was funny ...
... as I tried to do some photographs ...
... she was escaping, seeking refuge under the leaf ...
... and was using the holes in the leaves as a shortcut ... like a little dimensional passage through the wormhole for fast disappearing...
... a really cool little beetle ...
... this minuscule yellow ladybug is also very common ...
... almost every plant has a few of them ...
... and to stay in the same color combination ... and on the same type of leaf ... here is a very common wasp ... there are also very present here ...
... this little beetle ... is a bit like a limpet ... it is hard to see how it looks under that armor ...
... it has a very good camouflage ...
... it is very difficult to notice it .... if it doesn't move ...
... these small lizards ...
... are also hard to notice ...
... if they stay still ...
... usually, you notice them only when they run away ... and that's usually when you almost stepped on them ...
... this salad like plants with large leaves ...
... are especially attractive to many grazing insects ...
... like these beautiful green grasshoppers ...
... they are young specimens ... and already pretty big ...
... so when they grow up ... they'll be real giants ... only in the insect proportions of course ... and will look like this ...
... and here ...
... is another giant from this little jungle ...
... the biggest and most robust spider species in this area where I live ...
... the Hogna radiata spider ... this is the female ...
... and is carrying the offspring ...
... a little horde of small spiders ...
... you can see them in these fields only at twilight ...
... or if you are walking here at night with a lamp ... you can see their eyes shining like little stars on the ground ... near the end of the summer, the females congregate here in great numbers ...
... and for me, this is a great spectacle of nature ... to see ...
... and photograph ...
... not all spiders here are big ...
... but the big ones ...
... usually, get caught ...
... by these wasps ...
... this common wasp is resting on some dry seeds of one of many interesting plants that make this landscape ...
... and on the large juicy leaves ...
... the common mantis is waiting in ambush ...
... this caterpillar is curved in an interesting pose ...
... this snail was caught by the sun while traveling ...
... and now is laying here ... closed in the shell ... in the middle of the little dusty road ...
... while passing, the snail has left a nice trail of slime ...
... shining in the sun ...
( Enlargeable )... in the intricate labyrinth ...
... made by sprouts of the common Purslane plant ...
... this lovely ...
... little green butterfly ...
( Enlargeable )... has found a shelter for the night ...
... the time when many moths will come out from the hiding ...
... and speaking of hiding ...
... there is a green version of the stick insect ...
... hidden ...
... in plain sight ...
... in the nearby grass ...
... and a few bugs ...
... are resting ...
... and crawling on the surrounding leaves ...
.... with many of these yellow eggs ... I have no idea what will come out of them ...
... is just another ordinary day in the little jungle ...daddy - longlegs are patrolling the place like some alien machines out of George Orwell's imagination ...
... and the shiny little beetles ...
... are making holes in the large salad - like leaves ...
... TO BE CONTINUED ... this is just part 1 ... the second part tomorrow :) on the same channel ... stay tuned :D ... as always in these posts on Steemit, all the photographs ... and GIFs made from some of those photographs ... are my work ...
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Amazing macros photos :) Cheers :)
:) Cheers
Epic, i really like the lounge lizard, the baby tangle of spiders and the weird parasites on the inchworm.
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:D I thought that lounge lizard was a lizard species, hehe, then I googled a bit ... cool to learn a new expression ... inchworm is a great name for this type of caterpillar, evokes their movements perfectly ... we don't have a special name for them in Croatian ... I'll try to invent one maybe :) that sounds cool like inchworm...
In Croatia they call them the 2.54 cm worm?
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:D hehe, great one!
a lot of nice findings here. love the caterpillars most!
:)