The Glow worm tunnel

Today's is a very special post-partly inspired by David  Attenborough's documentary 'Life in the Undergrowth'. In episode 3,  Attenborough visits New Zealand's Waitomo Caves in which the larvae of fungus gnats illuminate the cave, and use their beaded filaments to lure their prey. In Australia, in the Blue Mountains region is a similar place called the 'Glow worm tunnel' - this is the story of our visit there.
After a 30 Km off-road bumpy drive which took us through some beautiful landscapes and a tunnel, we reached a desolate corner in the Wollemi National Park.

It was a further 2 Km trek to the coveted tunnel.

A special hug to my wife, Aarina, here, who despite her apprehensions of dark and desolates caves, decided to accompany me into the tunnel.

The entrance to the tunnel was partly covered by overhanging ferns and the floor was covered by a gently flowing stream of water.

Inside the tunnel its completely dark, eerily quiet. All I could hear was trickling water, my own heart beat and Aari's footsteps.

The larvae of a fungus gnat (small, short lived fly) resides in these tunnel. They are called  Arachnocampa richardsae and they can create their own light or scientifically speaking, have bio-luminescence. They sit put on the walls of these caves or tunnel and drop in a sticky silk line. This line has mucus on it which look like beaded necklaces. Any flying insect that touches these lines, stick to it and becomes the larva's meal.

To attract insects close to their snares, the larva glows. Many insects are attracted to this light and inadvertently, get stuck onto the sticky snare, the gnat then pulls the snare and feeds on the prey.

To see the glow, we switched off our lights and waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. Slowly, we could see the entire tunnel beautifully illuminated, like stars that illuminate a dark sky.

A feeling of joy, ecstasy and accomplishment filled us up! A delightful warm embrace in a silent cave studded with glowing worms is something that we will never wish to forget!

Chocolate Pansy

This Chocolate Pansy, featured today belongs to the same family as the Bushbrown's featured below- Nymphalidae. I spotted this butterfly, while walking among a patch of overgrown weeds in our backyard.
Tracking of mates in both butterflies and moths occurs by the release of sex pheromones by the females from glands located on their abdomen. The antennae of the males have sensory papillae, which guide the males to their mates. These pheromones are a cocktail of chemicals and in some butterflies a pheromone released by the males make the female more receptive and ready to mate.

Common Bushbrown Butterfly - The Butterfly Dowry

On an early morning stroll yesterday, I spotted two butterflies courting about a bush! Drab brown in colour, many may conveniently ignore them, over their more colourful cousins. A closer look at them though reveals the beautiful patterns they carry. The 1st light brown, I believe is the female and the lower light brown the male.
Male butterflies give a 'dowry' to the female before they mate!! The dowry is sodium and essential minerals, which are 'presented' with the sperms to the female during courtship. These minerals are necessary for the eggs to hatch and in some cases for fertilisation to be successful. The males get these minerals from puddles of animal urine or droppings. Hence if you spot a butterfly on dung or urine puddle, it is accumulating its dowry. The importance of these minerals is such that the females choose males with larger sodium loads or bigger dowry.

Common Baron

Common Baron butterfly. One of the common butterflies in the Indian subcontinent; a few of them seem to have taken a liking for our backyard. We separate our kitchen waste, which is composted for trees. This one was spotted sitting on an orange peel in the kitchen garbage pile. It supposedly likes the rotting fruit more than flower nectar, probably addicted to the fermenting alcohol found in such fruits.
It was so engrossed in its eating that, it was completely ignorant of my presence. I have to now look around for its caterpillar and pupae; will feature it in future posts if I find one.

Dragonfly

Ever wondered how a dragon fly stares at you! This photograph will satisfy your curiosity. The image was captured with macro mode and an additional lens in front of the camera so as to magnify the dragon fly. Lighting did not pose a problem since the fly was well lit by the setting sun which gave it warm tones. I had to do a bit of cropping in photoshop to delete out some part of the image which got distorted because of my crude macro photography arrangement. If your budget or cameras don't permit you a macro lens, feel free to use any lens to magnify it .Errors can then be rectified with photoshop.

f/2.7 , 1/100 sec

Common Jezebel

Photograph of a Common Jezebel Butterfly.
The wings of this butterfly are pale white at top, but underneath, its coloured bright yellow and red. Its serves two purpose, to stay inconspicuous with wings open and if a predator has set its sight , then its closes the wings exposing the bright colours of its undercarriage. In nature bright coloured creatures are always associated with toxicity.

Flying Dragon Fly

Photographed at Shutter speed of 0.0125 sec. In spite of such high speed you can make out the flapping of the dragonfly's wings. This shows how fast it was flapping and flying. In order to freeze the dragon flies flight I had to reduce the shutter speed to 0.00125 sec (1/800th of a second) as shown in the 3rd sequence below.
If you look closely, you will see that a dragonfly has two wings on each side of its body a long front wing and a slightly shorter back wing. During flight, small but powerful "tornadoes" of air move along each of the dragonfly's front wings. These tiny tornadoes help the dragonfly maintain its lift and stay airborne. A dragonfly's back wings help keep the "tornadoes" from breaking up.
With a shutter speed of 1/800th of a second i was able to freeze the dragonfly midair. Well with this I conclude that the insect flaps its wings at a rate of 700-800 times per second. This was my observation, any entomologist please correct me,if i am wrong.

The best time to photograph dragon flies mid air is during its mating season. The male fly to show its skill to a potential mate, hovers midair for a while. Though the flight is not absolutely stationery, photographing becomes a little easier. Specially because you can preset the focal length and be ready. Because of the creatures size, auto focus does not work, and manually focusing once the subject is framed is quite impossible.
I was unable to get a crisp close up image of the dragon fly, today. Keep watching this page, with improved skill and better equipment, that day is not very far.

Heading For a Bright Life

A garden slug; spotted him at night, Instead of using a flash, I opted to use a portable flourescent lamp to illuminate the forward part. The two top tentacles are its optical sensors, and the slight shake of the tentacles is due to its movement, when bright light was flashed on them.
Photographed in Macro mode

Dragonfly - Variable Glider

A male "Variable Glider" dragonfly; common name of 'Rhyothemis variegata', because of its coloured wings the dragonfly can be mistaken for a butterfly. Photographed in Mangalore when it was resting on the leaf of a coconut palm.

Male " Plain Tiger " Butterfly

This Butterfly belongs to the "Crows and Tigers" subfamily of the brushfooted butterfly family.
The male Plain Tiger which is featured here is smaller than the female, but more brightly coloured. Outside Asia this Butterfly is called the African Monarch.