Tiny Surprise - _TNY_8037
The wood cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum) is a quite common flower where I live and this time of year, a surprisingly large number of the flowers contain a nice little surprise.
You see, the meadow cranesbill weevil (Zacladus geranii) like both this species and the meadow cranesbill (Geranium pratense) which gives it its name.
Looking into the flowers you can see something really small and black - which is the weevil (or sometimes weevils as they seem to enjoy mating in there as well).
And when I say small, I mean small. These guys are between 2 and 3 mm (.08"-.12") in length so you have to break out the high magnification lenses for them. This particular shot was taken at 3.7:1 mag.
Tiny Surprise - _TNY_8037
The wood cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum) is a quite common flower where I live and this time of year, a surprisingly large number of the flowers contain a nice little surprise.
You see, the meadow cranesbill weevil (Zacladus geranii) like both this species and the meadow cranesbill (Geranium pratense) which gives it its name.
Looking into the flowers you can see something really small and black - which is the weevil (or sometimes weevils as they seem to enjoy mating in there as well).
And when I say small, I mean small. These guys are between 2 and 3 mm (.08"-.12") in length so you have to break out the high magnification lenses for them. This particular shot was taken at 3.7:1 mag.