Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: larva

Generosity comes in all shapes and sizes. Two days ago, on 30 July 2016, six of us from Calgary had the honour of meeting a 92-year-old gentleman who has lived most of his long life on a huge area (380 hectares, 939 acres) of beautiful land near Hanna, Alberta. Though Gottlob Schmidt (known as Schmitty) has now moved into town (Hanna), he is not far from his beloved land and still loves to spend a lot of time there. My friends and I understand why. This untouched land is not only beautiful to the eye, with its undulating hills with small, scattered pockets of woodland, but it also hides all sorts of natural treasures, including the wildlife that enjoys this native grassland. There are so few areas of native grassland left in Alberta, so each one is very precious. Schmitty told us that he has never seen his land looking so green! Perhaps not too surprising, as we have had so much rain recently, often accompanied by thunderstorms. In fact, the rain started on our return journey to Calgary and I was driving from our meeting place back to my house in torrential rain. I found a good scattering of small hailstones covering my lawn, too. This is where the word 'generosity' comes in. Two years ago, Schmitty donated all his land to Alberta Parks, along with certain strict regulations (listed at a link below) on how the land was to be maintained. He was very warmly recognized for his extreme generosity. The Park is known as Antelope Hill Provincial Park and, when Schmitty is no longer able to visit and enjoy his old, family homestead, the Park will be opened to the public. For now, it remains his own, private property. The highlight for us was meeting Schmitty himself. I can only hope that I might be lucky enough to be in half his shape if I ever reached that age! It was an absolute delight to spend a little time with this man with the big heart when we first arrived and again later in the day, when it was time for us to head back to Calgary. We also got to meet Schmitty's good neighbours, Donna and Ken. www.albertaparks.ca/media/5788002/antelope-hill-pp-fact-s... calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/you-can-thank-this-man-... www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIVVBdkoUVY&feature=youtu.be My friends (specialists in mosses, lichens and liverworts and other things) and I, were given permission to spend the day there, to list all our findings. Our time was spent climbing one main hill and walking part way around it, calling in at several of the small areas of woodland. One of the highlights for me yesterday was seeing a patch of Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric) mushrooms. They were at various stages - for me, the earlier stage is the most exciting, when the mushroom has a round 'ball' cap, speckled with white flecks. It is quite rare that we come across one of these, and it is so exciting and such a treat when we do! They are so beautiful and amazing. Of course, it's just a "fungi nut" talking, ha. They are so attractive but also poisonous! "A large conspicuous mushroom, Amanita muscaria is generally common and numerous where it grows, and is often found in groups with basidiocarps in all stages of development. Fly agaric fruiting bodies emerge from the soil looking like a white egg, covered in the white warty material of the universal veil... Amanita muscaria poisoning occurs in either young children or people ingesting it to have a hallucinogenic experience... A fatal dose has been calculated at an amount of 15 caps. Deaths from this fungus A. muscaria have been reported in historical journal articles and newspaper reports. However, with modern medical treatment a fatal outcome because of the poison of this mushroom would be extremely rare." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria Various plants were good to see, too, including about four Prairie Crocuses that were still in bloom. I hadn't seen Skeletonweed for a long time, but there were quite a few small clusters of it. A new plant to me was a tall one with white flowers, that I still need to identify properly. The occasional gorgeous wild Rose made a bright splash of colour. Of course, for me, any visit to a ranch would not be complete without wandering by any old barn/shed/cabin. I liked the texture of the old, weathered walls, and the old, glass doorknob on one of the sheds, seen in the next image. On our return walk back to the cars, I suddenly spotted this huge, green caterpillar on the trail. I hadn't seen one of these for many years. I think it's some kind of Sphinx Moth caterpillar, but I was none the wiser after a quick Google search last night - need to try again. The horn is at the tail end, and the head end was trying to burrow into the soil. The following information compares the Tomato hornworm and the Tobacco hornworm. They look quite similar. "The five-spotted hawkmoth (Manduca quinquemaculata) is a brown and gray hawk moth of the Sphingidae family. The caterpillar, often referred to as the tomato hornworm, can be a major pest in gardens. Tomato hornworms are closely related to (and sometimes confused with) the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta). This confusion arises because caterpillars of both species feed on the foliage of various plants from the family Solanaceae, so either species can be found on tobacco or tomato leaves, and the plant on which the caterpillar is found does not indicate its species. The larvae of these species can be distinguished by their lateral markings: Tomato hornworms have eight V-shaped white markings with no borders; tobacco hornworms have seven white diagonal lines with a black border. Additionally, tobacco hornworms have red horns; tomato hornworms have dark blue or black horns. Furthermore, the caterpillars can be distinguished from the larval stage onwards by the color of the horns on their back ends: M. quinquemaculata caterpillars have black horns, while M. sexta caterpillars have red horns. The moths can be distinguished by the number of spots on their abdomens, with M. quinquemaculata having, as its name suggests, five." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manduca_quinquemaculata After a few hours of exploration, the only things that we were so happy and relieved to leave behind were the mosquitoes! Never had I seen so many of them - the air was filled with these tiny, blood-sucking insects that followed us every step of the way! Thanks so much, Heide, for driving Sandy and myself all the way out there - about a two and three-quarter hour drive. Much of the distance was on the same roads that I had driven last week with my daughter, but this was the first time I had ever been as far as Hanna and just beyond. Hanna now has a Tim Horton's, opened around three months ago : ) Thanks, Heide, too, for trying to find the old railway roundhouse - unfortunate that there was too much construction in the area, so one can't get to the roundhouse. And thank you so much, Peter, for arranging and organizing this wonderful trip! Most importantly of all, our thanks to Schmitty, who so kindly allowed us to share the special land that he has called home for so many decades. Our thanks for allowing us to spend the day there and, even more importantly, thank you for your great gift to all Albertans, with your incredibly generous donation of Antelope Hill Provincial Park.

Still using many old photos form my archives, as I'm not taking many new ones and I'm not getting time to look more carefully through my files at the moment. This rather glaring image of a Police Car Moth caterpillar was taken on 21 June 2012, when I drove west of Calgary, along Elbow Falls Trail to Maclean Pond. "This is a fairly large moth with a wingspan of up to 50 mm. The wings are jet black with large white patches between the black scaled veins. As well, there are two orange patches of hairs on either side of the thorax, right behind the head. It is this colour combination, that of an old style police car, that gives it its name. Larvae are hairy and black with yellow and blue markings. The Police Car Moth is found throughout the province in or near forested areas. Adults fly throughout July and early August." From www.royalalbertamuseum.ca .

On 27 August 2013, several of us went to Pearce Estates, along the Bow River in Calgary, not far from Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. This was the first time I had seen any of the devastation along the Bow, caused by the Alberta Flood of the Century in June 2013. Masses of gravel and silt left behind and dried leaves and grasses plastered along fences, showing how high the water had reached at the peak of the flood - it would have been over our heads! One of the things that I was so happy to see there, on a tall grass species that no one has been able to identify the last few years, were several Seven-spotted Ladybugs and their strange looking larvae. Not sure I'd ever seen a larva actually moving before.

This afternoon, 27 August 2013, several of us went to Pearce Estates, along the Bow River in Calgary. This was the first time I had seen any of the devastation along the Bow, caused by the Alberta Flood of the Century in June. Masses of gravel and silt left behind and dried leaves and grasses plastered along fences, showing how high the water had reached at the peak of the flood - it would have been over our heads! One of the things that I was so happy to see there, on a tall grass species that no one has been able to identify the last few years, was a Ladybug - a Seven-spotted Ladybug, but a very pale orange. There were also some Ladybird larvae, which are such strange looking things, as you can see in my macro photo. www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/9616677686

..... I want to be just like Mom and Dad - a LADYBUG (or Lady Beetle)! Not the greatest photo, but I thought I'd share these Ladybug larvae with anyone who is not familiar with what they look like at various stages of development. Strange insects, for sure : ) Seen at the Reader Rock Garden, on many of the plants.

A photo from my archives, taken on 24 July 2011, when a few of us went NW of Calgary to spend a day of botanizing at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre.

A funny little Ladybug larva that I happened to notice at the place where I have photographed Coots and their babies recently. A couple of inches away from this one was a tiny Ladybug pupa (will post another time). All being well, I'll be out on a full-day botanizing trip today, which is why I'm posting before 6:00 a.m.!

This is just a very small flower in reality - how misleading macro shots are : ) Sorry to those of you who are totally confused and mislead by all my macro shots, LOL, but I just HAVE to take photos like that - that's what I love! Looks like the larva of something crawling over the petal? Seen on 3rd September, growing on wet mud at Bragg Creek Natural Area, east of the Kananaskis boundary.

We saw this little guy on a botanizing day on Raymond Nadeau's ranchland, west of Head-smashed-in Buffalo Jump, way down south towards the US/Canada border just over a month ago. I still haven't been able to find it on Google - if I ever get time, I need to post it on one of the Bug websites. It was such a beautiful colour. Later: many thanks to Dr. Ted Pike (Calgary) for the ID - a Sawfly larva. "Sawflies are a relative of bees and wasps. There are three or four families of these things which feed on leaves just like this one. I can't tell you more without an adult specimen to key out.". ID much appreciated. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawfly

We saw this brightly coloured caterpillar on a walk this morning, its bright red head shining in the sun. Or maybe this is not the head end but a distraction to predators? Haven't identified this yet. Later: thanks to Doug (dougwaylett, flickr name), this caterpillar has been identified as that of the Police Car Moth.