The current series of warm autumn days here in my area keeps this series of nature-themed posts going at a steady pace. I haven't felt this good in years, so I hope it will continue at least until the end of the month.
This is the seven-spotted lady beetle (Coccinella septempunctata), the most iconic lady beetle species, appearing in cartoons, picture books, and all kinds of designs and illustrations. In the following photograph...
...you can zoom out from the macro view and take a look at the scenery. The beetle is somewhere there, in the vegetation by the side of the dusty, unpaved road. With this post, I'm taking you back to Marlera, the coastal area near the village of Liznjan, a place I posted about a few days ago. Since this is kind of a continuation of that recent post, an unofficial sequel of sorts, I'll put here a link that can take you back in time to revisit it, if you wish. https://ecency.com/@borjan/early-autumn-feels-like-spring
The lady beetle was posing at the top of the Verbena officinalis plant. Not far from this serene scene, a more dramatic one was taking place.
A few meters further, down on the ground...
...near the edge of the road, a predatory fly from the Asilidae family has caught a grasshopper. Asilidae, commonly known as Robber flies, can vary drastically in size and body shape, but to me, a fly like the one shown in these photographs is what I envision when I think of a robber fly. A big, robust fly that looks dangerous at first sight.
The scientific name of this robber fly is Asilus crabroniformis, and you probably noticed that its colors, a combination of dark red and yellow, mimic the colors of a hornet. No wonder that its common name is hornet robberfly. The fly is a danger to other insects and small arthropods, but birds, reptiles, and mammals could easily catch it for a meal. That's why, looking like a hornet, equipped with venom and a sting, can be a huge advantage. The following photograph...
...shows the same scene in ambient light. It was relatively dark in the shade under the foliage of the roadside plants, so the exposure had to be relatively long. I put the camera on the ground and hoped the robber fly wouldn't move. As you can see, it worked.
Clinopodium nepeta, commonly known as the lesser calamint, is a species of mint.
From a certain angle, its small flowers look like screaming creatures whose mouths are always wide open.
Chrysolina herbacea is an iridescent leaf beetle that feeds on various plants in the mint family.
Here you can see a pair mating. Iridescence is a bit tricky to photograph, especially in macro. Flash ruins it. Even the stark ambient light doesn't show it in all its glory. It needs diffuse natural light, not too strong, but not too low either becouse insects are moving, and the shutter speed has to be relatively high. Today, the conditions were quite good.
If you compare this shot with the previous one, you'll notice that there's more orange shine on the male beetle. I love iridescence.
Here you can see the entire calamint plant and a bit of its environment.
This is another group portrait of its flowers.
This strange litlle thing was photographed on the same plant. It's a scale insect from the Monophlebidae. The scientific name of this species, commonly known as the cottony cushion scale, is Icerya purchasi. The scale in this photograph is an adult female. And a male too. Icerya purchasi is a hermaphroditic species. True males are rare, and pure females are unknown. True males are very small, have wings, and look nothing like the creature in these photographs. They resemble winged aphids.
All nymphs also look a bit like aphids, but those aphids with no wings. Nymphs can walk around and spread the species. Unlike the vast majority of other scale insects, where adult females (in this case, egg-laying hermaphrodites) completely lose their limbs, get permanently fused to the plant tissue, and can be easily mistaken for some kind of limpet, Icerya purchasi retains its legs, antennae, and a bit of mobility throughout the entire life cycle.
There is always something interesting going on around the lesser calamint.
Here you can see a stretch of roadside terrain covered with Dittrichia viscosa. The calcareous soil under this pretty tall herbaceous plant was humid, so...
...so I found this algae-like thing that, as far as I have seen, appears only in humid places. The scientific name of the organism is Nostoc commune. It is a colony of cyanobacteria that can thrive equally well in fresh water and on land. It can survive in frozen or arid areas by remaining dormant for an extended period of time and reviving when conditions improve and water becomes available. The desiccated colony is resistant to heat and freezing. A couple of meters further...
...I found a well-camouflaged grasshopper.
The scientific name of the species is Aiolopus thalassinus.
These grasshoppers can be brown, gray, green, or display various combinations of the three colors I mentioned.
The Oenothera lindheimeri, a plant that I wrote about quite a bit in my previous post about this area...
...keeps producing fresh new flowers, so...
...so I keep photographing them becouse I really like those decorative white flowers.
Both the flowers and the leaves are quite decorative. Oenothera lindheimeri is a stranger here. This decorative plant, native to North America, is kept in gardens here in Croatia, but as you can see, it can survive in wild, unkempt places surrounded by other vegetation if needed.
If you explore all the litlle details in this photograph, you'll notice a tiny ant feeding on nectar right in the center of the flower.
This wide shot shows another fragment of the scenery. You can see the road and the dense vegetation on both of its sides.
This fly from the Anthomyiidae family was exploring the dried-out fragments of vegetation scaterred on the ground.
The scientific name of the species is Delia coarctata.
AND THAT'S IT, THE POST ENDS HERE. AS ALWAYS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.
The following links will take you to the sites with more information about the protagonists of today's post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinella_septempunctata https://www.plantea.com.hr/verbena/ https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/flies/hornet-robberfly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinopodium_nepeta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysolina_herbacea https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/60921-Icerya-purchasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostoc_commune https://www.pyrgus.de/Aiolopus_thalassinus_en.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenothera_lindheimeri https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/243758-Delia
