Tag: nature

African Monarch Butterfly

On By Bernadette SimpsonIn ArthropodsLeave a comment

Considering how much time I have spent with these beauties over the years, I’m surprised that I haven’t featured them on the blog before now!

African Monarch butterflies (Danaus chrysippus), also called African Queen or Plain Tiger butterflies, are widespread and abundant in Egypt. In fact, the oldest representation of a butterfly in the world is of an African Monarch and it’s on a pharaonic wall painting in Luxor.

African Monarchs are members of the family Nymphalidae, often called brush-footed butterflies or four-footed butterflies because their first pair of legs are small or reduced. The caterpillars of this family of butterflies all have spiky projections on their heads and their chrysalids have shiny spots.

Larvae of African Monarchs prefer to feed on the leaves of Dead Sea Apple Trees (Calotropis procera) but will feed on any Asclepiadaceae, or milkweed plant, so this is where the adult butterflies will lay their eggs. The eggs are dome-shaped and ridged and typically hatch in 3 – 5 days.

The caterpillars are striped white, yellow, and black and have black spines protruding from their bodies. As you may know, milkweed plants contain toxic compounds. These do not harm the caterpillars. Rather, the larva sequester these toxins, making the adult butterflies inedible/poisonous or distasteful to predators and acting as part of their defense system.

Because these butterflies, and their host plants, are common in Dahab, I have reared many of them indoors with my students. When indoors among inanimate objects, the pupa, or chrysalis, is white or pale colored. Outside in the wild, these chrysalids are bright green. In either situation, the chyrsalis has shiny gold spots, including along a black line near the top which I like to think of as a necklace.

Pupation lasts between 9 and 15 days and then the adults eclose, the verb used to describe when a butterfly emerges or hatches from their chrysalis.

The vibrant coloring of the adult butterflies acts as a warning sign to predators, alerting them to their toxicity. The upperwings are a burnt orange color with black edges and white spots. The underwings are a dull yellow, edged with a fine black line and white dots.

The body of the butterflies are black with many white spots. Females have three black spots on their hindwings, but males have a fourth black spot with a white center, a scent gland. Now that you know that, look back at the pictures in this post and see if you can tell the males from the females.

Adult African Monarchs feed on nectar from a variety of flowering plants and are easy to spot around Dahab. Have you spotted these beauties in town or on your wadi wanders?

More about the Hairy Rose Beetle in Sinai

On By Bernadette SimpsonIn Arthropods4 Comments

Wow! It’s been just over a year since I last posted on the blog. Where does the time go? I know that for a good part of last year, I was busy updating and publishing the fourth edition of my guidebook. Now that I’ve finished that, my intention this year is to share one of the many cool plants and animals of Sinai at least once a month. Let’s see how it goes. 🙂

I’m going to start the year off with the Hairy Rose Beetle (Tropinota squalida). I spotted one in my garden last week – a clear indication of our recent warm weather and the winter that hasn’t really come to Dahab yet.

Hairy Rose Beetles are a type of scarab beetle, a member of the Scarabaeidae Family of insects. If you’ve also spotted them in your garden, you probably know that these beetles can be an agricultural pest. That’s because the adult beetles feed on flower buds and all parts of the mature flowers – the pistils, stamens, and petals – making the production of fruit by that flower impossible. These beetles really liked the nimnam plant (Schouwia purpurea) that used to grow in my garden, and I was often alerted to their presence by the debris left behind. (See photo below.)

The beetles, both larvae and adults, live primarily underground and have legs adapted to digging. The adults emerge from the ground to eat and then return to the soil, only to come out again in a few days to continue eating. The larvae feed on roots and rotting plant material, playing an important ecological role in the recycling of decomposing vegetable matter into the soil.

Hairy Rose Beetles are just that – hairy! Their dark brown bodies, 1 – 1 ½ cm long, are covered with thick tawny-colored hair on their elytra and abdomens. (Elytra are the hardened forewings that protect the hindwings that are used in flight.) This hair wears off with age. The elytra are also covered with small yellowish flecks.

These beetles are sun seekers and are typically found in bright, open areas. They are energetic but clumsy fliers. In fact, you can often catch them easily with your hands.

I can’t say for sure if I’ve seen Hairy Rose Beetles in the wadis, but I have spotted other closely-related chafer beetles, like the one pictured below – an Oxythyrea species (maybe O.noemi) feeding on a starthistle (Centaurea scoparia).

Have you seen Hairy Rose Beetles in your garden? Are they pests?

Flies in Sinai

On By Bernadette SimpsonIn ArthropodsLeave a comment

Flies can be pesky for sure, but when you take a closer look, many of them are quite beautiful! Flies are in the order Diptera, which includes not only those pesky house flies but horse-flies, crane flies, fruit flies, hoverflies, midges, and mosquitoes.

Flies in Sinai

In this sampling of flies in Sinai, you see:

Top Left: Band-eyed Hoverfly (Eristalinus taeniops)

Bottom Left: Common Green Bottle Fly (Lucilia sericata)

Top Right: Hoverfly (Eupeodes corollae)

The other two images are unidentified fruit flies (Drosophilidae family).

Dragonflies in Sinai

On By Bernadette SimpsonIn ArthropodsLeave a comment

A couple of months ago, my external hard drive malfunctioned and I lost thousands of my photos – mostly my pics of Sinai wildlife. Fortunately, my talented husband was able to recover a good chunk of the images. Recently, instead of wandering through wadis shooting new photos, I’ve been sorting and renaming all the recovered images. It’s a bit tedious and overwhelming, so I took breaks to put together different collections, like this one – Dragonflies in Sinai. I’ll be sharing some more of these over the next few weeks so stay tuned. 🙂

Dragonflies in Sinai

Top Left and Bottom Right: Violet Dropwing (Trithemis annulata)
Middle Left: Desert Skimmer (Orthetrum ransonneti)
Bottom Left: Slim Scarlet-Darter (Crocothemis sanguinolenta)
Top Right: Unknown

Hyena’s Fart ~ Desert Mushroom

On By Bernadette SimpsonIn Fungi3 Comments

Podaxis pistillaris

The Bedouin of Sinai call this desert mushroom (Podaxis pistillaris) “hyena’s fart” in Arabic because they seem to appear out of nowhere, just like the hyenas (used to) do. And they do indeed pop up suddenly! But their spores, which can live for many years without water, have been there all along, under the desert sands, waiting for rain.

It was the Spring of 2014, after a very wet winter, that we spotted scores of these mushrooms dotting the sandy desert plains. A relative of the puffballs, this mushroom, sometimes called a Black Powderpuff, can grow up to 15 – 20 cm high. It has a large white cap that protects the inner blackish tissue. This tissue contains the spores, and when the mushroom reaches maturity, the cap will split open and fall away, allowing the spores to be dispersed by the wind.

These mushrooms – a good source of protein, essential amino acids, carbs, lipids, and minerals – are roasted and eaten by the Bedouin of Sinai.

Other common names in English for this mushroom include Desert Shaggy Mane and False Shaggy Mane.