Tripping the world, slowly
Common coppers are everywhere. I thought one of these small butterflies perched on a flower would look good in a monochrome photo. What do you think?
This post appears as scheduled while I am travelling. I’ll be connected, but may be slow to look at your comments and posts. I hope you will bear with my delays.
A moment of hesitation after putting down a title. According to current understanding the class Insecta only contains the group which used to be called winged insects (pterogyda) and excludes other hexapoda like the coneheads, bristetails, and springtails. What about ants, you might ask? The reproductive individuals are winged (flying ants), just that many of their children can’t fly. So the title is an oxymoron, isn’t it? It is, but I decided to let it go.
Most of the flying insects I saw in Dehra Dun were butterflies. October is a good time to spot them in the foothills of the Himalayas, as they prepare to enter their winter diapause. Some adults will bear fertilized eggs into the diapause, others will enter diapause as pupae. Territorial Pale Palm Darts (Telicota colon) were busy chasing each other away from their patch of flowers, giving me very few opportunities to catch them feeding. Taking the featured photo needed some patience. On the other hand, the numerous Common Grass Yellow (Eurema hecabe) and Common Fivering (Ypthima baldus) were easy to photograph.
There were other species of Lepidoptera which were in a different stage of preparing for winter. This caterpillar was sunning itself on top of an exposed hedge. The garden was full of birds, and this behaviour would have been foolhardy in a species which was not noxious. I don’t think a tufted caterpillar like this would grow into a butterfly; it is probably a species of moth. I’m bad at identifying caterpillars, and terrible at moths. If you have any idea about what this is then tell me before I assign this to the big pool of things that I’m not meant to know.
From Lepidoptera to Diptera. The most numerous individuals in this order of insects were mosquitos. I was too busy getting rid of them to take their photos. But this guy shone brightly enough on a leaf to halt me in my tracks for a photo. I’m not terrific at identifying flies (they require much better eyesight) so all I can tell you is that this is a bluebottle fly (family Calliphoridae, aka blowfly or carrion fly). They have habits which are incompatible with a healthy lifestyle, so I wouldn’t like to get closer to them.
This post is scheduled to appear while I travel. I’ll reply to your comments and look at your posts when I have network coverage.
In autumn one sees Indian cabbage white butterflies (Pieris canidia) pairs mating before they enter the winter diapause. All species of cabbage whites (genus Pieris) have pupae which can enter diapause either in summer or winter. Development ceases during diapause and resumes only after temperatures become milder. This photo was taken near Dehra Dun.
This post is scheduled to appear while I travel. I’ll reply to your comments and look at your posts when I have network coverage.
Not Apis cerana indica. Not Apis florea. Could it be Apis dorsata? I wandered around a small garden in Dras town, the coldest place in India, where January temperatures often fall to -20 Celsius. Right now, on an afternoon at the beginning of September the temperature was a balmy 22 Celsius. In a month the temperature would begin to fall to frosty lows. I guessed that’s why the pollinators were so busy. This bee had eyes the likes of which I hadn’t seen in any Indian honeybee, genus Apis. If it was one, it and its hive-mates would soon begin a seasonal migration to warmer places down the hills. But it could be a polyester bee (or cellophene bee), genus Colletes. They are solitary. Do they have seasonal migrations? I couldn’t find the answer.
Annie H pointed out that this is not a bee but a hover fly (family Syrphidae, aka flower flies). Thank you, it fits. The insect has one pair of wings like any fly, it has wrap-around compound eyes, stubby legs, and its colour mimics a bee’s. They will hatch out of eggs before winter and enter diapause as an adult, waiting for the spring to thaw out and start drinking nectar again.
The garden was full of common flowers like marigolds and cosmos. And with them were the usual butterflies. A Common grass yellow (Eurema hecabe) briefly held an inclined pose on a marigold for me. After I’d got the shot it waved its wing at me as it flew to the next flower. Some Eurema species are known to show seasonal migration. However, the females of the E. hecabe are known to hibernate after copulating in autumn. The mated females lay their eggs in spring after a winter’s diapause. Does this work even in the ultra-low temperatures of Dras?
This Common copper (Lycaena phlaeas) is a high altitude butterfly species which may have evolved a different mechanism for survival in winter. Some species of Lycaena enter the pupal stage before winter, and the pupa enters a seasonal diapause until spring. I wasn’t able to find a specific study of L. phlaeas, so its wintering strategy still allows us to find interesting new insights into biology.
My attention was first drawn to the pollinators by this large bee, which I initially took to be a bumblebee. I took several photos, and in some of them the wings and the body look quite blue. Even in this photo you can see the purple colouration. When I looked for bumble bees of Ladakh I found a warning that the carpenter bee, Xylocopa valga, is often mistaken for one, and the way to tell them apart was by the shiny abdomen and the purple and blue sheen of X. varga. So that’s what it is. This was the first time I knew that I’d seen a carpenter bee (I would see another of the three Ladakhi species later). If, like me, you’d never heard of carpenter bees before, then the first thing to know about them is that they live in shallow holes that they bore into wood. They do not have hives, but nest singly, and they hibernate through winter. They have been reported from Ladakh only recently, and there is much to be understood about them still.
What do I overlook all the time? Absences. I”m sure that if I’d not spent time taking photos I would have not taken the featured photo of the lack of a road through a part of the Himalayas. Or the absence of a scenery in the next. Or the absence of flowers in the one after that. Now I’m glad I didn’t overlook all this.
All these photos are from Sikkim. I didn’t think of it then, but in retrospect this trip stands out in my mind. It was for years the highest elevation that I’d reached, 5430 meters.
The morning was still cool when I saw this butterfly settle on a flower. I was in the garden of the state tourism guest house in Uttarkhand’s Manila, not far from Almora. I haven’t looked at butterflies for several years. I couldn’t decide immediately whether I should think of this as a blue tiger (genus Tirumala) or a chocolate tiger (Parantica melaneus). Now looking at it and comparing it with confirmed photos of blue tigers, I’m pretty certain it is not one of those. The colour of the hindwings makes it clear that it is the chocolate tiger. There is some variation in them: in some the veins in the front wings can also be chocolate or chestnut coloured. But the blue tiger never has that colour in the upper surface of its wings. I was happy with the photo. Now I’m happy with the identification.
When you try to structure a retrospective of your favourite photos from a year’s worth of blog posts, you have a lot of choice. You could rate them in various ways, arrange them by colour or theme or chronology. But no matter what organization you choose, you still leave yourself a bit of leeway with the introduction. So it was with me. Having chosen to structure this post chronologically, I still had to figure out what to use as a featured photo. When it comes to visuals, I think you should be able to tell a book by its cover. Since my year was full of birds, I will start with a photo where I managed to get close enough to a hunter to see the colour of her eyeballs.
It seems hard to recall now, but the year started with the last of the major variants of the virus which divided our life story into before and after. January was omicron time, and I was mostly at home. Highly infectious variants of a virus run through the population very fast. So the wave was over earlier than I’d expected. As a result, I could spend the next month walking through my own city after a long time. I still had time left over to try my hand at blank verse in iambic pentameters. I discovered that counting syllables is not easy, and I had to approximate.
But soon enough we were back in the wilds. One special sighting was of the lost Taiga bean goose, probably separated from its west Siberian flock, and tolerated as an honorary member of a flock of bar-headed geese. I spent some time with maps trying to understand how this strange companionship might have developed, and learnt a valuable lesson about the world unsettled by us.
Between visits to the wilderness, it was interesting to watch the city come alive. Those were the last days of continuous working from home, and I could finish my day’s work early and roam the streets of Mumbai as life resumed after the pandemic. Most people were already vaccinated, and although the latest variant had infected large numbers, most did not need hospitalization. There was palpable relief on the streets.
India harbours a large variety of cats, and it’s a pity only the big cats attracts so much attention. In 403 ME we were lucky to sight several of the small cats. They are elusive creatures, wary of humans, The jungle cat is the most common, and I’ve seen it only thrice. I’ve never seen a fishing cat, the manul, or the Asian lynx. I’ve seen a caracal briefly as it sped off as soon as I chanced on it walking along a deserted road. So I feel I was lucky to have got photos and a video of one which was probably the desert cat. I was a bit puzzled by the ecology of its desert habitat, and it helped me fill in a bit of the puzzle.
After that I went tiger hunting in the same place where Bungalow Bill, made famous by the Beatles, shot his tiger. But more than half a century on, I was happy to see that not a single visitor had either elephant or gun. I have shown photos of these tigers too often; having seen them after three years. So here I post a photo of two butterflies, one called the common tiger, and the other the common crow. Pat yourself on the back when you figure out their names, but remember that there’s a whole lot we do not know about these two milkweed butterflies.
When you spend most of your leisure time in the jungles of India you cannot fail to notice the unremarked creatures which shape the land: termites. The jungles would regenerate slower without them, because these distant cousins of cockroaches are the most efficient metabolizers of wood. I was astounded when I found how old some of their cities are.
As July came along, we left for the hills. In the high desert of Ladakh, headaches and worse stalk those who forget about the lack of oxygen in the air. Among the most interesting sights here are signs of ancient humans who lived and left their art on rocks in this unhospitable part of the world. But the most interesting photos were from the cham at the Hemis monastery. I found the juxtaposition of masks interesting: one set elaborate and hand made according to several hundred years-old tradition, the other set stamped out in a factory for export to a foreign culture. Trust children to create something new.
Meanwhile, in the plains, the monsoon had set in. During breaks we travelled the Sahyadris, as we’ve been doing in the past two years, looking at the blooming of wildflowers in the otherwise arid volcanic soil. I hadn’t seen the misnamed Glory lily for several years, and had almost forgotten its name. But I remembered a true crime story associated with it.
A collateral pleasure of this new passion for wildflowers is the glimpse we get into life in small villages in the middle of Maharashtra. These places were traditionally very poor, but in the last seven decades roads and irrigation projects have made a very great difference to the lives of people who live here. Earning a living is by no means easy, but I think someone from my grandfather’s generation would be surprised. As for me, the differences from city life sometimes surprise me as much as the similarities.
After the monsoon it was time to get back to the mountain wilderness in the Himalayas. In this short trip around Diwali I was happy with the number of birds I saw. This pied kingfisher was not the most difficult to photograph, but it certainly gave me one of my favourite shots of the year.
Before you realize it, the sun picks up speed as it falls towards the lowest point in its orbit. The northern hemisphere tilts away from the sun, which sits at the focus of the orbit, and for me it is winter. No one in their right mind goes to the mountains at this time. But did I claim to be sane? Winter weather is clear and cold, perfect for views of four of the five highest mountains in the world (Chomolungma in the center, Lotse to its right, Makalu at its left). The zoom required for this photos excluded Kanchenjunga, which is just off the right margin of the shot.
An finally, when the earth whirls past its closest approach to the sun, it is the true new year, 404 ME. We are ready for another whirl around our nearest star. It is unlikely that a new Buddha will arise soon, and even less likely that he will be the Manjushree Buddha, one who cleaves ignorance and fear with his sword. But we can all wish such a happy new year to each other, can’t we?
On what wings dare he aspire?
The Tyger (1794) William Blake
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
Milkweed butterflies, like common crows (Euploea core) and common tigers (Danaus genutia), lay eggs on trees full of toxins. The newly hatched caterpillars then feed on the leaves of these plants and concentrate the toxins in their bodies. The toxins remain through their metamorphosis into butterflies, and make them undesirable prey. I’d assumed that just as they lay eggs on different plants, the adults must take nectar from different plants. I was surprised to find many individuals from both species feeding on one plant. I suppose that there are species of plants whose nectar attracts one or the other, but not both, species of butterflies. Otherwise the crows and tigers would be in competition. There’s nothing wrong with competition, but one eventually wins, and the other has to find a less desirable range. There is no evidence for that happening to one of these species.
A rich ecosystem is full of creatures utilizing every resource, and individuals of one species are a resource for another. The caterpillars are parasites on their host plants, but the adults have reached a sexual mutualism with nectar yielding plants. The plants require butterflies for fertlization, and the butterflies are unable to lay eggs without the sugar that the plants supply. These butterflies have their own parasites: tiny flies (tachinids) and wasps (chalcids). They lay their eggs in caterpillars. The parasitic maggots hatch and eat their hosts from inside. Although I haven’t seen the parasites yet I remain hopeful and ready with my camera; the adult flies and wasps are big enough that I could photograph them. On the other hand, the only symbiotes of these two which have been studied are really tiny: bacteria from a genus called Wolbachia which live entirely inside the cells of the butterflies and influence their reproductive strategies. There is no chance that my camera will ever catch these.
The jungle was full of such lovely small things. The photo of the spider web that you see was taken on a path called thandi sadak (cool road). It was surrounded by fields full of this plant that some would recognize immediately; they grow wild across the hills and are a target for foragers. The spider itself was too small to be seen. There’s a lot of literature on how cannabinoids influence spiders. You can actually see a typical example here: some of the space between the spokes have not been filled in. I’m not sure that spiders munch leaves, but they could be eating insects which have taken up toxins from the plant. Although chital (Axis axis, spotted deer) grazed in neighbouring patches of grass, they did not venture into fields of Grass.
Less spectacular than the crows and tigers, but equally abundant, were these common sailors (Neptis hylas). They have an interesting flight: a couple of wing beats and then a long glide, then again a wing beat or two. I would like to weigh them, because the flight pattern could mean that the wings are large compared to the weight, like a glider’s. They are not milkweed butterflies, and there is no record of them being distasteful or poisonous. That’s why it puzzles me that there are so many of them in the jungle, and there seem to be no predators. A low body weight could also imply that they are too small a portion to be worthwhile for birds to hunt. Perhaps also their fecundity, eggs hatch multiple times a year, keep their numbers high although they are edible.
A dark shape flew into the leaf-litter below the where the sailor was sunning itself. The moment it stopped moving it disappeared. I searched the ground and couldn’t see anything. Then there was a tiny movement in the ground, and I could focus on it. This was a Prosotas butterfly, possibly the common lineblue (Prosotas nora). I always have to look at the lineblues carefully to figure out the species, and the strong sunlight with dark shadows, and the odd angle I was looking at it prevents me from making a firm identification. But this is was a happy sighting: here was a non-poisonous butterfly which took good care to camouflage itself. Even in the photo, you could mistake it for a dried leaf if you just glance across it quickly.
The buffer zones of these protected forests are set up to attract large numbers of eco-tourists, so that residents have a stake in keeping the jungle protected. But since the average person is interested only in large animals, tigers or elephants and deer, there is little opportunity for those interested in small things like insects to observe them. From the back of a jeep I saw only the small creatures that I already knew. Seeing the familiar in a new setting can always show you new behaviour and raise new questions. So I found myself happy even with these limited opportunities.
False news of an impending insect apocalypse has long been debunked. Insects are not declining globally any faster than everything else. On a drive through Manas NP I took a few photos of the colourful insects that I saw in passing. The bee in the featured photo had beautiful wings of a kind I’d never seen before. Most insect colours are not due to pigments, but due to nanostructures on the wings or chitin, but they are equally tuned by evolution. Some time I need to find more about why and how insects use colour.
Exactly this issue has been studied extensively in butterflies. Bright colours in butterflies and caterpillars signal to predators that they are poisonous. This gives rise to a whole evolutionary chain of cheats: mimics which are not poisonous, but evolve colours which advertise, falsely, that they are. This drab looking butterfly, a blue crow (Euploea mulciber) seems to be an exception, because all crows and tigers are poisonous. But when it opens its wings you can see a deep blue colour in the forewing. Still pretty drab, you may think. But that’s because you are not a bird. Birds have colour receptors for ultraviolet in their eyes, and to them this butterfly would be a dazzling blue, advertising how poisonous it really is.
And then there were the flies. An iridescent blue-green blowfly (family Calliphoridae) landed on our jeep and crawled over the guard rails. I’m sure we’d deposited our sweat on it, and this was busily lapping up the salt. You would expect jungles to be full of blowflies. Their maggots feed on carrion and excrement, and there is no dearth of those in a jungle. The striped black and yellow insect which hovered around us gave me a bit of a scare. I thought it was a wasp and tried to bat it away, until I found that it was a hover fly (family Syrphidae). This nectar drinking pollinator mimics a wasp’s colouration for safety from predators. It wouldn’t work unless there were wasps in the jungle. Although I didn’t see one, the hover fly told us that they must be around. Traveling by jeep through a forest you miss most insects. I was fortunate to have at least caught a few of the more colourful ones.
Late mornings are times when you can sit in a garden and watch butterflies. They are not early risers, they would have woken and stretched their wings to the sun while you have breakfast, and will be out late in the morning for a few sips of nectar. The common crow (Euploea core) is one of the easiest to photograph. It is disdained by predators because the plants that it has fed on as a caterpillar fill it with distasteful chemicals. As a result it can afford to fly slow and sit on a flower for long times.
Even though it is so dark, pay attention. When it sits on a flower in bright sunlight you can see its glossy wings reflect the flower. I was very happy when it decided to land on marigolds. As I’d expected, at one point it turned. and I could capture the reflection of the marigold in its wing. If you can see it from India east and south all the way to Australia, but not on the islands of the Philippines, Borneo, or Papua and New Guinea. There must be an interesting story to follow up there another time, when I have another photo of the crow.
Don't hold your breath 