Dudu Diaries

Category: Bees, Butterflies, Culture, Ecology, Flies, Forests, Hoverfly, Moths, Orchid, Pollination | Date: Jul 15 2009 | By: dududiaries

One response so far

Category: Ecology, Moths | Date: Mar 25 2009 | By: dududiaries

Hello - this morning I discovered a pair of mating hawkmoths sheltering on leaf in the garden. Just as I was photographing them, the female lifted the male, who is attached to her, into the air. As she flew clumsily (I guess he was rather heavy), I waited for them to land again so that I could continue photographing them.    Suddenly a flash of angry red cut through the air. It seized the pair of moths and settled in a bush. Stunned, I moved forward to see what it was - a Paradise Flycatcher - one of the most voracious and beautiful birds in Kenya. The flycatcher seized the moths and gulped down the male first.  The female managed to break free…     But not for long…    The bird pursued her swiftly up into the trees, grabbed her and then after beating her against a branch to remove some of the hairs covering her fat body, gulped her down whole!   

5 responses so far

Category: Moths, Orchid, Pollination | Date: Nov 10 2008 | By: dududiaries

Hello - sorry for not posting more often (again!). In response to the question about the moth’s tongues - they can be very long up to 12″ or even more! There are mainly two groups of hawkmoths - those with medium-length tongues and those with super-long tongues…  Here you can see examples of both a short-tongued and long-tongued moth. More soon…     

One response so far

Category: Moths, Pollination | Date: Nov 02 2008 | By: dududiaries

Hello - sorry for not posting more often. Have mid-term exams coming up this week! I’ve been wanting to run a series about pollinators. This is the first of them. Pollinators, many of them insects, are one of the most under-appreciated groups of useful creatures in the world. Like the dung beetles they are toiling daily for us, but we mostly overlook them. To start off, here are just a few pictures of some gorgeous insect pollinators - hawmoths. These remarkable insects are fast-flying creatures that hover between flowers feeding on nectar with their long tongues (the proboscis) which can be coiled and uncoiled like a muscular spring. And as you enjoy them, please keep in mind this “One in three bites of food is thanks to a pollinator…” 

2 responses so far