Not Alarmed but why?

[Mike Leski]

I don't think leps use size in their 'decision making', effectively anyway.  For example, aggressive leps buzz my head.  I'm always amused by N. antiopa, which goes straight for the silver icon on the front of my black car, and also favors the hubcaps, which are silvery.  I reckon this combination is attractive to a black lep with silver fringes.  Also, commas like the silvery swoosh on my running shoes.  And when one approaches a lep for photography, you can get close, but as soon as you back away, it takes off.  Finally, when I search the grass for a spooked lep, I scan by moving my head very slowly.  Many times, when I spy the lep, I stop moving my head, and the lep takes off!  Clearly it knows it has been spotted.  These days I try to 'pretend' I that don't see it.  Still perfecting that technique...
 
Mike

Woody Woods <woody.woods at umb.edu> wrote:
Just a SWAG-- Scientific Wild-Ass Guess-- I'd suspect that skippers and
hummingbirds are frequent acquaintances at nectar sources where neither is a
predator of the other; both taxa may have "realized" that in an evolutionary
sense. You plus net, on the other hand... well, to that skipper you are the
unknown and risky. Not sure your size is important; I doubt a skipper would
consider an elephant a threat.

Woody

> From: Stan Gorodenski 
> Reply-To: stan_gorodenski at asualumni.org
> Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 08:59:59 -0800
> To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Not Alarmed but why?
> 
> Recently I observed a Silver Spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) feeding
> on a thistle head. A hummingbird flew very close by it to a spot
> opposite to the position of the skipper where it proceeded to feed also.
> It amazed me that the skipper did not get alarmed and fly off because if
> I or my net were to come this close it would do jus that. I'm guessing
> that the biggest threat of predation comes from birds which are closer
> to the size of the hummingbird, not large animals this size of us. Can
> anyone give an explanation for this differential response? Is the size
> of the hummingbird below the trigger threshhold level for a response,
> for example?
> Stan
> 
> 
> 
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