For your delectation we have two sets of photographs today. The first is by reader Siegfried Gust:
While taking some landscape pictures in the hills of the Nicoya peninsula [Costa Rica] I saw this Bee Killer (Mallophora cf. fautrix) perched on some barbed wire with it’s typical prey. It seems to me that it might be a bumble bee mimic, as it’s size and coloration are nearly identical to a common Eulaema sp. in these parts.
JAC: The “bee” killer is actually a fly in the family of robber flies. And it certainly looks like a bumble bee mimic, though I’m not sure what the mimicry achieves. I suspect it’s to deceive the bumble bees it kills, but perhaps a more knowledgeable reader can tell us.
This strange looking bird is a Jabiriú (Jabiru mycteria). These large storks are the tallest flying birds in the Americas with large males reaching 5ft tall.
And finally a Tropical Screech-Owl (Otus choliba) that was intently staring at something in the grass, though I couldn’t see what it was. [JAC: readers?]
And we have a new contributor, reader Peter Coutros, who offers some thornlike treehoppers.
I am currently an Archaeology Ph.D. candidate at Yale, lending a hand on the Baringo Palaeontological Research Project (Headed by prof. Andrew Hill) The project Director this year is Jessamy Doman and her work was focused on the late Miocene deposits in the Tugen Hills around Lake Baringo in the Kenyan portion of the Rift Valley. After almost 2 months out there, we’ve collected some really interesting and exciting fossil specimens – these of course, help to explain why evolution is true and how it proceeded through deep-time (I’m not trying to promote anyone’s work, just a bit of background).Whilst hiking through the scrub brush, trying to find our way to a particularly elusive sediment exposure, I came face to face (quite literally) with these little guys. At first what caught my eye was the large ants scurrying up and down the tree branches. Closer inspection however, revealed these small, odd-colored thorns jumbled up along the stem beneath the frenzy of ants. My first thought was that, perhaps, these were egg sacs of this new arboreal ant species! On still closer inspection, however, I saw they had legs – and were moving around to avoid my gaze. I was completely baffled. I snapped a couple of shots and did a bit of research when I got back to camp that night.
Treehoppers! These are marvels of evolution. Obviously, their morphology resembles the thorns of the trees as a sort of camouflage – which is pretty cool in and of itself. On top of that, however, they live in a mutualistic relationship with several species of ants, bees or wasps. They use their beaks to puncture the plant stem to feed on sap. As they are apparently pretty messy eaters, the other insects are able to feed from the honeydew that they produce in exchange for protection from predators (hence the defensive reaction of the ants when my friend plucked one from the branch). Interestingly, the ‘Honeydew Honey’ made by the stingless bees from this stuff is a highly prized variety.
Obviously, I would be interested to hear any additional information my fellow readers can find!
All nice photos – the bee killer is very sharp especially.
Owl expressions with their big eyes are always amusing to me. This owl looks horrified at what he’s looking at on the ground below.
Do the ants drink the sap directly or do they get the calorie rich excretions of the hoppers like other ants do with aphids?
I can personally attest to the nice taste of insects that harvest the sugary solution from these sucking insects. You can taste them yourselves in the US in the summer by finding aphids tended by ants. The ants taste wonderful raw.
Why waste time on ants when you can have the aphids?!
The story of the goose that laid the golden eggs?
Great pix, and the Jabiru is a really weird looking bird — right up there with the Marabou stork.
I cannot add much to the treehoppers. Many do aggregate together, and their honeydew, which is secreted from their rear ends, is prized by ants. Of course I love to tell people that bee honey is essentially vomit.
Fossils? If it is permitted to say, I would love to see some pictures of fossils that you found.
Is it really a bee mimic? I am not so sure – lots of robber flies are covered with bristles…
There could be a bee that it resembles.
Robber flies that mimic bees might be an example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
That’s what I was thinking. That it could frequent flowers that bees do without raising suspicion.
Which is exactly JAC’s hypothesis, if I read him correctly. 🙂
And mine, too–before reading Jerry’s, honest.
Dom, that looks so much like a bumblebee! Perhaps the bristled robber flies you’re used to seeing are ALL mimicking something.
It’s bristled robber flies all the way down.
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Did Noah collect some thorny shrub samples and accidentally save the tree hoppers? I wonder what else he saved by accident.
Anthrax, tuberculosis, leprosy, ebola….
I remember one of those 70’s Life-Science series popular science books — “Animal Behavior” I think it was…
There was an experiment involving a robber fly bumblebee mimic, real bumblebees, and a bee-naive frog (had no knowledge of bees). The photo sequence went like this:
1) frog fed a fly; eats it heartily.
2) frog fed bee mimic; frog happily eats it
3) frog fed stunned bumblebee; frog gets stung on the tongue
4) robber fly brought to frog; frog ducks
5) regular fly brought to frog; frog noms it.
Is it possible the bee mimicry protects it from getting nommed?
Isn’t that an example of Batesian mimicry?
Isn’t that a honeybee though that the robber fly is eating? Doesn’t look like a bumble bee.
Yes it’s a honey bee.
Great group of photos today. That is one whacky looking stork. And 5′ tall? It would be neat watching one take wing.
All the insects are interesting. The macro shot of the bee killer is awesome.
Thanks Peter for the detailed information on the Treehoppers and their symbiosis. And good luck finding fossils. Send any good photos if you have any. I know PCC has posted fossils in the past.
One time in Colombia we were in a place where the people had two pet jabiru storks. They mostly just stood around. I wasn’t very interested in getting close and personal with them.
If you look closely you can see a small red mite on the front leg of the Bee-killer.
A view of the bee killer from a different angle can be seen here.
Just use Siegfried’s name for the link to his flikr account, where you can see the other image and many, many others.
You’ll be glad you did.
Thanks! I am glad I did!
Thanks Johnnie, I’m not sure why the link didn’t show up.
That is just so very cool!
And is that really a blue spot in the fly’s eye? At first I thought it was a reflection, but it doesn’t appear to be on close-up, nor on some of the pics that came up in a Google image search.
Are you referring to the hexagonal light spot on it’s eye? if so, it’s the reflection of the flash.
That was my first thought, and I thought it very cool that it was hexagonal. When I zoomed in though, it almost looked like pigmented tiny fringes, (but not at all like compound eyes, I must say).
So I thought I’d check a few more pics, and some of them were confusing, too. OTOH, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a compound eye with different colors, so I should have just stuck with my first impression. 🙂
Does the hexagonality have something to do with the arrangement of all the little ommatidia?
As far as I understand it, and my understanding is quite limited, it has to do with the directionality of the individual ommatidia. They reflect or absorb they light depending on the angle that the light has in relation to them. So my guess is that the arrangement of them is such that those with in that hexagon fall within a certain angular relationship to the flash.
The effect is particularly pronounce with dragonflies.
I’m surprised I haven’t noticed it before! Anyway, yet another feature of a most fascinating shot.
I love the ants-love-honeydew relationship because it lets me mention debris-carrying lacewings.
Larval lacewings are voracious eaters, and aphids are soft and numerous… easy prey. However, when ants are around, they’ll attack any predator that threatens their sugar source. Lacewings, being soft-bodied themselves, stand no chance against ant mandibles.
So they cover themselves. They grab dirt, lichen, remains of their prey, or whatever else they can find and attach it to long hairs on their back. Adorable and deadly. The ants don’t take notice of the moving clump of dirt that starts eating aphids right under their noses.
Neuropterans are the best. Ants, aphids, and membracids are all also cool.
My gosh! The Decorator Crab of the insect world!
I’m so happy to know of that. 🙂
Peter, great shots & story about the treehoppers! Yet another fascinating tale of co-evolution and mimicry.