oleg_kosterin's Favorites

I've never met biting leeches elsewhere in Siberia. In this taigous and mountainous place, with quite harsh climate, they were especially unexpected. These were unusual in that respect that their bites were very painful, unlike bites of regular blood-sucking leaches which secret some anaesthetics. Also these huge creatures bate through the trousers! Each time I entered water they attacked after 4-5 minutes. I wonder if these were some endemic species or and invasion of some European species. The pattern seems to differ from 'regular' medical leaches.

The first specimen from Novosibirsk Province! It ranged along a muddy ground road with a row of poplars, perhaps as the best visual approximation of the regular habitat of this species (absent in that place): a fast stony forested river. Males of Somatochlora metallica ranged along the banks of the Maloe oxbor lake nearby.

Having been more than half defoliated by young caterpillars of Aporia crataegi making their winter nests (seen), one of the three large Prunus padus trees growing on the embankment started an out-of-schedule flowering on August 24, proceeding at least to September 20

Having been more than half defoliated by young caterpillars of Aporia crataegi making their winter nests (seen), one of the three large Prunus padus trees growing on the embankment started an out-of-schedule flowering on August 24, proceeding at least to September 20

Having been more than half defoliated by young caterpillars of Aporia crataegi making their winter nests (seen), one of the three large Prunus padus trees growing on the embankment started an out-of-schedule flowering on August 24, proceeding at least to September 20

Having been more than half defoliated by young caterpillars of Aporia crataegi making their winter nests (seen), one of the three large Prunus padus trees growing on the embankment started an out-of-schedule flowering on August 24, proceeding at least to September 20

Colias palaeno inhabits peat moss habitats such as raised mires and bogged taiga. There is a big Gladkoe Bog nearby but with very scarce Sphagnum and I doubt C. palaeno can breed there. The closest suitable habitats are situated some 100 km to the North. At the same time solitary females may migrate quite fast, perhaps in search for other suitable habitats. This is the fouth female of this species I see in the forest-steppe zone of West Siberia for my life, and the second in Novosibirsk. It is noteworthy that this happened on my 57th birthday.

The only female seen (the only seen in this particular forest since 1992!) ovipositing onto inflorescences of the only bush of Spiraea media present in this forest, which probably was planted there rather than naturally occurring.