Lovebush

As per our custom, we started the morning with our shorter walk before breakfast.

The magical morning light bathes the Great Egret!
Patches of the Hooded Windmill Grass (Chloris cucullata) had been cut short near the lake.
Breakfast now checked off. Now it was time to try a trail. We choose the Dragonfly Trail. Jim said “oh boy they were going to point out some of the plants that we were removing at home like plum thickets”. LOL.
The first plant that I noticed was a Lotebush (Ziziphus obtusifolia) and a spider’s cocoon. This plant is not commonly one that I see. Additionally I took a closer look at the cocoon. Then I noticed…
A big ole walkingstick (Phasmida) hiding in plain sight!
As I looked more at the Lotebush I found more! In fact there were at least four or five mating pairs!
Head shot!
Front feet shot with antenna!

So all total on a couple of Lotebushes were over dozen walkingsticks! It seemed to be the happening place. 😎

While looking up walkingsticks I found this reference: Texas walkingsticks (Quinn 2012). It says some Texas walkingsticks have a defensive behavior of spraying a chemical. So be careful looking at mating walkingsticks!

Finally I would like to give the Lotebush a new common name, Lovebush. 😊

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Keep looking!

The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know

10 Comments

  1. I’m glad you’re finding so many interesting things there. I was a bit underwhelmed when I visited there a few years ago – I’ll need to pay another visit.

  2. Haven’t seen the “love” on my Lotes. but have had quite a few walkingsticks this year. Which brings to mind an experience about 30 years ago up in eastern OK at Beech Creek National Botanical Area. We were primitive camping in the fall and there were walkingsticks everywhere. If you stood still a moment, they were walking up your legs. You had to keep moving even if just marching in place. they also would drop down on us. But the worst part was all the stuff dropping on us in our cups of water and plates of food. That was pretty gross. Later read that as they mate they climb up in trees then let loose the eggs to drop where they wished. Well I didn’t wish for poop or eggs in my food. I don’t know if they are always that thick in that area in fall or it was an unusual fall, but we never camped there again in September. We made sure it was spring or November.

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