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Project Noah Nature School
Jalmenus evagoras
Tiny blue butterfly stretches and expands its wings after it emerges from its cocoon. The brown larvae (pic 2) and cocoon (pic 3and 4 ) are swarmed by ants who protect it from predators and receive honeydew as a reward.
Sometimes common on low acacia and always attended by ants.
Spotted on Feb 9, 2012
Submitted on Feb 9, 2012
14 Comments
Another spotting of this species
It seems quite late in the season.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/206...
Thanks for your comments. These are common this year but sometimes absent for many years. They're hard to photograph because of angry ants everywhere. Ant associations are known to exist for many lycaenid species.
This is learning lesson Martin.. Great efforts.. for this Great spotting..!!
Awesome spot!
Exceptional picture story martin. You must have really enjoyed that find.
Would be a pity not to see this wonderful adult butterfly!
I've added the adult butterfly.
Interesting series and information!
Bayucca thanks for that fascinating data. That is all new to me. Evolution will use any mechanism available to gain a survival advantage, so maybe we don't need to be surprised. All vertebrates already use "bioacoustics" (I love that word already).
Here are (other) ants with some early instar larvae of the same butterfly species. This species is quite common this year. The leaf hopper nymph is incidental and noticed later. If you see arboreal ants, then always look more closely. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/786...
Excellent spotting and interesting info! Martin, did you ever heard of singing caterpillars?? Check the link and read "my" story about this amazing relationship between larvae and ants. Did you know how this works in your wonderful Lycaenidae? In metalmark this function is quite wellknown.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/852...
absolutely martin :-))
Atul, every photo has a story and every spotting is a specimen frozen in time. A photograph of a speeding car has its movement frozen and needs words to tell a more complete story
lovely spotting martinl ,your spottings are always very informative , thanks for sharing!
also you could consider adding it to the mission SymbioticRelationships!