Ovipositing Banded Line Blue

[Commander]

For Horace... all the best in nailing the life history of this species! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

[Blue Jay]

Wow, nice catch! :thumbsup:

[Peacock Royal]

I was there early this morning but could not find any of them.
Well done :thumbsup:

[horace2264]

Thanks, Khew and Sunny for alerting me to the ovipositing Banded Line Blues and the presence of eggs on the host plant. :)
Now I have three eggs to work with. It would surely be a challenge to spot and monitor the growth of the tiny 1st instar cats when they come into being. :sweat:

Here are two eggs, each about 0.4mm in diameter, with one of them malformed into a heart shape. The tiny size makes it very hard to capture the surface detail properly, even with the MP-E65mm lens at its 5x magnification.

[Alfa]

Wow... great find :thumbsup:
Hope to see the life history record soon :)

[WillFolsom]

Back from my mini-vacation and am processing a lot of images, including one butterfly. I'll post more later. In the meantime, nice to see such great work!
William

[Silverstreak]

Archive here as well, posted earlier at Photography Thread....

Taken on 18th Nov 2012 , we were lucky to witness a wave of females oviposting , together with Nijac and Khew . ..... had to interrupt Horace's lunch and he was there within minutes.

Quite a challenge to spot the tiny egg on the young shoots, even when spotted it was difficult, to ascertain with the naked eyes, if they were newly laid or an empty egg shell..... really need a magnifying glass for these.:bsmile:

Every one of the four shots here has an egg in the frame ......see if you can spot them.:)

Ovispositing run..

#1
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/SunnyChir/EOS-1D-Mark-III_3208.jpg

#2
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/SunnyChir/EOS-1D-Mark-III_3292-1.jpg

#3
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/SunnyChir/EOS-1D-Mark-III_3289.jpg

#4
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/SunnyChir/EOS-1D-Mark-III_3295.jpg

[moloch]

lovely shots, guys! Amazing detail and colour.

Regards,