A recently shed exoskeleton of a grasshopper reclines among the 'Powis Castle' looking very much like una calaca; throw on a tiny hand-woven robe and hand him a teensy cup and maybe he's a wee yogi sipping tea in the afterlife of the artemisia.
Finally you can feel the autumn coming, you can see the meat thinning on the bones of the garden, the ghosts of dormancy just beginning to stir, even as the ripening grasshoppers molt and mate.
In the background you can just see the actual grasshopper that arose from this skeleton: a grey bird male, schistocerca nitens.
4 comments:
Wow! These two posts are just stunning - how lucky you are to have seen this and gotten such great pictures to share. I have grasshoppers here and all sorts of chirruping crickety things that I don't yet know the identity of - but I've never seen this. I like your metaphor of the bones too.
the last photo looks like he's having an out of body experience!
Amazing! I didn't even know they molt so many times. Now I'll have to watch a little more carefully what's going on in my hummingbird sage, I know there are grasshoppers knibbeling at it.
Great photos. Now you made me realize that my Matis molted! I thought she ate her mate! I'll have to show an update...pretty fascinating.
Post a Comment