Scarlet Fritillary - Fritillaria recurva
With the temperatures warming up and the days getting longer, birds are arriving, widlflowers are blooming, and bugs are buzzing! There's so much going on! The wildflowers are attracting a variety of pollinators. Are they attracted to the color, the scent, or the flavor of the flower nectar? The answer isn't that simple! Read on to discover how the pollination process works!
Scarlet Fritillary - Fritillaria recurva
Some flowers are scented while others have dazzling patterns and colors. This extraordinarily beautiful Scarlet Fritillary doesn't have a fragrance but its eye-popping checkerboard pattern attracts many pollinators. What we see isn't necessarily what an insect or bird sees when it looks at a flower. In fact most insects, except for butterflies, can't see the color red, but birds can! For instance, while I was photographing this Scarlet Fritillary a hummer briefly fed on a blossom!
Insects smell with their antennae, or feet, or other body parts! However, birds don't have noses and, except for vultures, don't have a sense of smell.
Both insects and birds have a sense of taste. They can taste salty, sweet, bitter, and sour flavors, but prefer sweet tasting food. (This taste preference doesn't apply to Raptors, Seabirds, Ducks, etc.)
Applegate's Paintbrush - Anise Swallowtail on Scarlet Fritillary - Mountain Jewelflower
Castelleja applegatei - Papilio zelican on Fritillaria recurva - Streptanthus toruosus
Butterflies are attracted to color,
flavor, and fragrance!
A butterfly's antennae, palps, legs and many other parts of the body are studded with sense receptors that are used to smell. The sense of smell is used for finding food (usually flower nectar), and for finding mates (the female smelling the male's pheromones).
A butterfly's feet have sense organs that can taste the sugar in nectar, letting the butterfly know if something is good to eat or not. Some females also taste host plants (using organs on their legs) in order to find appropriate places to lay their eggs. These receptors (called chemoreceptors) are nerve cells on the body's surface which react to certain chemicals.
The following information on butterfly color-vision is from
"It is believed butterflies sense colors better than any other species. Scientists have studied butterflies and their vision for long enough to determine that not only can butterflies see color, but that they can experience it way better than we can.
Humans, like most species, have three types of photoreceptors. Each one for a different primary color: Red, green and blue. Butterflies can have up to fifteen different types of photoreceptors. And each one might fire up for a color we know (for example, three of them might work to perceive the color green and other two for blue) and others might be there for colors we’ll never get to see. This means a butterfly not only sees color, but they perceive more colors than we do and they do it better than us. Scientists believe their sight evolved this way as butterflies are extremely dependent on their vision for almost everything: from feeding to sex to survival. How well they can perceive their environment is crucial for a butterfly’s existence.
Not all butterflies see color in the same way. Their vision range varies almost as much as how many butterfly species there are. Even though they might all look familiar to us, there are over 17,000 butterfly species in the world right now. And they each experience the world differently!"
©Dr. Klauss Schmitt, Worheim, Germany,uvir.eu.
Here's an example of what a flower looks like in Human vision, ultra-violet light, butterfly vision, and bee vision! Pretty amazing!
Following are some photos of the insects (especially butterflies), birds, and wildflowers I saw this week! Enjoy!
Woodland Star - Acmon Blue Butterfly on Limnanthes sp. - California Saxifrage Lithophragma parviflorum - Plebejus acmon on Limnanthes sp.
Micranthes californica
Variable Checkerspot Butterfly on Purple Milkweed White-lined Sphinx Moth on Pacific Bleeding Hearts
Euphydryas chalcedona on Asclepias cordifolia
Hyles lineata on Dicentra formosa
Propertius Duskywing Skipper on Blue Dicks - Blue Dicks - Hansen's Larkspur
Erynnis propertius on Dichelostemma capitatum - Dichelostemma capitatum
Delphinium hansenii
Valley Tassels - Margined White Butterfly on Forget-me-Nots - Meadowfoam(?) Castelleja attenuata - Pieris marginalis on Myosotis sp. - Limnanthes sp. (?)
Anna's Hummingbird on unknown Clarkia - Caliope Hummingbird on Bleeding HeartsCalypte anna on Clarkia sp. - Stellula calliope on Dicentra formosa
Birds are attracted to color and flavor!
Birds, especially Hummingbirds, are also important pollinators. There are 2,000 bird species world wide that feed on nectar, the insects, and the spiders associated with nectar bearing flowers. Ornithophily, or bird pollination, is the pollination of flowering plants by birds.
Humans have 9,000 to 10,000 taste buds on their tongues. Birds have 24-500 taste buds, located on the roof and floor of their mouth, and on the back of their tongue. They can differentiate between sweet, sour, salty, and bitter tastes, but mainly prefer sweet flavors (except Raptors, sea birds, ducks etc.).
As mentioned above, birds don't have noses and, except for vultures, don't have a sense of smell.
Birds see many more colors than humans. Humans can see red, blue, and green, and colors and shades made from combinations of these. Birds, however, are able to perceive the familiar rainbow of colors we know and parts of the ultraviolet(UV) spectrum that we can’t see. The following information is from the website at https://northamericannature.com/can-birds-see-color/.
"Bird vision is also sharper than humans. Birds can distinguish small differences between similar shades, so they can see colors that we can’t. Birds generally have four types of cones in their eyes instead of three like humans, and they perceive color differently. Not all birds have four cones, but birds normally have more cones in their retinas than humans and other mammals.
Each cone in the retina has a drop of oil in it. This oil filters out different colors, allowing the birds to see different shades, much like a camera filter. The oil is either transparent, pale, or red, or yellow and gives them greater contrast between colors. This helps birds filter out leaves, bushes, and trees to find their prey, and can even help them find fish in deep water. Mammals, including ourselves, do not have this oil in their eyes.
Eagles see through a yellow filter from the yellow oil. This allows them to see subtle and small shifts in their vision, such as a vole in the distance easier as it shows the outlines clearer
Humans can see one nonspectral color, purple. We can see purple when our blue and red cones are stimulated. Scientists believe that birds can see up to five: purple, ultraviolet and purple ultraviolet and green, ultraviolet and red, and ultraviolet and yellow."
Here's an example of human vision versus bird vision that I got off the internet.
(There wasn't any copyright listed for these photos!)
Bumble Bee on Sierra Currant - Small Bee Fly - Ceratina unknown sp. on Creeping Sage
Bombus bifarius on Ribes nevadense - Bombylius lancifer
Ceratina unknown sp. on Salvia sonomensis
Insects are attracted to fragrance,
flavor, and color!
Insects "smell" with their antennae, to detect food and the pheromones of potential mates.
They taste with specialized structures associated with their mouths called "maxillary palps", and also sometimes with their feet or other body parts. They can differentiate between salty, sweet, bitter, and sour flavors, but mainly prefer sweet flavors.
The following information about insect color vision is from the website at https://schoolofbugs.com/can-insects-see-in-color-lets-find-out/.
"Insects do not see all the colors. Some insects can only see two colors, for example, flies only see ultraviolet and green. Bees can perceive ultraviolet, blue and yellow. In any case, insects are not able to perceive the color red. Bees have some of the best eyesight in the insect kingdom, they can see three colors and a lot of detail. Butterflies also have great color visions, perceiving millions of subtle variations in light frequency. Ants can also see three colors and are capable of seeing in the dark. Flies can only see two colors. Some insects can’t even see ultraviolet, while others perceive more colors than us. In conclusion, insects all perceive color differently than we do, but they also differ widely from one another."
unknown beetle on Globe Gilia - Checkered Clerid Beetle on Brodiaea sp.
Elderberry Beetle on wild onion
unknown sp. on Gilia capitata - Trichodes ornatus on Brodiaea sp.
Desmocerus auripennis on Allium sp.
The following information is from http://ucanr.edu/sites/PollenNation/.
"Beetles make up the largest group of pollinating animals because there are so many of them! They are responsible for pollinating 88% of the 240,000 flowering plants around the world! Research has shown that beetles are capable of seeing color, but they mainly rely on their sense of smell for feeding and finding a place to lay their eggs. Beetles are attracted to spicy, fruity, or rancid flesh-like odors."
Sky Lupine - Naked Broom-rape - unknown Clerid beetle on Blue Dick
Lupinus nanus - Orobanche uniflora - unkown Clerid beetle on Dichelostemma capitatum
Damp Earth Art
We got several days of cold wet weather this week, with a total precipitation of 3.2" by Friday afternoon. Yahoo!!! It was a marvelous, heavy, normal rainfall! More rain is forecasted for the coming weekend and next week as well! Please join me in my continuing hope for precipitation! Perhaps our collective efforts may help it happen. I'm going to keep posting rain inspired writings, art, etc. on my blog at dampearthart.blogspot.com. Any submissions would be greatly appreciated.
Wishing for peace in Ukraine and
an immediate end to this senseless war!
Upper Sardine Lake - 4/6/22
What's going on in the Lakes Basin?
What songbirds have recently arrived?
Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!
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Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated. Please feel free to email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Thanks!
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