Devastator - _TNY_1962
There was a pretty limited forest fire in the Paradiset nature reserve in 2020 so in 2021, I was there, looking for species who are drawn to fire-damaged areas.
The main kind of trees there are pines, which protect themselves from fire by having a bark which char - but don't burn very well, resulting in the tree surviving.
This however made for a quite cool-looking landscape with basically all trees being charcoal black.
I did find some coool bugs there though, like this early instar goat moth caterpillar (Cossus cossus) in hot pink.
Notice I said early instar and the caterpillar is as you can see compared to my fingertip still fairly large. That's because it grows extremely large and is very spectacular in it's reddish pink colour (though not as pink as this one).
The caterpillar live, eat and grow in size inside trees and as an old Swedish name for the species, "trädödare" (meaning "tree devastator") indicates, it dmages the tree.
Other catches from the same black trees are this cool parasitic wasp: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52623597650/
a blue jewel beetle: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/51622240359/
Two species of harvestman: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52762440970/ and flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52626570340/
and a ribbed pine borer: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/51321366527/
Devastator - _TNY_1962
There was a pretty limited forest fire in the Paradiset nature reserve in 2020 so in 2021, I was there, looking for species who are drawn to fire-damaged areas.
The main kind of trees there are pines, which protect themselves from fire by having a bark which char - but don't burn very well, resulting in the tree surviving.
This however made for a quite cool-looking landscape with basically all trees being charcoal black.
I did find some coool bugs there though, like this early instar goat moth caterpillar (Cossus cossus) in hot pink.
Notice I said early instar and the caterpillar is as you can see compared to my fingertip still fairly large. That's because it grows extremely large and is very spectacular in it's reddish pink colour (though not as pink as this one).
The caterpillar live, eat and grow in size inside trees and as an old Swedish name for the species, "trädödare" (meaning "tree devastator") indicates, it dmages the tree.
Other catches from the same black trees are this cool parasitic wasp: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52623597650/
a blue jewel beetle: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/51622240359/
Two species of harvestman: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52762440970/ and flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52626570340/
and a ribbed pine borer: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/51321366527/