A few years ago I planted I tiny, 4 inch tall Butterfly Bush in our front yard next to the light pole. 3 years later the thing is enormous, easily towering over 12 ft tall. As the name implies, butterflies love this thing.
This past weekend at any given time there were a few dozen butterflies hovering around it. I'm not really into butterflies but it is neat to see so many in one place. Anyway, today, I come home from work and notice there isn't a single butterfly around the bush. I figured it was about to storm or something since the butterflies seem to be tuned into that sort of thing and disappear before it starts raining.
I go inside and while I'm standing in the kitchen, something outside catches my eye through the front window. A butterfly appeared to fall off the bush and then proceed to flail around in the grass. Confused by this behavior I walked out into the yard to take a closer look. What I saw was shocking to me.
Some sort of wasp was attacking the butterfly. I watched as this wasp used it's scissor like jaws to cut one of the butterflies wings off. Then...after the wing was gone and the butterfly could no longer flail around the wasp used his jaws to decapitate the butterfly. You could actually hear this thing crunching through the butterfly. Albeit slightly disturbing, it was very interesting. I had quite a view being only inches away from the action. The wasp didn't seem to care. The entire time my wife, appalled by what she was seeing was asking me to save the butterfly. I dare not to interfere with natures way. Some must die so others can live.
As the wasp flew away, I got a good look at the severed head of the butterfly. It appeared to be bursting with pollen which made me think this is what the wasp was seeking. When the wasp was out of the picture I picked up the remains of the butterfly and positioned them so I could take a picture. While taking pictures they wasp returned to the same spot looking for the remains. When the wasp didn't find the remains he returned to the bush looking for his next victim. No butterflies were to be found.
The life and death struggles that happen right under your nose and mostly go unnoticed can be amazing. The picture above shows the remains of the butterfly and the picture below is of the culprit as he returned to clean up the scene.
2 comments:
weird man. national geographic played out in very small scale right in your front yard. really interesting stuff.
The Wasp was actually not interested in the pollen as you speculated, this is a classic example of an insect gang turf battle. The Wasps are sending a clear message. In recent months I have seen an increase in insect gang tag marks in and around the Frederick downtown area. The bell tower at Baker Park seems to be a particularly intense zone of conflict. Officer Talbot of the Frederick City Police spearheaded an Counter IG (Insect Gang) Task Force (CIGTF) in December of 2006. So far there success has been mixed. They used an inter-species relationship between Rosmand (Wasp) and Chitec (B-fly) as a springboard to conflict resolution. Unfortunately this relationship came to a tragic Romeo & Juliet style end when one of the West side Wasp chapters caught wind of the relationship. The two were minced into peaces in front of Griff's Landing in a veritable orgy of carnage and gore. Warner Brothers bought the rights to the story but later reluctantly agreed to hold off on production at the request of the FCP who sited concerns that the film would only fuel the violence.
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