Author Gary Taylor ◦
Hyleoides zonalis rufocinctus (also known by the less common name “spider mimic” bee, named for its web-like nest construction 😅) series, Scarlett popping a platypus cap to get to the fresh nectar and pollen… 🙂
Now I gotta point out, Scarlett and I have rehearsed this many times (it’s stated in the BeeTown Tenancy Agreement, clause B, “Tenants must be willing to participate in photographic behavioural stuff.”😃), but she’s so damn quick… shoots in, grabs the bottle, and pops the cork like she’s on a hen’s night (they really do shoot off like a champagne cork…), faster than the camera can get a focus. I had to ask her to slow it down a bit, give me a sec to get the camera ready, which she did, and I still missed it 😅
So to give you an idea of the speed, I’m shooting in sequential mode (7 frames/second), she lands, I hit the shutter button… 1st pic she’s got her jaws hooked under the rim and has already got it moving, 2nd pic (0.14 of a second later), the cap has launched.
3rd pic (not 3rd frame), I love the look on her face, “you’re kidding… you missed again?… How’d you miss that one…” 😅 4th pic, “well you’re just going to have to wait, I’ve got mouths to feed…” 😆 And 5th pic, not a great pic (wind and foliage paradoxically both on and not on my side 😄), but the only one I have of the male that shows the face marking. 🙂
And for those that think my stories may perhaps occasionally have just a slight hint of anthropomorphism to them (Anne 😅), I put it to you; Is not the use of the word “mimic”, first used by Shakespeare to describe an actor who imitates another person for entertainment (a solely human trait), when used to describe millions of years of evolution resulting in two related creatures (wasp and bee), looking similar (as though one day a bee thought “Hey, I’m gonna dress up and act like a wasp), in itself, not the epitome of anthropomorphism… 🙂😅😆
