AN HOUR ON THE EDGE OF THE FOREST

Today I drove about fifty kilometers and spent an hour or so photographing the insects at the edge of the forest in the rural area around the town of Zminj.

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In this opening photograph, you can see a small moth that I wasn't able to identify.

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The family is probably Crambidae. Or Pyralidae. I don't know.

Here you can take a look at the setting.

This well-camouflaged moth from the Pyralidae family, the Stemmatophora brunnealis, was photographed in the short, recently trimmed, dry grass on the edge of the meadow.

It was almost invisible from a distance.

After some more walking along the edge of the forest, I came across this stump. The oak tree has been recently cut down.

It looks that these two European hornets (Vespa crabro) have found a source of sap coming out of the remains of the tree.

These large wasps are predators that hunt various insects. But they are also scavengers that can be seen searching for edible garbage and dead insects. In 2011 cleptoparasitic behavior was observed for the first time. The hornets were seen stealing prey entangled in the spider's web. The sap from the trees is also regularly on their menu.

This well-camouflaged, almost invisible butterfly was photographed near the stump.

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This is the Arethusana arethusa.

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The adults feed mainly on nectar, but they will suck the sap if there is an opportunity. The larvae feed on various types of grass.

Here you can take another look at the setting.

Here you can see some mysterious little thing that I wasn't able to identify.

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Can't tell you what this is. Some kind of egg? Some kind of scale insect? I don't know. Maybe. Never seen anything like this before.

Like most of the insects shown in today's post, this grasshopper nymph is hard to notice in its environment.

Can't tell you the name of the species. The genus is probably Chorthippus. The family? Definitively Acrididae.

AND THAT'S IT. AFTER PHOTOGRAPHING THE GRASSHOPPER, I SAT IN MY CAR AND DROVE BACK HOME. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.