Hydrangea - image by Darrell Barrell
(this image is in the public domain)
Hello. Welcome to Weirdbeautiful,
First link of the day today is to the American Hydrangea society, whose website I came across last week in the process of writing the "florals" chapter of the "Weirdbeautiful" book. They have some lovely pictures-
http://americanhydrangeasociety.org/Home.aspx
So far, so beautiful; today's second link is to what The Sun newspaper calls "The Weirdo World of Insects"- a gallery of images of bizarre insects, including one of my personal favourites, the unfortunately named "Cockchafer" , Melolontha sp.-
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/Green/2971020/Weirdo-world-of-insects.html
Cockchafer- Image by Mario Sarto
(- reproduced under the image's creative commons 1.2 licence from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maybug.jpg)
Actually, the cockchafer has a number of other entertaining coloquial names- "billy witch" and "spang beetle" being two of the better ones. In Switzerland, certainly in the Montreux region (near Geneva, Canton of Vaud), where they call the creature a "haneton", they actually have something of a "haneton-season", in May, with cockchafer-themed items and shaped chocolates for sale in the shops. Somehow I can't see that catching-on in the UK... In truth, it is slightly odd even in Switzerland, for the simple reason that the beetle (a relative of dung beetles), has a voracious appetite as a grub and an adult and has historically caused a great deal of damage and disruption to crops and forestry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockchafer
What a wierd little chap he is and no mistake.
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