Hello – greetings from Turkana in Northern Kenya… Up here checking in on my lab at the Turkana Basin Institute and spent half a day looking at bees pollinating the cucumbers being cultivated at the institute. Cucumbers are one of my favourite salad items and make a refreshing snack up here in the desert at … Read more
Dear All I recently went hiking in the Pugu Hills which are near the port city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. These hills contain some precious fragments of forests that once covered most of the East African coastal areas. However, today only tiny patches of forest remain. These forests are home to a lot … Read more
Dear All Many greetings, the rains over the last couple of months have brought forth some wonderful flowers out on the plains. Now with the mix of sunshine and abundant flowers, it is a fantastic time for the bees who are out and about in large numbers. Many other insects are also making hay while … Read more
Hello – back in Kenya here. The Whistling Thorns are just starting to flower on the plains… There are lots of different insects visiting the flowers, including these bees. It seems like the bees are the most efficient pollinators of this acacia’s flowers.
Pollinators hard at work! “One in three bites of food can be attributed to a pollinator”. This statement is often quoted by biologists around the world when talking about pollinators and their importance to our lives. In Africa pollinators are primarily wild insects that travel between farms and natural habitat, and are extremely … Read more
Hello! Sorry for not posting more often – have been really busy chasing after bugs now that the rains have started and they are popping out all over the place! Many, many thanks to everyone for their kind comments on the blog post ‘Ants in the dust’. I will try and post a … Read more
Dear AllSorry for not posting more – have been travelling – lots to share, just working on getting it all sorted. In the mean time here are some more close-ups of butterfly eyes – enjoy – the Emperor Butterflies below are particularly striking! The first one is a close-up of the Green-Veined Emperor, and the … Read more
Dear All, thanks for your kind comments about the Butterflion. If you are in Nairobi please go and visit him at the Sarit Centre outside the Text Book Centre. Here are some close-up pictures of butterflies that I took over the last couple of days. The pictures show their amazing compound eyes and mouthparts – … Read more