After a bit of aimless driving from village to village in the rural area around the town of Motovun, about seventy-eighty kilometers from home, I stopped to spend some time in search of insects and plants for today's post.
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Among a wide variety of interesting, colorful stuff on the meadow ...
... this structure made of foam was the first thing that caught my attention.
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When I made a little hole in it to take a look at its mysterious interior ...
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... I saw this young but fully developed Philaenus spumarius, a very common froghopper from the Aphrophoridae family.
This species comes in a dozen or more variations with different markings and coloration.
The foam is produced by the larvae. A female can produce up to three hundred fifty – four hundred eggs that are laid singly or in groups of up to thirty. Once out of the egg, the larva generates the protective foam that provides a nice humid shelter with favorable temperature and humidity in its interior.
The result of this very effective strategy is that the mortality in the larval stage which lasts about 50 days, remains very low even in bad weather.
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A bit further on the same meadow ...
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... I came across this beautiful orchid ...
... the Neotinea tridentata, commonly known as the three-toothed orchid. This species that grows across southern and central Europe can't be found in the seaside areas around my hometown. I mean, I never saw it there.
This small spider that I wasn't able to identify was photographed in the short grass under the orchid.
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The Agapanthia cardui beetle was resting on some yellow, dandelion-like flower not far from there.
I took two shots ...
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... and then, I noticed a bug that I rarely encounter in my area. Here, on the Leucanthemum vulgare flower, you can see the Dryophilocoris flavoquadrimaculatus, a species from the Miridae family.
AND THAT'S IT. IT STARTED WITH THE FOAM ...
... AND THEN EXPANDED A BIT. HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE MACRO VIEW. SOON THE SOFT RAIN STARTED TO FALL, AND I DECIDED THAT DRIVING BACK HOME COULD BE A GOOD IDEA.