Last week I took a photo of a butterfly (Melitaea athalia) on a thistle (Cirsium sp.). When I was looking at the picture at home on the computer, I noticed the marked object at the seed head of the thistle.
The picture was taken on a meadow in Austria, which is mowed only one time a year, without any organic or mineral fertilizer.
Can anybody tell me, what it is? Is this an instar of an insect, perhaps of Diptera or is it only a part of the seed head? I have never seen this before.
Thank you for your efforts and answers! I am very curious about this.
Don't argue about this question, this is not my intention.
It is helpful for me, that most of you think, this is a seed and probably this is right.
The seeds of Cirsium look quite different and of course I had looked it up in books and the internet. But I am no botanist, it may be wrong, that it was a Cirsium.
Although it is a far distance for me, I have the opportunity to go to the same place tomorrow. But I am afraid to find not the answer to my question.
Of course the questions on RG should not be a guessing game. I also often miss, despite of the quality of photos, detailed informations to the circumstances. But you have to consider, that the questioner is probably not from the same branch of science and does not know what will be necessary to find an answer and if it will be possible at all.
I for myself appreciate the concentrated knowledge of RG and it helps me a lot. I hope to do my part in this network and I am proud of it - on the other side nobody is forced to answer, if the questions are inadequate.
It looks more like a seed. It seems to lack the segmentation typical of insects. There are no obvious eyes, mouthparts, antennae, or legs. There is a tuft of hairs at one end, and scattered hairs over the entire object. Any chance that it is a mature seed from the plant that the butterfly is resting on?
I looks somewhat strange, but I also think it is seed. Since it does not look like a Cirsium seed in my opinion, it might also be a seed from another plant species (grass?) which got attached to the Cirsium flower head somehow. But this is difficult to see on the photo and so very speculative.
This is an easy question to answer. Go back to the field and look at the other seed heads. Find a few mature viable seeds and compare. Also look at other species of plant that are producing seeds. From the picture you are looking for seeds that have a prominent fringe of hairs at one end. Plants in the Asteraceae are likely candidates, but maybe not the only candidates. If you do this now, it should not take much effort to find the correct plant (assuming that this picture is only a few days old).
Hi Timothy,
I think if Rudolf could went back to the field and look at the other seed heads, he would never ask help from anyone!!!!
Anyone ask a question in RG because he/she could not reach to the right answer.
Simply, could you help or not ??? without saying this is an easy question to answer!!!
@Wafaa
You mistook the context of "This is an easy question to answer" to mean the original question. My second comment is inappropriate for the original question. However, after several comments it seems to be a consensus that the object is a seed. So the next question is which seed? The easiest approach to answering the question "what seed is that" would be to go back to the field where the picture was taken. That may (or may not) be possible. Maybe the picture is 4 years old and the filed has been turned into a parking lot. That is context not provided in the original question.
This sort of task in RG is mostly a guessing game. In general (there are exceptions), the quality of the pictures are too poor to unequivocally identify an object. We can take a guess, and we can identify a likely possibility. However, without microscope and keys and physical specimens we cannot differentiate closely related species.
It is risky to assume that the person asking the question has exhausted all possibilities before posting their question. In some cases, the value of RG is that it helps the person ask a better question. In this case, we have helped Rudolf by eliminating the possibility that the object is an instar. He will have much better luck going to the Botany department rather than the Entomology department. Or maybe there are pictorial keys to the weed seeds of (wherever the picture was taken) on the internet, or local library.
Lastly, what you get in RG is a person from a country on the other side of the world trying to relate their knowledge to your picture. This is a risky proposition at best. Fairly good for Order (insects) and Family (plants) level classification, but really hard for species determination unless you happen to be the world expert on that particular group of organisms.
I probably should have added another suggestion to the question: what seed is that?" You could go to the local university and ask the resident botanist (assuming that the picture was taken locally). Alternatively, there might be a local garden club. Some of those members can be very good at identification.
Don't argue about this question, this is not my intention.
It is helpful for me, that most of you think, this is a seed and probably this is right.
The seeds of Cirsium look quite different and of course I had looked it up in books and the internet. But I am no botanist, it may be wrong, that it was a Cirsium.
Although it is a far distance for me, I have the opportunity to go to the same place tomorrow. But I am afraid to find not the answer to my question.
Of course the questions on RG should not be a guessing game. I also often miss, despite of the quality of photos, detailed informations to the circumstances. But you have to consider, that the questioner is probably not from the same branch of science and does not know what will be necessary to find an answer and if it will be possible at all.
I for myself appreciate the concentrated knowledge of RG and it helps me a lot. I hope to do my part in this network and I am proud of it - on the other side nobody is forced to answer, if the questions are inadequate.
Dear Timothy and Rudolf,
Sorry for this misunderstanding. Hope you would accept my apology.
Wafaa
dear friend it is a young thistle seed which is maturing. if you google thistle seeds you will see the shape and features. so it looks more like a thistle seed exposed before maturity.
I don't think the flower is Cirsium. What makes you think the seed is attached to the insect and not part of the seed head of the flower?
The "object" has nothing to do with the butterfly.
I saw an "animal" with a head(?) with orange points, The body covered by an envelope (seed?) and a visible end, which is also orange.
Now I know, this is my phantasy and not reality, I thank you all.
I was back at the place where I took the photo. I think the plant is Cirsium arvense. The seed is much smaller than the seed in the discussed picture, and, above all, it has a pappus (see attached picture). But I found also some different seeds, which are bigger. I think, like Sarita said above, the seed is maturing. It may be, the reason is the wet summer, so the seed matures in the receptacle. The pappi are clotted (first picture) and the seed cannot fly away.
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