#rattlebox

[deadheadland]

RATTLEBOX Live Stream Concert - Deadheadland Presents

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[moths-daily]

Moth Of The Day #173

Ornate Bella Moth / Rattlebox Moth

Utetheisa ornatrix

From the erebidae family. They have a wingspan of 33-46 mm. It is found all throughout Northern, Central and Southern America.

Image sources: [1] [2]

[helluvatimes]

The Showy Rattlebox

Crotalaria retusa or Showy Rattlebox, also known as the Rattleweed, bearing fruits in the Chinese Garden. Photo credit: Eleanor Chua.

This was taken against dark foliage with the exposure biased 1-1/3 stops darker.

[libraryofmoths]

Moth of the Week

Ornate Bella Moth

Utetheisa ornatrix

This moth was first described as Phalaena ornatrix and Phalaena bella by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. In 1960, it became known as the Utetheisa ornatrix by William Trowbridge Merrifield Forbes. It’s also called the ornate bella moth, ornate moth, bella moth or rattlebox moth and is in the family Erebidae.

Description The body is white with black spots on the back of the thorax and head. The legs are black and white and antennae are black and filiform. The hindwings are a pale or bright pink with an irregular black border. The forewings are orangish-yellow with white bands surrounding black dots. Patterns may vary. These colors are used to warn predators of the moth’s toxicity.

Wingspan range: 33 - 46 mm (1.3 - 1.8 in)

Diet and Habitat The larva feed on plants of the Crotalaria species such as Avon Park rattlebox, rabbitbells, smooth rattlebox, and showy rattlebox. These plants provide the larva and adults with alkaloid compounds which are the unpalatable to predators. They accumulate these toxins from the seed pods of these plants, however if the larva can’t eat a seed pod due to competition they will have to eat the leaves where is concentration is much lower. Larvae may prey on/eat others of its kind to maintain high levels of alkaloids. Alkaloids are also passed down from parents to eggs.

Its northern most range is from Connecticut westward to southeastern Nebraska and southward to southern New Mexico and Florida in the United States. Its southern most range is from Mexico, South America, and Central America. It’s southernmost reach is southeastern Brazil. This species is more common in tropical parts of this range due to host plant populations.

Mating This species demonstrates a form of sexual selection. The females choose a male to mate with based on the intensity of their pheromones. During mating, the females receive a “spermatophore” from the males containing sperm, nutrients, and alkaloid compounds. After mating, the females choose which males’ sperm fertilizes the eggs. Usually, the female chooses the male with the most alkaloids which tends to be the larger males. Adult males invest up to 11% of their body mass to create a spermatophore they provide to a female during mating. The nutrients given in the spermatophore allow the female to produce an average of 32 additional eggs in her brood.

Females mate an average of 4-5 times and up to 13 times, each with a different male. In the north there there two generations per year with more in the south.

Predators The larva and adults keep predators at bay with alkaloid compounds accumulated during feeding and inherited from parents. These toxins make them unpalatable to their main predators: spiders and bats. Specifically, the adult moth secretes an alkaloid foam from its head when threatened. However, larva and moths with low concentrations are more susceptible to predation than those with higher concentrations who are usually released and unharmed after being caught.

These toxins do not work against some predators like loggerhead shrikes.

Unlike other moths of the Arctiidae subfamily, this species moth does not have a way to audibly communicate their toxic which would help it to avoid bats altogether.

Fun Fact This species was first described on 1758 by Carl Linnaeus as two different species: Phalaena ornatrix was used to describe the paler moth specimens, and Phalanea bella, described the bright pink moth specimens. It was then moved to the genus Utetheisa in 1819 by Hübner. After nearly a century of struggling to identify this species and its subspecies, Forbes combined both species Utetheisa ornatrix and Utetheisa bella into one in 1960: Utetheisa ornatrix.

(Source: Wikipedia; The Island Packet; Institution of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida)

[ploridafanthers]

damn, advil dual action is some good shit

[drhoz]

#2107 - Utetheisa sp. - Rattlepod Moth

I've covered the two Utetheisa species most commonly seen in Australia before, but here's the caterpillar of one of them. Crotalaria plants are just one of the genera they eat, and are the reason the moths are called Rattlebox Moths, or in the case of U. lotrix the Crotalaria Moth, but the diet can be much wider. And still quite poisonous - the various species of rattlebox moths sequester alkaloids to protect themselves, and the males even use the poison in their pheremones, presumably to advertise how much they could tolerate as larvae.

At least some of the species migrate long distances, giving them native ranges that include remote islands.

Molonglo Valley, ACT

[whatnext10]

Colorful Showy Rattlebox Lives Up to Its Name

Colorful Showy Rattlebox Lives Up to Its Name shows readers an example of one of these gorgeous, bright yellow flowers and explains why they are so perfectly named.

A Pretty Pea It’s the time of year when the beautiful, bright yellow showy rattlebox flowers (Crotalaria spectabilis) are blooming all along the roadsides. They’re one of several large yellow wildflowers that are popping up everywhere right now. Showy rattlebox, being a member of the pea or legume family (Fabaceae) has the typical trilobed appearance and the flowers very quickly become large,…

[vandaliatraveler]

Walk with me: Mid-summer hike through a Central Appalachian forest. As summer hurtles toward its final explosive act, the forest's living things embrace urgent, primordial impulses triggered by shrinking daylight: to bloom, to seed, to feed, and to reproduce before the killing frost of Autumn shocks the earth into hibernation. In the deep forest, the fetid perfume of decaying fungi signals the countdown has begun. From top: a bumblebee traversing the fanning pink flowers of hollow-stemmed Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium fistulosum); the maturing red stem and flowers of seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia), also known as rattlebox and square-pod water-primrose, a very attractive wetlands annual with four-sided seed capsules; cowbane (Oxypolis rigidior), also known as common water dropwort, a delicate, marsh-loving member of the carrot family that also happens to be toxic; Allegheny hawkweed (Hieracium paniculatum), also known as panicled hawkweed, a spindly-stemmed member of the dandelion tribe; the lovely and hallucinogenic fly agaric (Amanita muscaria); a sprawling colony of sulphur shelf fungus (Laetiporus sulphureus), an edible delicacy otherwise known as chicken of the woods; a red eft (Notophthalmus viridescens); white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata); a twin set of common puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum); the fungal version of suburban sprawl courtesy of orange moss agaric (Rickenella fibula); a gelatinous serving of orange witches' butter (Dacrymyces chrysospermus); a fiery clump of eastern Jack-o-lanterns (Omphalotus illudens); a potter wasp (Ancistrocerus campestris) drinking from the clumped white flowers of virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana); one of my all-time favorite critters, a locust borer (Megacyllene robiniae), taking its nectar fill from flat-top goldentop (Euthamia graminifolia), also known as grass-leaved goldenrod; a green metallic sweat bee (Augochloropsis ?) finding sustenance from parasol white-top (Doellingeria umbellata var. umbellata), also known as flat-top aster; and the intricate purple flowers of tall ironweed (Vernonia gigantea).

[insomniamamma]

By Starlight Alone: Ezra x F!Reader

Warnings: Lots of kissing, trespassing? Alcohol consumption. Implied smut. Ezra running his mouth. Like seriously, that guy could read the ingredient list on a cereal box and I would drop to my knees. Reader mentions early adulthood insecurities. No age gap. Reader is the same age as Ezra.

A/N: This was a funny one for me. If you've been looking at my blog you know I've been Going Through Some Shit. I found this story in my WIP folder with about the first third written. I had no memory of writing it. I'm going to look at it as a gift from the universe. In my mind this is the same reader as the Liminal AU but this can stand on its own.

“We suffer, I think, from a lack of stars.” “A lack of stars.” First time you’ve been able to enjoy the fire pit in months, the ground bone dry for so long, and now the air smells of rain and wet earth and worms and the smoke of the low embers. Cee ate her weight in s’mores and hotdogs toasted on sticks, and then retreated to her room to game. You look at Ezra, laid back as far as his battered lawn chair will allow, expect a smirk, but his face is grim. “You’re serious.”

"When’s the last time you saw a proper sky of stars? When’s the last time you saw the Milky Way?” You frown. “I don’t know really. Probably not since I still lived at home. I used to go and stand in the driveway and smoke when I couldn’t sleep. You remember the comet?” “The one that hit Jupiter?” “No the other one. I was home for Easter Break. It had two tails—“ “That was Hale-Bopp! Me and Damon dragged a couple of lawn chairs and sleeping bags into Ma’s back field. Damon filched some cigarettes and a bottle of some gruesome fruit wine. Wild Irish Rose if I recall correctly.” “Oooogh,” You shudder, recalling your own experiences with Wild I, namely being hauled back into your dorm room by well meaning friends, waking the next day with puke crusted in your hair. Ezra chuckles. “Me and my friends thought it was some kind of omen. My back home friends, not my college friends.”

Not sure why that distinction popped out of your mouth, brings back the judgement flickering in their eyes, the sense that they were all smarter than you despite your grades. Not smarter, but maybe better? More worldly at the very least. That small town dumb hick shame clings even now, decades from there, people closest to you then now facebook profiles that haven’t updated in years.

“You okay, honey?” You turn and Ezra’s eyes are fixed on yours, low cherry red glow of dying coals, ugly sodium street light shining them. “Yeah. Just thinking about back then. It’s funny, you know? We could’ve been watching that comet at the exact same time, couldn’t we?” Ezra stands suddenly, rusty lawn chair creaks in protest, squeal of metal and soft slither of wet grass and he hoses the coals, steam hissing and billowing up into the black. “Ez?” “Let’s go for a ride. Let’s go see some stars.” “What about Cee?” “What about her? She’s so embroiled in, what’s it? Baldur’s Gate? She likely won’t even notice we’re gone. She’s nearly grown. She’s not gonna burn the house down. How bout it, Sunny-girl? Take a ride with me.”

Drive a little ways out of the city in Ezra’s rattlebox truck, warbling AM station tinny through the speakers, I fall to pieces, Ezra’s rough voice threaded through with Patsy Cline’s, each time someone speaks your name, soft slither of slide guitars, soft glow of the dashboard lights ghosting him against the dark outside. You frown. “I thought there’d be more fireflies this time of year,” you say, thinking of late Sunday nights in the back seat, watching the fields light with green fairy fire, background noise of grown up conversation, your folks just talking about the week to come without any care for the green stars stuttering in the grass, so many, driving so fast that the light pulled into elongate streaks like hyperspace in Star Wars. “Haven’t been as many lately,” says Ezra, “Not like it used to be growin up.”

He steers you down a narrow gravel road that opens up onto a wide field, pulls off into a bit of mowed berm bordered by row on row of corn, blade-like leaves stretching skyward, smell of ripening, a bit like the smell of come. Signs posted every few feet with the brand and variety. Ezra kills the engine and hops out. You hook the sweaty sixer from the foot well and follow him, climb up in the truck bed beside him. Pop a beer and hand it to him, clink your bottles together and drink. “Close you eyes,” “Why?” Ezra smirks, that slow smile that you sometimes want to slap but more often want to kiss off his face. “If we’re gonna really see the stars, we’ve got to get our night eyes on. Close ‘em. I’ll set a timer. Three minutes should do.” “Hmmm, you’re just going to get up to shenanigans while my eyes are closed.” “Oi! I am an honorable man! I am offended that you think I would use your temporary lack of sight to my advantage!” You hear the smile in his words. “I’m counting on it, handsome.”

You are the least surprised person in the world when his lips find yours, tender press and prickle of his mustache, tongue licking languid into your mouth, your Ezra who can always kiss you breathless, that slow way of his that makes you ache for him, a soft cry when he withdraws but then he nuzzles into the column of your throat, grazes his teeth against that one spot that makes you squirm and break into gooseflesh. “You don’t have your eyes closed, you jackass,” “I do not,” he says, nibbles at the join of your neck and shoulder, “My need to make love to your under the stars has eclipsed my desire to see them clearly. You can describe them to me. If you can keep your focus on the night sky, that is.” “You, sir, are a fucking menace.” “I am indeed. Open your eyes and help me with these buttons.”

[cathedral-of-the-forest]

The truck is all grown up now. I kinda got misty.

One thing about the soul crushing humidity in SC is that you can almost alway find a meal of mushrooms on a hike. Gotta look at the bright side.

Crested/Fringed Yellow Orchid.

Wild Bean.

Rattlebox.

Wood Storks, Great Egrets, Common Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, and a few more thrown in for good measure.

There are a least 25 gators patiently waiting by all the birds in the hopes that one of them will screw up and become dinner.

That last gator is huge. They say as a general rule of thumb that the distance in inches between the eyes on a gator and the end of their snout is roughly equal to how long they are in feet. If that is the case this gator is a minimum 13 feet long.

[journeyperson]

Showy rattlebox

[orqheuss]

12, 24, 69 for the ask game lovely!!!

ace!!! hello friend 🧡 ily my dear

12. Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

I VERY rarely outline fics to be honest, i don't have the patience. When i do outline them it's for the longer ones, like my chapter fic that i'm planning is in the process of being outlined (i have five chapters outlined so far). I mainly just go off of ideas that i have written down in my notes app and quotes that i came up with for each idea, and then i build a story around that :)

definitely a low attention span, type b style of writing, but it works for me lol

24. How do you choose whose POV to write in?

it really just depends on who's voice would sound the best at a particular moment. if i'm writing a fic with multiple characters i always do third person omnipotent, so everyone has a chance to express how they feel at a given moment. i once read that the best way to pick who is speaking at a given moment is to think about who knows the LEAST about what is happening in the scene, either that or whomever has the most to say emotion wise.

69. What are your favorite fics at the moment?

for ones that i have written and published, my favorite is "the sun does not weep for icarus." i put my whole writerussy into that, lmao. for wips, it's one called "free and young and we can feel none of it" and it's a character study on the aftermath of ominis leaving his family in third year (the game hints that he already left, so i wanted to play around with that).

my favorite fics that other ppl have written rn are:

Mentor Privileges by Hippogriff_Feathers on Ao3 (platonic shadow trio) one-shot

Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1 by Unohoot on Ao3 (ominis x reader) one-shot

Songbird by Aza_Shade_877 on Ao3 (ominis x reader) chapter fic

Sightless by NovaSaurusWrex on Ao3 (ominis x reader) one-shot

Loyal and Steadfast by Degenerates_and_only_Degenerates on Ao3 (sebastian x ominis x F!reader) chapter fic

and for some not Hogwarts Legacy fic that I just read:

Stardew Valley: Hive by Rattlebox on Ao3 (Sam x Sebastian x F!Farmer) chapter fic

The Raven Cycle: We'll Never Sleep (God Knows We'll Try) by Water_Nix on Ao3 (Ronan x Adam, Blue x Gansey) one-shot

Undertale: Strike a Chord by LilyHellsing on Ao3 (Grillby x F!reader) chapter fic

thank you for asking, lovely!! 🧡

[soundlessl-y]

[ID:

Summer Solstice by Stacie Cassarino

I wanted to see where beauty comes from without you in the world, hauling my heart across sixty acres of northeast meadow, my pockets filling with flowers. Then I remembered, it's you I miss in the brightness and body of every living name: rattlebox, yarrow, wild vetch. You are the green wonder of June, root and quasar, the thirst for salt. When I finally understand that people fail at love, what is left but cinquefoil, thistle, the paper wings of the dragonfly aeroplaning the soul with a sudden blue hilarity? If I get the story right, desire is continuous, equatorial. There is still so much I want to know: what you believe can never be removed from us, what you dreamed on Walnut Street in the unanswerable dark of your childhood, learning pleasure on your own. Tell me our story: are we impetuous, are we kind to each other, do we surrender to what the mind cannot think past? Where is the evidence I will learn to be good at loving? The black dog orbits the horseshoe pond for treefrogs in their plangent emergencies. There are violet hills, there is the covenant of duskbirds. The moon comes over the mountain like a big peach, and I want to tell you what I couldn't say the night we rushed North, how I love the seriousness of your fingers and the way you go into yourself, calling my half-name like a secret. I stand between taproot and treespire. Here is the compass rose to help me live through this. Here are twelve ways of knowing what blooms even in the blindness of such longing. Yellow oxeye, viper's bugloss with its set of pink arms pleading do not forget me. We hunger for eloquence. We measure the isopleths. I am visiting my life with reckless plenitude. The air is fragrant with tiny strawberries. Fireflies turn on their electric wills: an effulgence. Let me come back whole, let me remember how to touch you before it is too late.

/end ID]

summer solstice by Stacie Cassarino

[ploridafanthers]

my thighs are tighter than the sheets at a nice hotel

[rjalker]

beans!!

[ID: A photo of a hand reaching out to hold three long, skinny black seed pods from a fuzzybean plant. In the background are different kinds of grass, and hopniss leaves. End ID.]

[ID: A photo of newly-forming seed pods on a lanceleaf rattlebox plant, with each bean pod green, very fuzzy, and curving outward from the stem. A tiny fruit fly and some dark red ants with black abdomens crawl on the plant. End ID.]

[ID: A photo of a hand holding three still-green hopniss seed pods, which are shaped like very lumpy green beans, and are shiny from rain. End ID.]

all these photos are public domain because I took them and I said so

[naturecoaster]

Public Invited to Hernando County Audubon Society September Activities

Supporting Public Lands and Citizen Science at Chinsegut Wildlife and Environmental Area: Hana Brinkley is the director of Chinsegut Conservation Center, administered by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). She will speak about all the ways to connect with nature at Chinsegut Wildlife and Environmental Area. Hana will also be discussing volunteer and citizen science opportunities with FWC, and the results of a recent Herpetological Survey. From Red-headed Woodpeckers to Gopher Tortoises, Chinsegut is an amazing place showcasing the value of our public lands. The meeting will be held on Thursday, September 19, at 7 p.m. (to 9 p.m.) at Brooksville Woman’s Club, 131 S. Main Street, Brooksville. Contact Bev: bevalhansen@gmail.com or 352-686-0460. Make reservations here: https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-chapters/event/669693/ Help improve Gopher Tortoise habitat. Tuesday, September 3, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. at Big Pine Tract, 12060 Old Crystal River Road, Brooksville. Hernando Audubon and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will be removing invasive, non-native rattlebox plants to improve critical habitat for Gopher Tortoises and the species that depend on their burrows. Please help! Bring a pair of leather or garden gloves, bottled water, bug spray, and sunscreen. We recommend wearing long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and shoes appropriate for walking both on and off trails in the sand and in areas with tall grasses and shrubs. For more information and to RSVP, contact Chinsegut Conservation Center at 352-754-6722 or Chinsegut@MyFWC.com. Hernando Audubon Adopt-A-Road Cleanup Saturday, Sept. 14, 8 to 10 a.m. Help pick up trash on Northcliffe Blvd. between U.S. 19 and Deltona Blvd. High school students will receive credit for community service. Meet at 8 a.m. at the parking lot of Good Shepherds Plaza, 8417 Northcliffe Blvd., Spring Hill. To volunteer, contact Steve.Smetko@frontier.com or 352-247-9793. Hernando Audubon Bird Walk at McKethan Lake 8 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 21. McKethan Lake is at 15185 North Broad Street, north of Brooksville. Meet in the parking lot on the left, just inside the entrance. We will walk about 1.5 miles on a trail through the hardwood hammock and observe the lake, marsh, and wetland prairie. We expect to view a variety of birds including waterfowl, herons, egrets, songbirds, and raptors. There is a $2 per person park fee. The trip leader will collect the $2 fee from participants and pay Forestry a lump sum. Please bring exact cash. Make reservations: https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-chapters/event/660423/. More information: Claudia: camsler36@gmail.com or 813-244-0305 Hernando Audubon Beginning Birding Friday, September 27, 8 to 11 a.m. at Chinsegut Conservation Center, 23212 Lake Lindsey Road, Brooksville. Learn to identify birds at feeders and during a short walk. There will be binoculars available for use. Make reservations: https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-chapters/event/660432/ More information:  lindalark85@gmail.com or text 352-428-2629. For more details about these activities, check https://www.hernandoaudubon.org/ All Hernando Audubon activities are free and open to the public. Read the full article