Life from death…
Category: Beetles, Climate Change, Culture, Ecology, Flies | Date: Nov 13 2009 | By: dududiaries
Life from death…
As many of you will have read and heard on this site – there’s been a serious drought in Kenya and this has lead to lots of cattle dying. Out here on the plains we finally got some rain, and this means that there is a lot of green grass and wildflowers sprouting everywhere.
The herds of cattle that have survived (mainly from accessing grazing in the park) can be seen moving around a bit more happily now.
There are also a lot of trees and shrubs flowering at the moment. Many of these are pollinated by flies.
Over the past few days I’ve noticed large numbers of flies visiting these flowers that are fly-pollinated. Species of plants with flowers that are open pollinated by flies tend to have greenish-yellow flowers with a musty scent and nectar.
One of the most abundant fly pollinators is known as the Big-Headed Fly (Lucilia sp.). This fly has a distinctive red head (actually the eyes). And there are literally thousands upon thousands of these flies now pollinating a variety of trees and shrubs on the plains.
The reason for the abundance of fly pollinators is due to the abundance of dead cows.
The flies lay their eggs in the carcasses where their larvae, the maggots, develop. In the process the flies help clean up the carcasses as they speed up their decomposition and break-down, and this also results in lots of flies to act as pollinators and as food for other creatures.
On the same bush the flies are pollinating I found this smug-looking little reed frog. Hmmm – I wonder why he looks so satisfied?
It is not only the flies that are benefitting from the surfeit of food. Several beetles that also visit flowers, like the lovely Rose Chafer shown below, breed in the deep piles of cow manure.
So from death and waste comes life again – thanks to the efficient re-cycling of Mother Nature! More from the wonderful world of bugs soon!
Tags: Beetles, drought, Flies, Kajiado, Kenya, Lucilia, Pachnoda
Bees in the news
Category: Bees, Climate Change, Culture, Ecology | Date: Oct 16 2009 | By: dududiaries
Bees in the news
Dear All – here are a couple of links that might be of interest. Bees have been in the news over the last couple of days.
Newsweek has an article about the effect of bees disappearing on agriculture.
Here is the link to it:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/141461
And George Monbiot who writes for The Guardian has a piece on the failure of science to investigate the effects of pesticides on bees:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/oct/14/bees-scientific-research
Please spare a moment if you can to look at them. Bees are in deep trouble, especially in Europe and North America as well as parts of Asia such as China. Whatever the may causes behind the decline of bees, especially the honeybee, we need to wake up and start doing something about it.
There is also a new film out called ‘The Vanishing Bees’, you can watch a trailer and learn more about it here:
More soon – was just watching some honeybees foraging on the flowers of some acacias, will share those pictures shortly.
Blog Action Day - Climate Change!
Category: Climate Change, Culture, Ecology, Lakes | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: dududiaries
Dear All - thanks for the kind comments - only just saw them!
Will post a link to the BBC piece asap.
On a separate note, today is Blog Action Day and the topic of focus is climate change. As I write this it is raining outside (unusual that its before 7 am) and this is the first real rain we have had this year! It last drizzled here on the 24th of July - so we’ve had almost three months with NO rain at all. Livestock and wildlife are suffering all around, as are people, who depend on the grasslands and rivers for survival.
Insects are just one group of creatures that are deeply affected by climate change - butterflies and bees get confused about when to forage or leave their hives, and are more susceptible to diseases and parasites when stressed by unusual weather patterns…
For more information on this global event, please look at
More from the world of bugs soon!
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