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- Jim Baines Contact Jim Baines Jim Baines's Gallery |
The adult female moth emerges from the ground in May and June (in Central Texas) at the time that the yucca plant is in flower, and mates shortly after emergence. Pretty neat, huh? How does she know? She collects the pollen of a yucca plant, using her specially shaped mouthparts, shaping it into a kind of horseshoe-shaped mass. She flies to another flower on another plant. She selects a flower, inserts her ovipositor through the wall of the carpel, and lays an egg next to the developing ovules. She then climbs to the top of the style, and, using her specially shaped mouthparts, called maxillary tentacles (which are unique to the yucca moth), she actively transfers the pollen on to the top of the stylar canal. She repeats the process, several times, thus ensuring that the plant is adequately pollinated, and can produce seeds on which the survival of her young, and the plant, depends. Within a few days she dies and drops off the plant. The eggs hatch out into larvae after 7 - 10 days, and they feed on the developing seeds, leaving some uneaten. After about 40 days, the 4th instar larvae eat their way out of the developing fruit, and drop to the ground using a silken thread. They then burrow their way into the soil, pupate after a year or so, and emerge as adults at the time of the flowering of the yucca plant. Consider this: 1. The young never see their mother or father, and therefore cannot copy what they did. They are born with the behaviour somehow programmed into their genes.
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- Jim Baines Contact Jim Baines Jim Baines's Gallery |
I have used the word ‘knows’ several times ... but a moth cannot ‘know’ 1. How to dissolve its grub character into a fluid enclosed in a case which is somehow going to reconstitute itself into a flying moth fully armed with instincts. Without the moth, the yucca species will perish. Without the yucca, the moth will perish. Each is entirely dependent on the other for its survival, because the moth lives on no other plant, and the plant is not fertilized by any other insects. No moth, no yucca. No yucca, no moth. The Yucca moth has already been extirpated from Travis County, Texas, by the deer population. The instinct displayed defies belief. Yet several reputable observers have described the behaviour in detail and published their findings, mumbling foolishly about 'co-evolution' when they try to explain the origin of the behaviour. It's like a lock and a key. Without the key, the lock is useless. Without the lock, the key is useless. Both have to be present at the same time for the device to work - and both are the work of an intelligent designer. Here, we have several miracles rolled into a single life cycle. The moth would perish without the plant, and the plant would perish without the moth. Which came first? Neither!!
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Michelle Alton |
If this phenomenon would have revealed itself to you as a teenager, you would surely have become an entomologist. You were born for it. (Or a botanist...or both.) As for the awesomeness of the relationship of the plant to the insect, my only explanation is that the plant and animal are really part of the same “organism” for lack of another way to think of it They are PART of each other. That’ is my simplistic evaluation. ---
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robinsonphotoart.com - Jeff Robinson Contact Jeff Robinson Jeff Robinson's Gallery |
Excellent capture Jim!!
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- JudyAnn Rector Contact JudyAnn Rector JudyAnn Rector's Gallery |
Superb macro work, Jim... I admire your tenacity and we are all gifted by it... thank you.
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- Shelly A. Van Camp Contact Shelly A. Van Camp Shelly A. Van Camp's Gallery |
Beautiful! How are you? :)
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Tammy Espino |
Thanks for all the info on this awesome capture!! :) Now (((STOMP)) Naw, I wouldn't do it to a moth!!
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