The days were warm and sunny, vegetation was lush and green ...
... on the 18th of August 2016, when I took the photographs that will soon form this memory - post about insects, spiders, and some other stuff from the woods not far from my hometown.
Here you can see the Argynnis paphia butterfly feeding on the Clematis vitalba flowers. Clematis vitalba it's a climbing plant that covers the shrubs and lower branches of the trees at the edge of the forest.
In the shade under the trees, I found quite a few small moths.
Back then in 2016, I had only a small compact, half-broken camera at my disposal, so the photographs in this post are, and will continue to be, of considerably lower quality than the recent ones. No macro lens was involved here. Everything has a grainy, slightly washed-up look, but for a memory that is slowly fading like the memories usually do, this could be almost appropriate.
Most of my uploads looked like this in the springtime of 2019, in my first days on HIVE, which was only Steemit back then, but was also - kind of HIVE without knowing it, because now you can see all that old stuff here on HIVE as well. Here you can see the Archips crataegana ...
... a small moth from the Tortricidae family.
This is the Apotomis capreana. Another small species from the same family.
Here you can see a member of another family. The Pyrausta purpuralis ...
from the Crambidae family. In this photograph, you can see some minuscule leafhopper shearing the leaf with the moth.
This is the Pandemis heparana. Tortricidae family, again.
Here you can see the Oxyopes heterophthalmus with its prey.
This ambush hunter from the Oxyopidae family has caught a crane fly.
Here you can see the juvenile Argiope bruennichi spider hanging on its web.
In this photograph, the young orb weaver has started enveloping some small wasp or a sawfly, and in the following shot ...
... the prey is almost completely enveloped.
Here you can take a look at the overall summer atmosphere in the woods.
At one point, while walking barefoot along the narrow path bordered with dense vegetation ...
... I came across a dead mouse.
The flies were ready to start their reproductive cycle on that little carcass.
The Common nettle (Urtica dioica) has grown high and dense along the path ...
... and the Aglais io caterpillars were swarming on this plant.
Here you can see the same kind of caterpillar, but this one is older, bigger, it looks ready for the metamorphosis. The Aglais io is commonly known as the Peacock butterfly. A bit later, when I left the path and continued through the shrubs under the trees ...
... different caterpillars were swarming and hanging from the branches above me.
These are the larvae of the Yponomeuta evonymella moth. Moths from the Yponomeutidae family are commonly known as Ermine moths.
Here you can see the Camptogramma bilineata moth.
This is a species from the Geometridae family.
This is another small moth from the Geometridae family, but here, I can't tell you the exact species.
Here you can take a look at the setting, the scenery in which these insects were found.
The robber fly (Asilidae family) in this photograph has caught some hoverfly (Syrphidae family).
This is the Leptura maculata ...
... a beetle from the Cerambycidae family. Cerambycidae are commonly known as Longhorn beetles.
Here you can see the Leptura maculata mating on the blackberry flower.
This beautiful shiny beetle from the Chrysomelidae family is the Chrysolina herbacea. Beetles from the Chrysomelidae family are commonly known as Leaf beetles.
This considerably bigger beetle has the same kind of metallic green shine as the Chrysolina herbacea, but it's a very different species. Trypocopris pyrenaeus it's a dung beetle from the Geotrupidae family. Beetles from this family are commonly known as Earth-boring dung beetles.
Here you can see a wasp from the Ichneumonidae family. Don't know the exact species.
This is another Ichneumon wasp that I wasn't able to identify.
This is a small, very young nymph of the Pholidoptera griseoaptera bush - cricket. These crickets are pretty big when they grow up.
Here you can see an adult of another species. Don't know which one exactly.
Here you can see a well-camouflaged Tylopsis lilifolia bush - cricket.
This is the Celastrina argiolus, a small blue butterfly from the Lycaenidae family.
This small butterfly, photographed near the path that leads across the small clearing and continues through the wood, is also part of the Lycaenidae family. Satyrium acaciae is the name of the species.
Here you can see a considerably bigger butterfly. The Maniola jurtina.
This relatively big fly with colorful eyes ...
... is the Philipomyia aprica horse fly (Tabanidae family).
On that occasion, the fly was using its forelegs to clean the eyes and antennae.
This shield bug, the Rhaphigaster nebulosa it's pretty hard to notice on the bark of the tree. So I cut out the insect from its original place in the photograph and put it on a clean surface for you to see it.
Here you can see a well-camouflaged little moth, that looks like a fragment of wood or bark. Or some other dry plant part that ended up on the green leaf.
I can't tell you the name of the species, but this is definitely a moth from the Crambidae family.
I can't tell you much about this interesting caterpillar. Actually, in the previous sentence, I already said all I know about it.
That summer walk brought me to the top of the hill, where I took this last, closing photograph. Here you can take a good look at the forest spread across the hills around the ancient city called Nesactium, an important archeological site situated about ten kilometers from Medulin, my hometown.
Hope you enjoyed the journey. As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.
