Day 6 of #30DaysWild: Monarch Butterfly Sketch

Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus), Western Peloponnese, Greece, 2010

It has been a wild and windy day here, with showers and a rainbow. I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to make a start on my drawing of the Monarch butterfly, following Emily Rose's brilliant guidelines which you can find here. This is my second attempt at one of her online workshops, and bit by bit I am getting the feel of the Faber-Castell pastel crayons she encourages her students to use. As you can see from the photo below, I still have a way to go, but never mind. 

Work in Progress: Monarch butterfly

I particularly wanted to try my hand at a Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) because, as you can see from photos 1 and 3, we saw a fairly similar butterfly, I think a Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus), near Pylos in the Peloponnese a little over ten years ago when we were celebrating our Silver Wedding. These Tigers are sometimes known as 'African Monarchs'. 

Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus)

Monarch butterflies are well known for their long-distance migration. Their wings, as you can see in my incomplete drawing, have black lines. They normally navigate by the sun, but when weather conditions are not so favourable, they resort to magnetism as you will discover if you read this article in National Geographic. Monarch larvae feed on Milkweed. 

Plain Tiger butterflies are possibly one of the earliest species to be depicted in art. An image of what appears to be one of these insects was found on a fresco in an Egyptian tomb in Luxor. I am not entirely sure whether the red and yellow flower in photos 1 and 3 is Blood Flower or Scarlet Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), but I think it looks as though it may be.

Eye-catching Insects (2): Spilostethus pandurus ~ a Milkweed Bug

Seen at Messene in the Kalamata area of Greece

I posted the above photo on our return from Pylos in the Peloponnese last autumn, having failed in my attempts at identification. The creature was seriously 'on the move' so it was a case of click or miss, hence the fuzzy photo.

The identification continued to puzzle me until earlier this week Shelly from MOBugs (Missouri, USA) came to my rescue. A friend of hers was able to tell me that the creature is the nymph of a Seed Bug, the Spilostethus pandurus. It is more commonly known as the Milkweed Bug and belongs to the order of Hemiptera, sub-order of Heteroptera - and is from the family of Lygaeidae.

You can read about the hemimetabolic life cycle here. It certainly had not occurred to me that I was watching a nymph. There is a much better photograph by Normand Mlaure (you may have to scroll down), and there is another here, with only one ring i.e. an 0 rather than a figure of 8, on its back. There is further example here, with a cluster two photos down (by John Cravatta) of the not dissimilar Oxycarenus lavaterae.

For another cluster of these creatures (this time in Spain and taken by fturmog), take a look here. They have also been seen in the Algarve in Portugal.

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We saw some other colourful creatures in Greece. You may remember these two from my previous Bug post . . .

Postscript: 23 Feb 2011: do take a look at Seabrooke's Milkweed Bugs here.

Eye-catching Insects (1): Fiery Red Colours in Greece

Here are some of the colourful beetles

we saw in the Peloponnese, while we were in Greece ...

Shield Bug, probably Graphosoma italicum (or is there a Greek variety?), seen at Messine, Peloponnese

A Fire Bug. Seen at Nestor's Palace, Pylos, Greece

Ironically, King Nestor's Palace suffered a bad fire. Amazingly, the fire baked all the clay tablets, thereby preserving priceless examples of the early Linear B script.

The beetle below was in a different archaeological site, namely ancient Messine (sometimes seen as Messini), high up in the hills above Kalamata, of olive fame.  

The beetle heard me, and began to move fast ...

I was able to see the figure of 8 on its back ...

... as it scuttled out of sight. 

I have as yet been unable to identify the intriguing beetle above (update: 14 Feb 2011 - which I now know is the larva of a True Bug and not a beetle - please see comments below). Any help here would be appreciated!

I particularly enjoyed reading the Red and Black Insect page on the Honeyguide Wildlife Holiday site, and hope you may enjoy it. too. You might also like to see the Blister Beetle here. 

Oh, and by the way, it was Rosie's Ladybird that got me thinking 'red and black' today.

Beautiful Birds (8): No Hoopoe, but a Crested Lark ...

We hoped to see a Hoopoe in the Peloponnese, but the 'closest' match was a Crested Lark ...

...on the beach near Homer's 'sandy Pylos'.

Head down among the Sea Holly and other foliage...

Not the best photo, but you can see the crest!

The Crested Lark had this lovely beach all to itself!

Not a soul in sight ... except us.

We were sad that the Hoopoe didn't put in an appearance during our week in the western Peloponnese, but it was a joy to watch this Crested Lark as it foraged in the scrub along the top of the beach.

I believe I first 'encountered' the Hoopoe in the comedy, The Birds, by Aristophanes when I was at school. The play opens with two friends making their way across a hillside on their quest to find the legendary King of Thrace, Tereus, who had taken the form of a Hoopoe. All the birds band together to build their Cloud Cuckoo Land empire in the sky, in a bid to 'reclaim' lost power from the Olympian gods. The play was first performed in 414 B.C.

It is possible that we will be seeing Hoopoes in the UK before long. I was interested in this Hoopoe information on Adam Tilt's blog.

You might also enjoy this blog about Hoopoes and other birds in Greece. These are the Hoopoe-related posts.

If you are on Facebook, be sure to check out the 'Hoopoe' page by typing the word into the search box.

As for the Crested Lark, well, I had not realised that it was such a complex creature. There are apparently over 60 forms of the species. The variations appear to be due in part to the different habitats, as the colour of the bird in a particular area often matches the local soil. I have no idea whether this is fact or theory. Back in 2007 folk at the RSPB were expressing concern over the dwindling population of the species. My thanks to Wendy Lister for this link - and this one.

I wonder where the Hoopoe will pop up next ... or will it be a Crested Lark?