This can't be right...

[Martin]

I only noticed this when I started to process the photos...this White Admiral seems to have a lump. It seemed to be bothering the insect because one thing I did notice at the time was it kept furling and unfurling it's proboscis, and it held it out in front slightly too.

Full frame



Close-up


Sorry for the bad IQ, there was very little light.

[Susie]

It does look very fresh too. What a shame, I don't fancy its chances if it can't feed.

[Dave McCormick]

aww, poor thing. Looks like it has flower stamen for a proboscus

[Padfield]

It does look as if it's part of the proboscis. But some plants, notably orchids (others too) do deposit things on insects either to transfer pollen or to prevent self-fertilisation.

If you take a fine grass stem and insert it into the nectary of a spotted orchid it will often emerge with a lollipop attached, sticking out at right angles. This prevents an insect reinserting the proboscis into the same plant. But as it dries out, the lollipop lies down parallel to the proboscis and then the insect can feed again. It's an interesting experiment to do.

I hope this lump is some such device, rather than a deformity - but I can't tell.

Guy

[Padfield]

I looked it up and these structures are called pollinia. Different species of orchid use them in different ways, sometimes to ensure cross-pollination and sometimes not. They contain the pollen and transfer it to the next plant - so it is the plant's interest that the insect can feed again, if not immediately then after sufficient time to reach a new plant.

Milkweeds have them too.

Guy

[Susie]

I posted a picture earlier of a Marbled White with pollinia from Fragrant Orchid on its proboscis, it doesn't look like the White Admiral above.

[Dave McCormick]

yeah. Last year I observed a burnet moth feeding on an orchid and it got the pollinia stuck on its proboscus and watched it as it tried to get the annoyance of, with failure until it reached another orchid plant.

[Neil Hulme]

Hi all,
I think this White Admiral was trying to say "I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop - where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits", but it got a bit tongue-tied.
Neil

[Susie]

That's easy for you to say.