LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THE POMEGRANATE TREE IN JUNE

The pomegranate tree in my yard looked great in June.

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The branches were covered by dense green foliage and decorated with a multitude of vivid red flowers.

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Insects and spiders were also there, so I had plenty to explore with my macro lens.

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This photograph shows how the leaves and flowers create an attractive pattern made of two complementary colors.

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Here you can see the Gonepteryx rhamni, a lovely butterfly from the Pieridae family, feeding on one of the flowers near the top of the tree.

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This shot shows a few more flowers from that high area.

The bees were mostly buzzing around the lower branches.

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On one occasion, in mid-June ...

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... late in the afternoon, I came across an interesting scene involving a crab spider, a European honey bee, and ...

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... and a group of small flies.

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The spider has caught one of the bees that were busy buzzing around the nectar-rich pomegranate flowers ...

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... and the flies have found the way to take advantage of the situation.

These flies belong to the Milichiidae family.

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The scientific name of the species is Desmometopa sordida.

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These flies often feed on the carcasses of insects caught by spiders while the spiders are consuming their prey. They don't care about discarded carcasses. This behaviour probably has something to do with the way spiders use digestive fluids to dissolve parts of the prey before ingesting the liquefied food, which makes a meal ideal for the fly's mouthparts as well.

Not only does the spider shown here not seem bothered by their presence, but ...

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... but I read that spiders have been observed patiently exposing their fangs after feeding for the flies to clean them.

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This shot shows a Desmometopa sordida that just arrived from somewhere, watching the scene from the nearby leaf before joining the feeding frenzy.

Here you can see a photograph taken a second or two later, and from a different angle.

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I had to use the flash most of the time to make all the tiny details in the scene visible, but ...

... but some things looked much better in ambient light ...

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... so I took the time to catch a few silhouettes as well.

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The scientific name of the spider shown in these photographs is Pistius truncatus. The family is Thomisidae. All the crab spiders belong to that family.
I have a pretty unique experience with Pistius truncatus. This is one of those common, widespread species that I never saw anywhere except in my yard, where I encounter it regurarely, every summer.
The scientific name of the European honey bee is Apis mellifera.

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Here you can see a few more lovely flowers, for a change.

This photograph shows a flower bud that will soon spread the juicy red petals.

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The tiny insects shown in this photograph looked like white powder or some kind of white mold from a distance. This is an extreme macro.

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The scientific name of this species, commonly known as the greenhouse whitefly, is Trialeurodes vaporariorum. The family is Aleyrodidae. If you explore all the details in these two photographs, you may notice a few tiny green aphids in the scene. Those are the pomegranate aphids - Aphis punicae. Both insects feed on the sap of the plant.

In the following photograph ...

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... you can see a small group of tiny insects of a different kind. The biggest of them have wings, the other are wingless, but they all belong to the same species - Ectopsocus briggsi. The wingless ones are immature nymphs. Ectopsocus briggsi is a barklouse from the Ectopsocidae family. Males always have fully developed wings, longer than the abdomen, while females can be winged or brachypterous. Brachypterous means that their wings are too reduced to be functional. These extremely small insects didn't look very good in photographs when illuminated with the flash, while without the flash, I couldn't take a sharp photograph at all. That's why ...

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... I had no choice but to introduce them in a series of lousy pictures in this post. The pun was totally planned and intended - I love cheap puns. In the tetraptych above, you can see a brachypterous female surrounded by nymphs. These barklice feed on fungal spores and various microflora on the surface of the leaves.

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In the following photograph ...

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... you can see another, slightly bigger, more robust barklouse from the Stenopsocidae family. This is the Graphopsocus cruciatus, probably a sixth instar nymph that will soon become an adult.

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Here you can see the Graphopsocus cruciatus nymph, sharp in the lower part of the picture, and a winged Ectopsocus briggsi adult, slightly blurred near the upper edge of the shot.

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The presence of those tiny insects scaterred across the foliage of the lower branches meant plenty of food ...

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... for lady beetles and their larvae. Here you can see an adult Harmonia axyridis lady beetle standing next to a larva and cleaning its forelegs.

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Harmonia axyridis, commonly known as the Asian lady beetle, is an invasive species native to eastern Asia. In this set of four photographs, you can see the adult beetle eating the empty larval exoskeleton next to the larva and biting the larva itself. It looks like the larva is dead.

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Cannibalism in this species isn't unusual. It is more frequent among the larvae, especially if the food is scarce, but adults can eat the larvae as well, sometimes.

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Here you can see another larva of the same species, this time positively alive, resting on a leaf of another branch.

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These two shots show a pupa that, if everything goes well, will develop into an adult Harmonia axyridis beetle.

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Here you can see another example of cannibalism in the same species. The larva is eating the pupa, which can't move.

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In the following two shots presented in a single picture ...

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... an empty pupal exoskeleton. The adult Harmonia axyridis has already left, probably a few days ago.

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Here you can see a Harmonia axyridis that came out of the pupal exoskeleton very recently. Maybe only a few minutes ago.

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The beetle is still soft and pale, with no traces of spots and markings that will appear later.

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Harmonia axyridis, shown in these two shots, is also an adult newcomer, but this one is closer to its final version with pronounced spots and markings.

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Here you can see another portrait of the larva.

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This is the larva of a different species, the Adalia decempunctata.

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In the following photograph ...

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... you can see an adult Adalia decempunctata that just came out of the pupal exoskeleton.

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The soft, pale beetle lacks the dots and markings.

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This is the pupa.

This is an adult, completely formed Adalia decempunctata.

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In the following photograph ...

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... the Adalia decempunctata larva is posing on the flower. The scene was illuminated by the flash.

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Here, the same scene is shown in ambient light.

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These two shots show the same larva on the same flower from two slightly different angles.

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This is the larval stage of Propylea quatuordecimpunctata, yet another species from the Coccinellidae family. All lady beetles belong to that family.

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When it comes to this species, I haven't seen any adult beetles running around ...

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... so I can show you only the larva.

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In this photograph, the Propylea quatuordecimpunctata larva is feeding on tiny barklice nymphs.

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In this shot, the focus is on the upper part of the tree on a sunny summer day.

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Here you can see the entire tree and a bit of its surroundings.

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This is the Deraeocoris flavilinea, a bug from the Miridae family.

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Here you can see a spider from the Philodromidae family ...

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... with the prey in its fangs. The prey is a small bug from the Miridae family, but I can't tell you what species exactly.

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When it comes to the spider, the scientific name of the species is Philodromus lunatus.

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In my experience, Philodromus lunatus is a pretty rare spider here in my area. I saw it only a few times so far.

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Here you can see a group of lovely flowerbuds.

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The flowers in this photograph are completely developed. They are in their prime. Well, all except one. The star-like thing in the upper part of the picture is a flower that has lost its petals and is slowly developing into a fruit.

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Here you can see that kind of developing ovary that has lost the petals from a different angle. On one of these ...

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... I photographed a small beetle from the Scraptiidae family. The scientific name of the species is Anaspis flava.

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Here you can see a fly resting on the upper surface of the leaf. This is the Calliphora vomitoria, a fly from the Calliphoridae family.

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This is just another flower. In the following photograph ...

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... I came a bit closer to that same flower.

Here, I used the macro lens to allow you a good look at the structure in its center.

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This shot shows a bee feeding on another flower.

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Here you can see a small predatory bug from the Miridae family.

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Campyloneura virgula hunts tiny insects and mites. Aphids, barklice, and whiteflies shown in this post are among its ordinary prey.

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There isn't much I can say about this shot - just another flower and a couple of flower buds near it.

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In June, the European earwigs can be seen resting among the red petals. At the end of the summer and in autumn, you can find them inside the ripe fruits. The scientific name of the species is Forficula auricularia.

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This photograph shows a small snail resting on the leaf of one of the branches, very low on the tree. This is the Xeroplexa intersecta, a species from the Geomitridae family.

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And that's it. Hope you enjoyed what I presented in this post. As always, here on Hive, the photographs are my work.

The following links will take you to the sites with more information about the protagonists of today's post. I found some stuff about them there.