Females butterflies are usually a lot more choosy than males. They produce eggs, and have more resources invested in each one; compared to the millions of tiny sperms that males can produce and put about! So for females, some of whom will only mate once, it is imperative to choose the best male, in terms of…
These beautiful dung beetles are relatively common in NW Spain, and can often be seen flying purposefully through the pine forests, like tiny green helicopters, on a mission to find a cow pat or some horse droppings. They are a variety of Dor beetle, (Trypocopris pyrenaeus var. coruscans), similar to a couple of Dumble Dor beetles…
The Marsh Fritillary butterfly, Euphydryas aurinia, is distributed right across the Palaearctic region – from Ireland to Russia. It is a species complex, divided into mostly distinct taxa or subspecies, with slightly different appearances, but strongly different ecological requirements (Casacci et al., 2015; Korb et al., 2016). These local, or regional populations have often specialised on, or adapted to,…
I had the pleasure of coming across two large fly species in Spain this summer, both of which are thought to mimic the European hornet (Vespa crabro). They are both large and somewhat hornet-like in appearance and behaviour. In fact, in both cases, I initially thought they were hornets. Looks like a hornet, sounds like a hornet,…
Ray Cannon's nature notes 