Monday, November 8, 2010

Common blue bottle

Sitting by a forest stream can't be compared with anything.
We can put small pebbles in the water and see how many droplets go up,
How many jumps one stone can do once its free from our hands,
Make models of our dream,
Can draw anything with fine sand on the banks of a river,

We can swim,
You can drink(if you trust others) water while swimming or
Sit and move our eyes as the ripples come and go...
The river has a beginning, an end, it always lives in the present, it has a variety of characteristics and indeed a sense or purpose too. From looking at the river from the perspective of its characteristics we find it has a particular chemical composition, it has an origin, it houses lot of aquatic composition, and plants, the water is used for a wide variety of purpose and the like. If the river is unaware of its variety of characteristics, it becomes ignorant and simply flows off.
I was sitting by a forest stream in western slopes of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve) looking around to do what next? (no I was trying to find my own identity(!!!) like our river flowing without the true knowledge of its own identity will surely reach the sea) Graphium sarpedon, the common bluebottle is a species of swallowtail butterfly came here to see what aquatic composition this river has got to attract female butterflies to him.  Another stakeholder of the river.

I will do anything for ----
I pulled out basic information of why this butterfly is visiting riverbank. 'His' visit is called mud-puddling- it is the phenomenon mostly seen in butterflies and involves their aggregation on substrates like wet soil, dung and carrion to obtain nutrients such as salts and amino acids. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are diverse in their strategies to gather liquid nutrients. Typically, mud-puddling behavior takes place on wet soil. But even sweat on human skin may be attractive to butterflies.This behaviour is restricted to males in many species. Males seem to benefit from the sodium uptake through mud-puddling behaviour with an increase in reproductive success. The collected sodium and amino acids are often transferred to the female with the spermatophore during mating as a nuptial gift. This nutrition also enhances the survival rate of the eggs.

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