Frogfruit Leaper
Blink and it's gone. This copper-shiny speck is a flea beetle, and that thick back leg hides a spring. It stores up energy and releases it all at once, launching the beetle away in a catapult-style jump that can make it vanish in an instant. Not a flea at all, just a beetle that jumps like one. Scientists have studied that jump closely enough to sketch a bionic jumping leg from it.
It's perched on creeping frogfruit, a groundcover so low you could walk right over it. Frogfruit grows along wet ground, ditches, and roadsides, and shrugs off drought, floods, salt, and even the occasional mowing. But this "weed" is a butterfly nursery. It's one of only two plants, both frogfruits, that the phaon crescent butterfly can raise its caterpillars on, and it also feeds the caterpillars of the white peacock and the tropical buckeye, two butterflies you can spot along Belize's roadsides and ditches. Its tiny flowers feed small bees, butterflies, and even hummingbirds.
This moment of noticing was in my own backyard. I noticed the creeping frogfruit sprouting up and wanted to capture their beauty before the inevitable grass mowing. What I didn't expect was to see a little creature, almost too small for the eye to see. It's times like these that I count my lucky blessings for a macro lens. It's these worlds unseen that bring me closer to nature and open up my mind to all that exists. Though the internet offers advice to get rid of flea beetles, I find them quite beautiful and fascinating. He is a welcome visitor in my grass.
What we protect begins with what we notice. My noticing leads to The Wild Land Project.
About This Image
Common name: Flea beetle on creeping frogfruit
Scientific name: Tribe Alticini on Phyla nodiflora
Location: Northern Belize
Collection: Things with Wings
Available as: Landscape (9x12, 18x24) or Portrait (9x12, 18x24, 30x40)
Choose the view that fits your space: the wide meadow (Landscape) or the close-up crown (Portrait), which also comes in a 30x40 statement size.
