Rups..

as the dutch say. We´ve finally got Morpho offspring on the Wisteria and the Parides iphidamas are pupating.

Whenever I´m a lazy git...

...I try to remember this :) .

Actually really like my work right now feels like I´m getting the best of two worlds.
I guess it will / cannot last because planningwise it would be "a little bit" complicated,  but I´ll enjoy it how long it lasts and look very much forward to new stuff anyway :).

Leszek i pustułek

Leszek & pustułek  (Proszę wybaczyć mój słaby polski :) ! )
Leszek & Turmfalkenweibchen
Leszek & female kestrel
Leszek &  vrouwelijke torenvalk
Leszek &  falco tinnunculus (0,1)

Don´t know why everybody who has not studied biology seems to hate the "latin" species names, it´s so much easier and precise to use them.

Leszek*  caught a female kestrel today in one of the greenhouses and was kind enough to show it to me before he released it.
After some newts, a lizard (still unsure about the species...it came with the potsoil), a rhinozeros beetle, various songbirds, toads and frogs galore this was an interesting & unexpected new addition to the collection at my workplace.

* a colleague of mine, together we´ve been through thick and thin in the last years (and no, this is no english for runaways, apparently that´s a real english expression)

one very hungry caterpillar...

I´ve never really been into botany, I get interested in  plants mostly/only when they can be eaten by animals and in my mind I classify everything as browse and non browse.
The first time I really learned about native "weeds" was when I kept two guinea pigs who lived exquisitely on herbs I collected for them.
So now, when visiting botanical gardens I tend to look for butterfly host plants mainly, trying to pinch some shoots of passiflora, aristolochia or cestrum.

A colleague of mine recently found an Aristolochia for sale in a garden centre and I planted it in our greenhouse in Papenburg. Some pipvine swallowtails laid there eggs on it and last time I visited there where a couple of goodlooking caterpillars munching away. as the plant ist too small for them yet I took them home and atred to search for a dutchmens pipe vine - without success. Until another colleague discovered one in our outside show-garden.
It´s so cool to have colleagues like that ! :)

Gave some leaves to the caterpillars and they started eating right away.
So, that´s the perfect way for a zoologist to identify a plant species: just find a host specific caterpillar and see if it eats it :).
It´s a Parides iphidamas by the way.

special guests...

... Argema mimosae and Morpho achilles.

When  visiting the town I where I studied recently - well it´s zoo and it´s botanical garden to get some Aristolochis shoots - I realized there´s only one, single thing I really miss now,  living in the countryside: a large library, preferably one from a University with a biology department..
Or any library at all, come to that.

sometimes little things...

...make you very happy.
Feeling grateful.