Backyard and Beyond

Close up, nature starts looking really, really hairy. Take a look at the green shoots of plants, the exoskeletons of insects. Hairs and spines are everywhere.Common Buckeye larva.Bumblebees, it goes without saying.Other bees, too. Look at these bristly thighs, Writes Dennis Paulson in his natural history of Dragonflies & Damselflies: “Because a chitinous exoskeleton does not have a sense of touch like the skin of a vertebrate animal such as ourselves, they have sensory hairs or setae covering much of their body, everywhere except the surface of the eyes.” Such massing of “sensilla” work as tactile organs that “can be specialized for the reception of chemical (smell), mechanical (touch), or thermal (termperature) stimuli.”The spines on the legs also help secure prey.
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Let’s make Friday’s Global Climate Strike the biggest ever.