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Biodiversity in Mediterranean sandy

P August piles at the edge of the Parque Natural de las Salinas de Santa Pola, scorching heat and cooling the family on the beach of La Marina. However, I called more attention to the "back" to the beach. It is a small remnant of a dune system that tells us what were once many areas of our Mediterranean coast and its rich biodiversity, have now disappeared. You can not walk very much there at noon without fear of heatstroke, but it's worth spending a little time before or after bathroom. The most striking of the day a copy of Argiope lobata in the center of the vast fabric. is an enormous spider, its abdomen is larger than a coin of 20 cents, with open legs would hold the palm of a hand. But that was not the first thing I saw before I realized that a kind of nylon thread through my way, felt it and that was tense and strong guitar string. I followed and it was next to a web of nearly two meters in diameter over a horizontal and vertical underground. That thread was one of the turnbuckles that was attached to trees and shrubs in the environment. At its heart, the great spider against two wire widths warning in case you fall prey to your network.
'm over dunes fixed by vegetation of pines, eucalyptus, occasional date palm and many plants of smaller stature.
Just off the beach first thing that I find myself in a wide band of grass knife Carpobrotus edulis, advancing from all sides, leaving bald scorched in the middle. Thus invade the ground and prevents the growth of native plants. Once this border I meet a host of insects that fly, jump and run around me. The floor burns and gives the impression that this is the reason why the small hunter wasp for still settling and take off again in search of prey. Thanks to Julian, El Naturalista I have been placed in the genus Ammophila , jackets caterpillars. If the fact that its legs are red and hairy little worth something, according to the Insectarium virtual may case of Ammophila heydeni .
Other wasps are less sensitive and closer to one of their nests, the size of a soccer ball, placed in the middle ground, not a very good idea, but they seem very focused on their work.

not dare to put scientific name, so I settle for classifying at the genus level: Polistes sp . As I said before, I could see many more insects in a short time. The cicadas sang on all sides challenging me to find them by sight, so do not get it. Lacewing fly with delicate lace wings very awkward, unlike dragonflies superficielmente resemble them. Some of them flew fast, which indicates that there is fresh water nearby. Grasshopper very alert, and almost impossible to photograph up to watch. Some bugs field, which showed the Carpocoris laying eggs in another entry . And suddenly, a rare black ball goes straight past my face, down to the ground and gets up again. I thought it was a beetle, the chase and see it fall again. I go ahead with the camera to take the picture before anything else and no time to focus. I did well, though the picture is very regular, because rose again and disappeared from sight forever.

Until I downloaded the image on the computer I had no idea what was (not) seen. See if you can guess before looking at another photo below.

I think it's a fly couple mating hunter of the family Asilidae. The abdomen long and sturdy legs ending in two cups and I suggest. For the most clueless know about the family of flies speak, I have a picture to a copy of another species, I found drowned in the pond house. This is:

They are very interesting animals, ferocious hunters of all kinds of insects and with a curious courtship behavior that I hope to get some time.

But behind the scenes of the beach would not be such if it was full of toilet paper, paper towels and trash. To this end he was afraid of finding someone with the ass in the air behind every bush. Let's see how he would explain that took pictures of insects and not pigs! A pity, do become latrines what should be a haven of biodiversity.

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BACK ... BACK

BACK TO THE RATCHET AND RETURNS WITH THE BALL IN THE WORLD

E stoy back with the cicadas of mountain stalii Steropleurus . I had no intention of writing about them soon, but I was pushed at the expense of another round, the Tour of Spain.
We have seen many of these cicadas this year in the Sierra de Madrid, perhaps by chance have coincided with periods of activity perhaps as a result of the weather this year has been a population explosion, more dams to feed on or perhaps, ultimately, we have paid more in them.
The last climb we did on the slopes of La Bola del Mundo, last Sunday, when we see them feeding on their fellows, walked in the road, and mountain grasshoppers with those who share the habitat.

Top photo by Francisco Javier Barbadillo

These animals are endemic to high mountain populations have separate island hundreds of miles from each other. Are elements of research first order for taxonomists and biologists who study evolution, living specimens of the processes of isolation and speciation. Ecologists can study how they affect climate change on mountain species, they are the most affected by what has been called global warming. We are witnessing a process in which mountain animals are increasingly restricting their distribution at higher altitudes, both because of the weather and because they are driven by lowland species that reach above taking advantage of the bonanza weather. Literally mountain species can not rise up and are doomed to extinction.

But

need not change the weather, or other species that range, even whether they have the opportunity to climb up the mountain, if what happens is that in full breeding season, have died in the pruning and "cleansing" of the plants from ditches and trampled by the organization and the public who attended the Ball on Saturday to attend the World Tour of Spain. There are no better places to make a mountain stage. There is no better place than the Guarramillas rise in the center of where perhaps, more every day we doubt, once maimed declare a National Park. Back
But this is not an isolated case, but a further twist to an irrational exploitation of a mountain that does not anymore. And if not, read the news this past May at EL PAIS

Javier Barbadillo in the last corner and I in this blog, we have agreed to write on the same topic . Be sure to read it by clicking here.

Other related entries:

- The cicadas by clicking here start

- More on cicadas playing clicking here

Best Running Socks For In The Wet

bugs in the Thistle Corridor linking

F inal August, hot, very hot, the grass is yellow and the flowers of Umbelliferae, which recently offered a large amount of nectar in their flowers tiny insects have their heads drooping, falling as looking at soil. Only a few plants keep a certain freshness to these temperatures and drought. For its part, the bugs have developed their wings field completely after the last molt and become adults and it's time they play. A field bugs like flowers of the Umbelliferae, but now are dry most of them. The meeting place for the couples to be one of the few plants that even you can feed.

in our meadows, ditches, fallow and tips, from sea level to mid-mountain what better place than the thistle broker? And this is not a true thistle, but an exceptionally umbelliferous protected and adapted to the arid Mediterranean. Its scientific name: Eryngium campestre . Al thistle may we thank symbiont and feed it to a fungus, mushroom, thistle, Pleurotus eryngii. And that is why he also called thistle mushroom.

The runners thistles bloom in summer and when dried, and entering the autumn winds, are often torn off and rolling meadows and roads, such as shrubs of American Westerns. This will disperse the seeds that are falling by the wayside. But on the ground are rhizomes, than for large plants can take up several meters in diameter and in symbiosis with it, the mycorrhizal fungus, soon, if the year is wet, will receive their fruiting bodies: the delicious mushrooms.

On a walk through almost any Iberian landscape, which is not very high mountain our road will be flanked by these humble thistle and over them in great profusion, bedbugs extracting field last drinks of wise and feeding on nectar or other insects, all there.

Among the most common bugs is striking Graphosoma lineatum, impossible to go unnoticed with the top drawn from black and red lines and dots on the belly.

also quite common in our latitudes is another species of the same family (Pentatomidae) and similar size, Carpocoris mediterraneus, and find them equally dedicated to ensuring the next generation. Here in the mountains of Madrid, over a thousand meters of altitude, the bugs are engaged in intercourse, but a month ago, near the sea on the coast of Alicante, the same species was already laying eggs. different families (Lygaeidae) we find, at a time and in the same thistles, the bugs of the hazels, Spilostethus saxatilis, which incidentally, has never attacked the hazel of my garden, but abundant in meadows around the house.

The copy of the picture below the left wings have atrophied and lets us see clearly the superior hardliners, who is the one color, and the membranous wings and flying, which is below and looks at back where they usually cross to the opposite side.

All have bright colors, ads for their toxicity or off-flavors, which most often come from the same plants from which they feed. So are quiet and allowed to observe without altering too. At best, try to be on the opposite side of the stick where they are perched, like playing hide and seek, or attempt to introduce a little more between the spiny leaves of the thistle, to feel more secure. That makes us a little picture, not everything is gonna be so easy, but leaving them quiet a while back about their business and affairs exercise allowing voyeurs naturalists. If we are impatient and annoying, we punished and be dropped from the thorny leaves of the base or will fly.