Tuesday, September 13, 2011

parque natural - flora and some fauna


One of the species of Salsola (saltwort) that is flowering at the moment on the verge of parque natural across the road. My attempts to identify it to species weren't particularly successful so far - I am divided between Salsola vermiculata, which seems to visually fit better, and Salsola divaricata - I am not sure how significant is the difference between yellow and pinkish color in this case. The attraction of thinking that it is Salsola divaricata is that this species is endemic to the Canaries.

Macro and some more nature shots follow. Warning - there's a very big caterpillar in there, open with caution





This is a flower of the bush that shares the habitat with Salsola, and is possibly even more resistant to lack of water, judging from distribution.


Timur spotted this huge caterpillar on the ground in the dunes, going around its caterpillar business. It was a surprise for me, as I didn't see either big moths or butterflies around here so far - maybe it turnes into something else entirely? I just don't know.  Any ideas? It was about 12 cm, and its front is on the right, in case there're doubts.


There were not much wind recently, and dunes are full of paw- and foot- prints. This one is puzzling though - what are those long trail in the middle of each print, did the perpetrator have very long middle claw? or maybe it's a spur - I am not even sure what way it was going

2 comments:

nameless__one said...

какая гусеница!

Tamara Kulikova said...

ага, и очень шустро ползает :)