Category: plants

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 19, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today we have a photo-and-text submission from Athayde Tonhasca Júnior on fly migration. It’s a subject dear to my heart as I used to work on it, publishing three papers on migration in Drosophila.  Athayde’s subject, though, is hoverflies, not fruit flies. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Note: I changed Athayde’s words “hover flies” to the more common usage “hoverflies,” but Athayde notes that most entomologists use the two-word rather than one-word description.

On the road again, goin’ places that I’ve never been

Sometime between 1400 and 1200 BC, Yahweh (aka God) decided it was time to nudge the Egyptians to let their captive Israelites go. Yahweh could have tried diplomacy, but in his infinite wisdom he concluded that “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD”. And there was no better way to let the Pharaoh and his people know who the bigwig was around there than by punishing them with a series of plagues. Of the ten celestial disasters inflicted upon the Egyptians, two involved mosquitoes (or midges) and flies, which probably were also the agents behind another two plagues manifested as infectious diseases of people and livestock. Yahweh understood very well the efficacy of some flies (order Diptera) and pathogens to wreck revenge – after all, he created them.

Fig 1. The Third Plague of Egypt, by William de Brailes, circa 1250. Aaron strikes his rod on the ground, transforming dust into gnats (kinnim in Hebrew). In the King James version of the Bible, lice are the culprits, but today most scholars accept that kinnim should be translated as ‘gnats’ or ‘mosquitoes’ © Jan Luyken, 1712, Wikimedia Commons:

The tales of pestilent flies depicted in the book of Exodus could have been inspired by real events, as pest infestations and epidemics were recurrent in the ancient world. Fly outbreaks are facilitated by these insects’ capability to disperse for long distances and arrive at new locations suddenly and in massive numbers. There are no better examples of these efficient colonisers than hoverflies or syrphid flies (family Syrphidae) such as the marmalade (Episyrphus balteatus) and the migrant (Eupeodes corollae) hoverflies. Each autumn, they leave Britain and head south to spend the winter in southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Their offspring move northwards in the spring, lay eggs, and the new generation sets out on the cycle again. Researchers have estimated that up to four billion marmalade and migrant hoverflies cross the English Channel to and from Great Britain every year. This represents 80 tons of biomass. If you are impressed by these figures, you should know that hoverflies account for a fraction of insects’ latitudinal migrations known as ‘bioflows’: about 3.5 trillion insects, or 3200 tons of biomass, migrate into southern Britain annually (Wotton et al., 2019). Insect bioflows pour vast amounts of nutrients (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus) and countless prey, predators, parasites and herbivores into ecosystems, but we have only a vague understanding of their impact on food webs and local species.

Fig 2. A female marmalade hoverfly, a long distance frequent flier © Guido Gerding, Wikimedia Commons:

These hardy wanderers have another particularity of significant ecological importance: they transport pollen grains.

Most flies have no pollen-collecting structures and have few ‘hairs’ (setae), which are important pollen gatherers. These are negative marks for candidates to the pollinators’ club, but some flies compensate their shortcomings by their massive numbers. Each marmalade and migrant hoverfly carries an average of 10 pollen grains from up to three plant species on their journey into Britain. That’s paltry compared to a bee, but altogether, those flies bring in 3 to 8 billion pollen grains on each inward journey.

Pollen importation via flies is a recurrent phenomenon. In Cyprus, warm temperatures and favourable winds bring millions of insect migrants from the Middle East region, more than 100 km to the east. Flies make up nearly 90% of these bioflows, and many of them are loaded with pollen (Hawkes et al., 2022).

Fig 3. A common drone fly (Eristalis tenax) (A) and a blowfly (Calliphora sp.) (B) with orchid pollinia attached to their heads after a > 100-km sea crossing to Cyprus © Hawkes et al., 2022:

Pollen-loaded flies can turn up anywhere the wind takes them, even to specks of dry ground in the middle of nowhere. Over a two-month period, 121 marmaladehover flies reached a North Sea oil rig approximately 200 km from Aberdeen, UK. Over 90% of these flies had pollen attached to them, sometimes from eight plant species. Based on pollen barcoding and wind trajectory modelling, it was estimated that these flies traversed from 265 to 500 km of open water in a single journey, probably from the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark (Doyle et al., 2025).

Fig 4. (a) Location of an oil rig visited by hoverflies (b), and its aerial view © Doyle et al., 2025:

Flies’ long-distance pollen transfers may help connect isolated plant populations, such as in fragmented habitats, but we don’t know much about the ecological implications. However we do know that their contribution can be important. In continental Europe, wild carrot (Daucus carota) depends on a range of insects for pollinators, especially bees. But bees are absent from La Foradada, a 1,6 ha Mediterranean islet about 50 km off the Spanish coast. In this solitary spot of land, D. carota subsp. commutatus relies on the accidental arrival of common drone flies for its pollination (Pérez-Bañón et al., 2007).

Fi 5. La Foradada, devoid of bees and humans, is visited by pollinating drone flies © JavierValencia2005  Wikimedia Commons:

Butterflies, bumble bees, moths and dragonflies are known travellers, but we know much less about migrant flies, which may have significant roles in pollination ecology. We just have to pay more attention to these unpretentious pilgrims.

References

Doyle, T.D. et al. 2025. Long-range pollen transport across the North Sea: Insights from migratory hoverflies landing on a remote oil rig. Journal of Animal Ecology 94: 2267–2281.
Hawkes, W.S.L. et al. 2022. Huge spring migrations of insects from the Middle East to Europe: quantifying the migratory assemblage and ecosystem services. Ecography e06288.
Pérez-Bañón, C. et al., 2007. Pollination in small islands by occasional visitors: The case of Daucus carota subsp. commutatus (Apiaceae) in the Columbretes archipelago, Spain. Plant Ecology 192: 133-151.
Wotton, K.R. et al. 2019. Mass seasonal migrations of hoverflies provide extensive pollination and crop protection services. Current Biology 29: 2167–2173.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 10, 2026 • 8:15 am

Reader Ruth Berger sent some butterfly photos taken last year in Germany.  Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge Ruth’s photos by clicking on them.

Here are some butterflies I snapped on my walks on mostly sandy soil near the Main and Nidda rivers in and around Frankfurt, Germany, last year. I’ll start with a good picture (some of the others aren’t that good) of the small copper, Lycaena phlaeas, a holarctic species, on ragwort.

The next not so brilliant photo is of the orange tip (Anthocharis cardamines), whose males are so busy chasing females and each other at borders between patches of woodland and grassland in spring. Only the males of the species have the eponymic orange tip, here visiting the species’ major caterpillar feeding plant, Cardamine pratensis.

Unlike the males, orange tip females look much like any typical white butterfly (Pierinae) from above. The underside of the females has greenish markings similar, but not identical, to the species you see in the next picture, Pontia edusa, here shown feeding on a Centaurea flower:

I saw several species of red-spotted burnet moths this year, all members of the West Palaearctic Zygaena family. These are wondrous creatures, dressed in what looks like a blue black fur coat with a red-spotted cape on top. The following two pictures are of the most frequent species here, the 6-spot burnet moth, Zygaena filipendulae:

The next picture shows a moment from a scene I watched for around ten minutes: a male Queen of Spain fritillary (Issoria lathonia), the biggie on the left, chasing and harassing a small skipper (Thymelicus cf. sylvestris). Should any of the insect lovers here know what might be behind this behavior, please tell me:

The caterpillars of Issoria lathonia feed off Viola flowers. Below, you can see a female getting nectar from a European field pansy (Viola arvensis) in spring, showing its underside that has
silvery-white spots with a mother-of-pearl-like appearance:

Next is one of the prettier pictures, a male common blue (Polyommatus icarus):

While the males have a beautiful upper side of shiny blue (in young animals, the color can become washed out with age), the females of the German subspecies tend to be plain brown with orange spots: 

Next is a female marbled white (Melanargia galathea) , a species of the Nymphalidae family that despite its English name has nothing to do with the Pieridae family that most “whites” belong to. The females have a beige/tan hue seen from the side:

The boys are more black and white: 

And this one, shown from above, is apparently a bird-attack survivor:

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 3, 2026 • 8:15 am

We have a new contributor but also a longtime reader and a planet ecophysiologist, Howie Neufeld of Appalachian State University.  I met him when I gave a seminar at that beautiful school high in the mountains.  Howie’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Fall is the busiest tourism season in the Southern Appalachians. While most people come to see the fall color display by the trees, there are also numerous wildflowers that present at the same time. Here is a sampling of those flowers and trees for your enjoyment. All photos taken with a Google Pixel 7 phone.

Numerous goldenrod species bloom late summer into the fall. The species shown here is either Solidago canadensis or S. altissima. If altissima, then all are hexaploids. In the Midwest, you can find diploids, tetraploids and hexaploids. My student Katie Krogmeier showed that Midwest and eastern hexaploids differ in morphology and physiology, perhaps because they are neopolyploids (recently evolved after the polyploidy event). Why there are no diploids or tetraploids in the East is a mystery:

Closed Gentian (Gentian clausa), a species that flowers in the fall. Only insects strong enough to force petals open can pollinate these plants (usually bumblebees in the genus Bombus):

Blue Wood Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium) is common along trails. Younger disc flowers are yellow and attract more pollinators than the older red ones. The same phenomenon is found in White Wood Aster (Eurybia divaricata), which also flowers late in the year. Coevolution at its best:

Galax urceolata, also known as beetleweed, is a native evergreen understory herb. Leaves exposed to bright light when it is cold turn red by synthesizing anthocyanins and will green back up when it warms in the spring. The leaf in the foreground had another leaf shading one side, which is why that portion is still green. The tough leaves are often used for table decorations in restaurants and the species is subject to poaching. Our research on Galax can be found in this paper (click here).

Witch Hobble (Viburnum lantanoides) is common at moderately high elevations in the mountains of NC – this one from Elk Knob State Park. Branches that touch the ground can root, creating a tripping hazard, hence, its other name, Hobblebush. Its leaves have this splotchy pattern of anthocyanin accumulation, but eventually the entire leaf turns a deep reddish purple:

Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) flowers in October when it can be cold. Flowers may be pollinated by a wide variety of flies and and small bees , while at night it may be the Winter Owlet Moth (Actronicta hamamelis), which can raise its body temperature on cold days by shivering, enabling it to seek out flowers. It detects them by volatiles released from the flowers.

American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) has unusual, purple-colored fruits in the fall. A recent study (click here) showed that species with purple fruits are the best at attracting seed dispersers:

American Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana) grows above 4,500’ elevation in NC, like this one on the Rough Ridge Trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Numerous bird species and mammals such as deer, bears and squirrels feed on the bright red fruits:

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), shown here near Linville Falls off the Blue Ridge Parkway, produces leaves with a deep red color in early fall while the seeds hang down in elegant white sprays, making for a distinctive contrast in colors. Locals make sourwood honey when the trees flower in spring:

Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana), are nonphotosynthetic parasitic plants that feed off the roots of beech trees. They are common in the fall but often overlooked because they blend in with the forest floor, as these do here at Elk Knob State Park. Claude dePamphilis (click here), now at Penn State University, has shown that this species has a greatly reduced chloroplast genome compared to photosynthetic flowering plants: an example of the ultimate evolutionary dictum – use it or lose it:

This is Chinese sweetgum (Liquidambar formosana) growing on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. This ornamental variety and the native species (L. styraciflua) produce leaves showing a variety of colors, ranging from green, to yellow, to orange to red and ultimately to deep purple. Dr. Nicole Hughes and her students at High Point University are studying this phenomenon. Curiously, L. styraciflua, though it ranges from New England to Mexico, is not found in the mountains of western NC.:

Red Maples (Acer rubrum) produce vivid red leaves in the fall. The anthocyanins, which are produced in the fall, may act as a sun shield to protect leaves from excess light when cold. This may allow leaves time to withdraw nutrients back into their twigs for use next spring. William Hamilton, the theoretical evolutionary ecologist, offered an alternative theory in 2001 (click here) that fall leaf colors act as honest warning signal to warn insects to avoid such trees because they are chemically well defended. You can read more about the adaptive significance of fall leaf colors here (click here):

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), as seen here in Boone, NC produce brilliant yellow leaves in the fall, a result of high retention of carotenoids and the production of 6-hydroxykynurenic acid, which only occurs as the leaves turn yellow (click here). This may help disperse excess light energy to protect the leaves, similarly to how anthocyanins do for red leaves. Ginkgos also drop most of their leaves in just one night after a cold snap, the coordination of which is not well understood:

Fall colors surrounding the Linn Cove Viaduct on the eastern flank of Grandfather Mountain, first explored by Andre Michaux in 1794 and later by Asa Gray in 1843. This was the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, completed in 1987 because Hugh Morton, who owned Grandfather Mountain, did not want the Parkway to damage the slope, and it took quite a while to design this section. It is now the most popular section of the Parkway:

Sunrise at Beacon Heights rock outcrop along the Blue Ridge Parkway, just east of Grandfather Mountain. In the foreground is the Wilson Creek Area, which is part of the Wild and Scenic River System, while the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area is adjacent to the south:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 29, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today we have some plant photos sent by reader Amy Perry.  Amy’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

These photos were taken with my iPhone 11 in December of 2025 in the Torrey Pines State Nature Reserve Extension, except where otherwise indicated. I was pleasantly surprised to find enough flowers in bloom to photograph to send to you.

The Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana), for which the state nature reserve is named, is a rare pine species in California. It is a critically endangered species growing only in coastal San Diego County, and on Santa Rosa Island, offshore from Santa Barbara. The Torrey pine is endemic to the California coastal sage and chaparral ecoregion. Like all pines, its needles are clustered into fascicles that have a particular number of needles for each pine species; in the Torrey pine there are five needles in each fascicle, as in Photo 1 (taken outside the reserve in December 2024). Trees near the ocean are battered by strong winds into odd, twisty, even grotesque, shapes, as in the second photo. The third photo shows an upright tree, growing in the reserve extension, which is a separate area a few blocks from the ocean.

The species epithet torreyana is named for John Torrey, an American botanist, after whom the coniferous genus Torreya is also named. The Torrey pine is protected by a city tree ordinance in Del Mar, near the native habitat, and construction projects and residents require a permit for its removal.

California buckwheat, or flat-topped buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum), is a keystone species for sagebrush scrub ecosystems. It has been used as a food crop and medicinal plant by various Native American tribes. It’s a nectar host for several butterflies and a larval host for several others. Often the compact, drab dark brown balls of winter (Photo 4) coexist on the same plant as, and contrast with the fluffy, delicate white and pink blossoms (second photo) left over from spring, summer, and fall.

White sage (Salvia apiana) leaves are thickly covered in hairs that trigger oil glands; when rubbed oils and resins are released, producing a strong aroma. The flowers are very attractive to bees, which is described by the specific epithet, apiana. Young leaves start off green and turn white as they get older.

Also called bee sage or sacred sage, white sage is deeply rooted in the cultures and lifeways of indigenous communities of southern California and northern Baja, the only region where this sage naturally occurs in the world. Over-harvest of wild Californian white sage populations is a concern held by many Native American groups and conservationists. The destruction of white sage has become a focus of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy.

California aster (Symphyotrichum chilense) sports petite flowers in subtle shades of blue and lavender. I see it in those colors and in white. (Other flowers usually in blue or lavender sometimes occur in white in Indiana, where I live.) Butterflies and moths are attracted to the nectar. California aster, also called coast aster and Pacific aster, is a host plant for several species of both insects. Birds eat the seeds after blooming. Despite its scientific name, it does not occur in Chile:

Laurel sumac (Malosma laurina) is named “laurel” because the foliage is reminiscent of bay laurel but it is not in that plant family. It is a key plant in coastal sage scrub and chaparral, and the berries (second photo, October 2025) are appreciated by songbirds, especially warblers. It is sensitive to cold and tolerates extended freezing conditions poorly. Orange growers in the early history of southern California used to pick places to plant their oranges based on where laurel sumac was growing because this indicated it would not get too cold for oranges:

Telegraph weed (Heterotheca grandiflora) is a pioneer species and roadside weed even where it is native. This is a tall, bristly, hairy plant and looks weedy, but I think it’s cool because it’s unusual and spectacular. Sometimes exceeding a meter in height, as in the second photo (December 2024), its resemblance to a telegraph pole gives it this name. Another name is silk-grass goldenaster:

California sagebrush (Artemisia californica) has an aromatic fragrance and threadlike silvery green leaves. The silvery appearance is due to the numerous fine hairs on the leaves. Although it is called sage because of its aroma, it is really a member of the sunflower family. An amusing name for it is Cowboy cologne. Here it is growing in the middle of California brittlebush or California bush sunflower (Encelia californica). The dried resin of this plant can be burned for incense; the Spanish common name for this plant is incienso. Like many desert plants, both of these are very sprawling and unruly-looking:

 

Holiday flowers!

December 28, 2025 • 8:30 am

And to complete the wildlife today, reader Rodger Atkin sent in some flowers. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This flowered last night in our garden in Thailand. From Wikipedia:

“Dracaena fragrans (cornstalk dracaena), is a flowering plant species that is native to tropical Africa, from Sudan south to Mozambique, west to Côte d’Ivoire and southwest to Angola, growing in upland regions at 600–2,250 m (1,970–7,380 ft) altitude.”

Wikipedia does not mention it but ours flowers only at night, giving off a very heady perfume. I have never seen anything to pollinate it and have never seen fruit on the plant.

The second two pictures were from the next morning:all finished, and and we’ll wait for next year.

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 22, 2025 • 8:30 am

Today we have more lovely butterfly photos sent in by Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistician at Oklahoma State University, who notes that “the first twelve are photographed by me and the last two by my wife (Sreemala Das Majumder). She is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Sciences at Oklahoma State University.”  The pair has a bird-and-butterfly photo site called Wingmates. Pratyay’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. 

We have photographed many butterflies over the last couple of years, so I wanted to share on more batch of them – this time some larger ones from the family Papilionidae that are all commonly known as swallowtails.

Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes), our largest butterfly species. The flower is of Tall Thistle (Cirsium altissimum), which is native in our region:

Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) on wild coneflower (I believe Echinacea pallida) and looking like a fancy kite! These are probably the most common breeding Swallowtails in our area. We had many caterpillars on our fennel this year:

Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor) – Gotta love these with all the beautiful iridescence. They are relatively easy to invite into your area if you have pipevine on your property. They avoid predators by being poisonous/distasteful:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), a common migrant:

This one is also an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), but it is a dark morph female. While males are always yellow, females have two morphs – yellow and dark. It is thought that by being dark, they benefit from mimicking the distasteful Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor). This is true for some other species such as Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus), Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes), Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis) etc.:

Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus), which looks quite similar to a Black Swallowtail:

Dorsal side of the Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes):

This one is not from Oklahoma. These two Palamedes Swallowtails (Papilio Palamedes) chasing each other in the swamps of North Carolina:

Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus), another Eastern species. Love their long tails!:

I think this image captures all the common Western swallowtail species. The one coming in and the one in front at the right are both Two-tailed Swallowtails (Papilio multicaudata). One on the left is definitely a Pale Swallowtail (Papilio eurymedon), and I think the one behind the right Two-tailed is a Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus), but please correct me if I am wrong. All of these congregated in this rocky area to get the necessary nutrients on a sunny day in the Rocky Mountains, of Colorado:

Another Two-tailed in flight and some others from the same area:

A black-on-black image of a Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) hovering over garden phlox:

These last two photos are by Sreemala:

Symmetry! Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) coming in:

Yet another photo of a Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) from our garden:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 12, 2025 • 8:15 am

Send ’em in, please, or we’ll be empty over the holiday season.

Today’s photos of butterflies come from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University. Pratyay’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Pratyay and his wife Sreemala have a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates.

Here are various other butterflies photographed in Oklahoma, most of them at our backyard.

Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) eyeing a flower to land on, but it was already occupied by a skipper:

Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) taking off from a cosmos:

Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) on cosmos. These plants are hardy and attract many pollinators:

Another commoner in our area – American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis):

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), looks very similar to the American Lady, but one can spot the difference if they look carefully. They have the widest distribution of any butterfly, found on all continents except Antarctica and Australia:

Another Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) on our cosmos. Mid-day harsh light is terrible for bird photography, but it can be worked around when photographing butterflies. In fact, I quite like the glow that comes from the sun hitting the butterflies from directly above:

Closeup of a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). They have a long “nose” (actually, elongated mouthpart), but can’t beat the American Snout (Libytheana carinenta) in this regard:

The next two images are for the readers to guess which one is an American Lady and which is a Painted Lady. Can you tell what this one is?:

What kind of Lady is this?:

Monarch (Danaus plexippus):

Viceroys (Limenitis archippus) look similar to Monarch, but they are smaller and have a black line across the hindwing that the Monarch doesn’t. They were thought to be a Batesian mimic of Monarch for a long time, but are now considered a Mullerian mimic where both species are unappealing to predators and evolve similar appearances, reinforcing predators’ avoidance of either one:

Not all butterflies visit flowers. This Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), for example, only visits flowers when its usual food sources – rotting fruit, plant sap, dung etc., are not easily available:

Tawny Emperors (Asterocampa clyton) have a similar diet:

Hackberry Emperor (Asterocampa celtis), another similar butterfly from the same family. They are quite common in our area:

Northern Pearly-eye (Lethe anthedon). We don’t see this one very often:

Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), one of the most uniquely beautiful butterflies that we see here: