The shiny blister beetle on the following photograph ...
... the Meloe violaceus ...
... was chewing some juicy leaves hidden among the tough, fibrous ... partially dry grass off the coastal meadow ...
... and I noticed what looked like a series of mysterious black holes in this sea of grass ...
... when I came closer ...
... and took a look from above ... I saw that this cool phenomenon was created by the growth of another plant ...
... the Scolymus hispanicus ... as the robust thistle grows and develops, it pushes the surrounding grass, and that's how these interesting hollows are made. They look like flower pots exposed to the sun, dense grass doesn't block the way, so the conditions are favorable to quite a few delicate young plants that you can see growing among the thorny Scolymus hispanicus leaves ... on the following photograph ...
... you can see the dried out fragments of another grass ... a very different kind of grass. Since all this vegetation grows very near to the sea, just a few meters from the coastal rocks, it gets regularly salted by big waves during the windy days that beside the salt, often bring also interesting little fragments from the sea. Here, in this little thistle - garden, you can see a piece of the Mediterranean tapeweed (Posidonia oceanica) ... a flowering plant that creates dense underwater meadows on the sandy seabed, in shallow, sunlit waters from 1 to 35 meters.
When I took a better look, using the macro lens, I found this minuscule, sponge - like structure near the edge of the desiccated leaf. This is a shell of some Foraminifera, a single-celled organism that creates complex, elegant shells visible to naked eye, made of calcium carbonate or agglutinated sediment particles.
Just a few meters further ...
... I encountered this colorful caterpillar ...
... of the Malacosoma castrense moth ... when these larvae were younger, they weren't so vividly colored, and they roamed the area in swarms. You can take a look at that phase in their life in the NEWS FROM THE MEADOWS from 05. April 2021, here is the link to that old post : @borjan/news-from-the-meadows-05
Now they are scattered across the vast meadow, much bigger and more colorful ...
... usually I see one of them every 10 - 20 meters or so.
The lady beetles were very active today ...
... some of them had many black dots on the mostly red background of their elytra ...
... and some only some orange - cream - colored markings with only a few minuscule black dots ...
... despite the different look of these Coccinellidae photographed among the thorns of the young Scolymus hispanicus plant, they belong to the same species ... the Harmonia quadripunctata. Like most lady beetles, Harmonia quadripunctata is a predator that feeds mainly on aphids. Although the differences between the lady beetles that you just saw are clearly visible ...
... they can be even more pronounced in some species ... here you can see the orange version of the Adalia decempunctata lady beetle ...
... here is the yellow version with a few more black dots ...
... photographed on the long blade of grass ...
... on the wild oat (Avena sativa) plant ...
... and here ... resting on a nearby plant of the same kind ...
... is a pretty different looking Adalia decempunctata.
A few meters further, I found a similar looking one, with more vividly colored markings.
This is another predatory species that feeds mainly on aphids. After this slightly confusing bunch of lady beetles ...
... I photographed the classic - looking Coccinella septempunctata ... that ended up caught in the cobweb ... here you can see the Gibbaranea bituberculata spider feeding on the lady beetle.
Some time and about a hundred meters later, I sat down in the grass ...
... to photograph the big, juicy flower buds of the Urospermum dalechampii plant ...
... this thing will turn into a big yellow flower some days from now.
A bit later, while rambling through the grass, I encountered this minuscule fly, the Thaumatomyia notata. Larvae of this species usually live among the roots of grasses ... but they don't damage the plants. The larvae are carnivorous and feed on root aphids. Adult flies feed on nectar of flowers and various other sweet liquids and excretions, like those from the ripe and rotting fruits, ad example.
After taking this shot ...
... I noticed some flowers in the distance ...
... and, when I came closer ...
... I saw that these are the Ornithogalum umbellatum flowers.
Various Ornithogalum species are commonly known as Star-of-Bethlehem plant ... due to the white stellate flowers.
In the center of one of those flowers I noticed a leafhopper nymph ... I took this shot, and then ...
... the minuscule insect jumped on the petal, of another, pretty distant flower.
I can't tell you the exact species here ... maybe if I photographed an adult, I would be able to find the name of the species ... but right now, with only these shots at my disposal, after an hour-long Internet search, I still don't know what kind of Cicadellidae is this.
A bit further I photographed another beautiful plant ...
... the flower - bearing stem of this Leopoldia comosa was curved like a rainbow.
After photographing this glittering little moth, and here again I don't know the exact species ...
... I was on my way home ... as always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work ... and as always in this NEWS FROM THE MEADOWS, they were all taken today.
