July 27, 2018
FRITILLARY MEETS SPIDER
Each morning when I water the garden a good number of butterflies are attracted, for they like to perch on the ground basking as they suck up moisture loaded with the soil's minerals, or maybe a rainbow of nutrients in solution on wet burro turds used as fertilizer. It's good seeing so many butterflies flitting about, getting exactly what they're wanting.
One morning this week, however, a certain orangish Variegated Fritillary got caught in the web of a golden morph of the Spined Micrathena spider. You can see what it looked like as the spider approached the frantically struggling butterfly, right before the spider bit it behind the head, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727mc.jpg
The moment when the spider's venom-injecting fangs pierced the butterfly's exoskeleton is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727md.jpg
In that picture if you look closely, right below the fritillary's dark, rounded compound eyes, you can see the spider's two broad, elongated "jaws," or chelicerae, inserted into the golden fuzz behind the head. At the very bottom of the chelicerae the hidden fangs are injecting venom. Immediately below the chelicerae on the spider's "face," are four black points, which are eyes. Smaller eyes appear at the side.
I felt sorry for the fritillary, but also empathized with the spider's need to eat. It's just how Nature is set up, and I'm in no position to question the matter. About an hour after the last photo was taken, the fritillary had been reduced to a rather dry mummy, many of the wings' golden scales now dusting the butterfly's face, and the spider seems to have cut off the legs. You can see the sad scene at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727me.jpg
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BROWN SETWING DRAGONFLY
Late one afternoon as the Sun dipped low and it began to cool off a little, a dragonfly appeared atop a dead grass stem at the very rim of the deep pit next to the hut, right in front of my reading spot. You can see him at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727df.jpg
I thought sure he'd fly away as I approached for other views, but he didn't. Next I got a fine side shot nicely showing the black and yellow stripes on its thorax, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727dg.jpg
The dragonfly seemed to like the spot. I got so close that he flew off, but then instantly returned to another stem just inches away, displaying unusual fearlessness or attachment to one spot. Up close I got a wing shot, because in dragonfly identification the patterns formed by wing venation are fixed and vary from species to species. You can the wings' intricate network of veins at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727dh.jpg
The little being got so used to the camera being less than an inch from his face that he permitted the amazing portrait at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727di.jpg
At first I thought my visitor was the commonly seen Thornbush Dasher, which we looked at just last week, and whose page is at https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/dasher.htm
However, that dragonfly is larger and more robust, with bluish/greenish eyes and a white spot near the end of its abdomen, while our pit-rim-sitter has brownish/reddish eyes and there's no white spot.
It's the Brown Setwing, DYTHEMIS STERILIS, occurring throughout most of Mexico and the Caribbean south through Central America into northern South America. The genus Dythemis occurs only in the American tropics, with seven species recognized.
Brown Setwings occur on many dragonfly lists and plenty of pictures have been taken of them, but there's little information on their life history. I'm glad I can report our Brown Setwing's stubborn refusal to move away from the pit's rim, but also the fact that each afternoon for several days in a row he returned to the same dead grass stem, and took many, many short flights to catch prey I couldn't even see. He continues to do so.
I've wondered whether his attraction to the pit's rim might be an adaptation for our karst topography punctuated with many sinkholes?
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SCHMIDT'S STRIPED SNAKE
At https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/stripesn.htm we look at little snake somewhat similar to the North's garter snake, the Schmidt's Striped Snake. Back when pictures on that page were taken, though, I didn't have a camera with close-up capabilities, so last weekend along the road to the frutería in Temozón I had mixed feelings about seeing the species as roadkill, though in not too bad a condition. You can see him looking alive enough at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727s1.jpg
Several species found in our general area are assigned to the genus Conophis, to which this species belongs. Since the species are somewhat similar and their taxonomy isn't well worked out, I wanted a good shot of this snake's facial scales, for scale number, shape and configuration are much used in snake identification. A side view of this snake's head is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727s2.jpg
The head, nicely showing the reddish brown atop the head, which is a good field mark, appears at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727s3.jpg
Schmidt's Striped Snakes are described as terrestrial, nocturnal snakes with fangs at the back of their mouths instead of up front. They inhabit moist and dry forests, and I read that they're not encountered in urban or agricultural areas, and are associated with water bodies, though this one was not far from a cornfield, and I don't think there was a standing body of water within a kilometer of there. Some of the fields are sometimes irrigated with sprinkled water, though, so maybe that's wet enough.
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PIÑUELA FRUITS TURNING ORANGE
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/bromelia.htm we admire the spiny blades, flowers and developing fruits of a commonly occurring, large, terrestrial bromeliad known as the Piñuela. Nowadays our Piñuelas' fruits are full sized and turning yellowish orange, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727pn.jpg
The fruits still have some time before they're ripe enough for producing viable seeds. It's interesting that the yellowish orange color is the same appearing on fruits of closely related pineapple plants as they begin to mature. Pineapple fruits keep this color for weeks, though, before they become soft and sweet enough to eat, and I suspect it'll be weeks before these fruits are ripe, too.
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LENNEA TREE
During my recent camping trip to southeastern Campeche state, on the morning of July 2nd I emerged from the woods near the entrance to Chicanná ruins and began hiking eastward on the main highway between Chetumal and Escárcega. Soon it became apparent that vegetation in that area consisted mostly of species we also have in the northern Yucatan, just that the mix is different, with a handful of species missing, while a few turn up in Campeche, but not farther north. I attribute this to it being rainier down south.
For example, beside the road near Becán a small, slender-limbed tree turned up embedded among other trees and bushes, a flowering limb shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727ln.jpg
The flowers were arranged in branched panicles, sometimes drooping, as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727ls.jpg
As seen from the front, the blossoms were clearly "papilionaceous," shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727lq.jpg
As that picture shows, "papilionaceous" flowers are those with five petals, of which the top -- which more or less rises up and often is enlarged -- is called the standard or banner, plus there are two side petals called wings, and the two lower petals are united along their common margin into a scoop- or boat-like structure. From the side, however, the blossoms appeared to be only weakly papilionaceous, the standard not very erect and not much bigger than the rest, and the wings mostly hiding the keel, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727lm.jpg
If you remove a wing, the blossom's ten stamens are seen forming a curved cylinder around the longish ovary, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727lp.jpg
These features firmly establish our tree as a member of the huge Bean Family. Another field mark often seen in that family was the tree's pinnately compound leaves, seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727lo.jpg
One unusual feature of the tree was that its slender branches sometimes curled around as if they wanted to become vines, as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180727lr.jpg
All these features led to a little-documented tree endemic to southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, LENNEA MELANOCARPA, with no English name. At first the species was assigned to the genus Robinia, familiar to North Americans as locust trees.
On the Internet little information is available about this tree, though the online Atlas de las Plantas de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana reports that in the Mexican state of Puebla the tree is commonly used to lower the fever, and that in the state of Veracruz it's valued for curing a certain kind of susto, or magical spell, in which the patient sleeps too much, and at irregular hours.
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THE LITTLE GUAVA
Each morning once it's light enough to see the ground, before I start jogging down the little forest trail, I do some stretching exercises. To steady myself as I reach behind me and pull a heel up against my butt, the open hand of my free arm presses against the trunk of a tree we've called the Little Guava, beside the gate. It's the same Little Guava tree profiled at https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/psidium.htm
I've done my stretching there for hundreds of time, but for the first time this week it began occurring to me that each morning I look forward to having the palm of my hand against the tree's trunk. On our Little Guava's page you can see that the trunk is smooth, handsomely splotchy, and shallowly furrowed, like muscles beneath a strongman's skin.
As I jog I think about this pleasant feeling. The tree is a member of the Myrtle Family, along with eucalyptus, Allspice and other fragrant species, and if you scrape its trunk very shallowly with a fingernail, it smells like dry cinnamon powder. Could it be that subconsciously I'm smelling the tree, and the fragrance brightens my spirit along the line of aroma-therapy principles? The tree's crushed leaves smell even better, a kind of sweet, sparkling spiciness.
Maybe that's part of it, but when I remember the feeling of having my completely open hand firmly against the trunk's smooth surface, it's definitely the touching that's most meaningful. Somehow the touch seems to convey to me a feeling of friendliness, a welcoming...
Back in the flower-power days of 1973 when I was still at the university a popular book was published entitled The Secret Life of Plants. Among its many claims was that plants respond positively to classical music. Science soon debunked the book's most wayward assertions, but since then in the public mind the topic of "plants thinking and feeling" has been lumped with UFOs and Ouija boards.
However, the study of plant perception has come a long way since 1973. You can prove that to yourself by Googling the keywords "plants feeling intelligence." There's plenty on the topic out there, some of it as off-base as the 1973 book, but much that's very serious and real science. A good overview of current scientific thought about the matter can be read for free in a BBC story entitled "Plants can see, hear and smell -- and respond."
Some scientifically confirmed facts that article mentions include these:
For my part, I have no problem with the idea that plants have feelings, perceive their environment, and are graced with some kind of intelligence. I remember that about 95% of the Universe appears to be "dark matter" and "dark energy" that humans can't perceive or measure. To me it seems clear that in that hidden 95% there's plenty of room for agencies that might enable parts of the Universe, besides us humans, to think and feel.
At age 70, in a good place for reflecting about things, and taking the time to do it, each day as I look around and see more and more I grow increasingly comfortable with the notion that I, all that's around me, and the Spirit behind the whole Universe, constitute just One Thing. And that we things of the Universe -- from galaxies to subatomic particles and sandgrains to people -- are merely ephemeral coagulations of variously configured packets of energy. However, we coagulations very intimately interrelate with one another -- whether we're aware of it or not -- in profound, unimaginable ways.
Moreover, it seems right to me that we variously configured ephemeral coagulations of energy would mean less to the Universal One Thing than the eternally evolving, ever refining network of interactions between all us coagulations.
When I feel welcomed by the Little Guava beside the gate, as we share our fragrances and the mutual delight of feeling close to one another, maybe I'm tapping into the network of the One Thing's ever-refining interactions. Maybe the good feeling I get when touching the Little Guava's trunk is a little "jolt", as with electricity, from touching the circuitry, and it's meant as an ecouragement to touch some more of this Universe around me.
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Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,
Jim
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