It is that time of year again !

An outing to photograph some special local Butterflies again proved to be an exciting time out.
The target was the beautiful Silver-studded Blue, found at a local reserve in Shropshire one of the few in the midlands if not the only one.

The ova or eggs are laid on plants in close proximity to ants nests, where when in the larval stage they are ushered into the nest of the ants by the ants themselves, the pheromone given of by the Larva makes the ants react as if it were a grub of their own, once inside it will be tended as if it is one of their own.

An interesting factoid is that larvae in captivity become agitated if no ants are in attendance and can or will die? the males seen to emerge ahead of the females and lay in wait for the females to restart the sequence.



From Above

Unattended Female

And so it begins again

 

Small Heath

Five-spotted Burnet Moth

Garden-tiger Moth

Ringlet Feeding

Just Beautiful

 

Coupled

The life cycle of the Silver-studded Blue is not unique in the insect world some of the goings on are a fantastic read . And some are species specific in that certain hosts are wising up to the game!!! a bit like birds in particular the Cuckoo v Reed Warbler egg coloration, And in Africa one Cuckoo's call specifies what species nest it was brought up in, ensuring its mate also had the same upbringing giving them a much closer colour symmetry to the hosts eggs, weird or what?

Cheers for now.

Paul