on april 10th i got a chance to meet romed unterasinger, who is running what could be called the “pasqueflower protection project”.

as i’ve written here before, innsbruck’s pasqueflower (pulsatilla oenipontana; innsbrucker küchenschelle) is a critically endangered species. nowadays it only occurs on three sites around innsbruck.
romed is regularly monitoring the existing populations, as well as collecting seeds and raising plants which he beds out when they’re big enough.
he showed me the few spots were pasqueflowers are still growing and gave me a lot of information on the background and current progress of the project. out of the ones that he planted himself in recent years, several plants were flowering this year.

the common kestrel (falco tinnunculus) is also in this gallery, because it was hovering above the ground near to us, at one of the sites. apparently, kestrels can see ultraviolet light and use this to find the urine-tracks of rodents.
in the 1600s (when the term wasn’t considered vulgar yet), they were called windfuckers. :shock:
 

[view photos: innsbruck's pasqueflower]

related post: looking for innsbruck’s pasqueflower

photos have started to pile up here. this is a mix of the past month’s nature related photos, enjoy!

to explain this photo: i’ve been very lucky to come across an ichneumon fly attacking its victim, a …fat green caterpillar. despite their size, it seemed like a brutal fight – the caterpillar trying to shake the fly off while it was stung several times.
the reason for this attack: the ichneumon fly (schlupfwespe; ichneumonoidea) injected the caterpillar with eggs from which the parasitic larvae will hatch. they essentially eat the caterpillar alive. isn’t life wonderful?
unfortunately, when i had my camera ready, the fight itself was already over.
 

[view photos: nature photo update]

i just found a webcam showing a breeding colony nursery roost of the mouse-eared bat (myotis myotis).
apparently they’ve got 1.800 females there!

go see

…to let you* know i’m alive.
* and by that, i mean all three of you. ;)

i don’t find much time to post new photos, but that’s just a matter of …weeks. :neutral:
actually, i don’t even get around to *take* a lot of photos, these days.

today, this year’s bat season started (for me, anyway).
and i found out that whether it’s a university professor or a grad-school child – their eyes are sparkling when they see a microbat for the first time :-)

a team of austrian biologists are hand-raising northern bald ibis chicks (geronticus eremita; “waldrapp” in german) to save them from extinction (or, actually, try to reintroduce them here).
since these ibis are migratory birds, somebody has to lead the way to their wintering grounds in autumn. the scientists are doing that, using ultralight airplanes, …just like amy did. ;-)
from the biological point of view: WOW, pretty cool!

more information: www.waldrappteam.at

i recently mentioned that i had …microbats in da house.
well, they were released about a week ago…

i was asked to take care of two parti-coloured bats (vespertilio murinus, zweifarbfledermaus), two common pipistrelles (pipistrellus pipistrellus, zwergfledermaus), two nathusius’ pipistrelle bats (pipistrellus nathusii; rauhautfledermaus) and one kuhl’s pipistrelle (pipistrellus kuhlii, weissrandfledermaus).

one of them (i think it was a nathusius’ pipistrelle) was so clever, she landed either on my hand or on its terrarium cover when she was done flying around.
 

[view photos: more microbats]

just within the last week, i’ve come across three blister beetles (meloidae) – oil beetles (meloe proscarabaeus; schwarzblauer ölkäfer), to be specific.

oil beetles are very rare, and are protected in austria.
distinguishing the gender is apparently pretty easy: males have a sharp bend in their antennas, females don’t. see here!

if the adult beetle is bothered, it can excrete a substance that contains cantharidin from its joints. cantharidin is a poison that can even be dangerous to humans (but is also used for medical purposes).
in last photo, you can see an orange droplet of poison on a beetle’s joint. before i noticed this bug, tiger thought it would be a fun thing to play with…

their life cycle is pretty interesting, too: females lay several thousands of eggs, and it takes up to a year for the larvae to hatch. as soon as they leave the eggs, each one craws up to a flower and waits for a solitary bee to stick to. the larva stays on its “taxi” until the bee lays an egg – now it gets off and eats the egg and honey, and after some time buries itself in the ground again, where it forms a pupa and will hatch the following spring.

[view photos: oil beetles]