Macro Monday this week is the Ruby-tailed Wasp (Chrysis ignata). It’s a species of cuckoo wasp, parasites that lay their eggs in the nests of other wasp species.
The species is found across the European continent, this specimen was photographed in a garden in Hatherton, Cheshire, England.
My Macro Monday post this week is a follow up to my post a few weeks ago about the eggs of a Large White Butterfly hatching.
These are two Large White Butterfly caterpillars on Nasturtium leaves. I suspect that one is from the eggs I photographed. Because of the size disparity between the two I suspect that one is from a different group of eggs that hatched at a different time.
My Macro Monday post this week is a Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus), a butterfly species found in Europe. An alternative common English name is Hedge Brown.
The darker patches in the center of the forewing show this is a male. The butterfly is resting on a Bramble leaf in Faddiley near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England.
Macro Monday this week is traveling back to Hatherton near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England in the late 1980s.
This is a Yellow Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria) although the common English name was Common Yellow Dung Fly when I was captioning the slides in the 1980s. Another common English name is Golden Dung Fly.
A Yellow Dung Fly on a tree trunk in Hatherton near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England.
I meant to post this Macro Monday last week but forgot. It’s a follow-up to my Macro Monday post two weeks ago.
These are the recently hatched caterpillars of a Large White Butterfly. All the eggs have now hatched and most of the egg shells have been eaten by the caterpillars. They eat the egg shells because they contain plenty of nutrients, then they start eating the Nasturtium leaf the eggs were laid on.
Macro Monday this week is more of a close-up Monday.
I spotted this red Daylily on a walk yesterday morning. A neighbour has lots of Orange Daylilies growing along the road. This year there are also variegated yellow one’s and this small red one.
This week’s Macro Monday is a follow up to my post last week.
This is the same group of Large White Butterfly eggs on a Nasturtium leaf in a Hatherton, Cheshire garden. They are now starting to hatch. After eating their way out of the egg casing some of the young caterpillars turn around and eat more of the casing. The casing may contain nutrients or minerals that help the caterpillars develop.
