Saturday, September 6, 2008

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life

This first photograph should be very familiar to those of you who go to Gabriel's website Mental Magma. It was one of the photographs he used in contest #4 (which you can find on items for purchase here.) I bring this up because of my recent experience in my own backyard.
Go green! Do it on a leaf.
(courtesy of www.mentalmagma.com)

I happened to notice these really cool looking seed pods produced by our hibiscus plants which have flowered beautifully all summer. As I was snapping away I noticed that I wasn't alone...

... these two were sowing some 'seeds' of their own.

It was fascinating to watch as the bigger bug (male I assume) walked around and the attached female had to follow along backwards.

Is this why women are often maligned as "back seat drivers?"

As our couple pulled up to the make-out leaf they were shocked to find that there were others already there. Apparently there's a real Love Fest going on in our back yard.

Then I noticed this little fellow. At first I didn't notice him because he was the same bright green as the leaves.

He was quite the poser.

He did notice me though; I could see him eying me with his beady little black eyes. Unsure of my intentions he made his way slowly down the stem to another leaf.

He didn't seem to like the fact that I was following him around and turned straight to me as if to say, "Get lost you bipedal primate!"

So I did. Boy do I love bugs.

5 comments:

Ingrid said...

Somehow this comment of Shirin's didn't get published properly, so I've cut and pasted it from my email account:

ModaresiBeal said...

I don't think you could ever have gotten such amazing photos without your new camera. I'm glad you are finally able to use it. Your backyard certainly is full of life and love! :)
-Shirin

September 6, 2008 3:47 PM

Anonymous said...

By the way, are male bugs bigger? I have some notion that the females are lucky enough to hold that honor.
-Shirin

Ingrid said...

I have no idea. I know that females are bigger in spiders, bees, ants, so.. yeah, maybe you're right!

Saeed said...

I agree with Shirin's hunch about the relative size of female bugs: whereas the male of a lot of animals find reporoductive success by becoming physicallt larger and stronger to better compete and gain access to female partners, in insects the male gains reporductive advantage by growing larger and more elaborate genital ogans, to more successfully inseminate the female with.

On this last point, the result of an earlier contest on Mental Magma (www.mentalmagma.com) suggested that the human male may in fact wish to have been more like a bug than a lion. Funny.

Ingrid said...

Ok, general consensus is that it's probably the male that's the backseat driver. Ha! I like that; she's pulling HIM around... as it should be.