Oct 03 2007
The double act
Another bright, sunny morning in the Kerio Valley – and still on the trail of the elusive Giant Cupid butterfly. I’ve been searching for caterpillars among the buds of various wildflowers. This year has seen incredible rains that have gone on and on, well beyond the normal ‘long rains’ that should have petered out in June-July. Blessed with the extra moisture the red of the valley has responded with an exuberance of blossom everywhere.
The sins of overgrazing by goats have been covered by crocheted blankets of creepers and eroded gullies are draped with thickly-woven blankets of pointillist greens: olive green of the succulent Cissus and Cyphostemma, pale viridian from the Kalanchoe, the sombre, speckled leaves of aloes and a myriad of herbs and grasses shot with bronze, purple, rose and pink.
I am seated on the ground poking gently through buds of a sweetly-scented herb. This is one of the places that I suspect the Giant Cupid butterflies might be laying their eggs. After several hours work, all I’ve managed to find are a tiny green cricket and an infinite variety of ants, visiting to imbibe nectar from the fat glands that are found below the flowers.
Looking towards a new stand of herbs, I see a small, blackish form waving gently in the breeze. It seems for all intents and purposes to be a spider. With dark spindly legs sticking out at all angles. However, these spiders don’t move, they are fixed to the stem of a short, stout succulent plant. It looks like a species of Caralluma. These are succulent plants, like small cacti, found in the drylands and deserts of Africa.
I peer closer at the flowers – they are exquisite, and unusual, with dark fingers and hairy fringes. Then suddenly, among them I notice a tiny bubble; bright and colourful. Is this a flower bud? Oh! – it moves! It wriggles along the stem and edges out of view. I lift the flowering stalk and gently tease the creature back up to where I can see it. Yes, it is a ‘flower’ – but one with eight legs! This is a remarkable flower-mimicking spider.
Amazing how nature plays with form. For perched here on flowers that resemble spiders, sits a spider that looks just like a flower!