“Proboscis”

When I first started taking butterfly pictures I was almost exclusively interested in capturing their beauty.

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the more pictures I took the more carefully I looked at butterflies, something I probably haven’t done since I studied them in grade school.

When I took this series of pictures last Friday,

I noticed the funny foot coming straight out of the forehead, even though I knew that it couldn’t really be a foot, or at least I didn’t think so. Then somewhere from deep inside my brain the term “proboscis” arose, even if it wasn’t spelled that way in my third-grade mind.

A few moments on the web, and sure enough there’s a world of fascinating information about Butterfly parts.

It’s amazing how just paying attention changes our perception of our world, isn’t it?

6 thoughts on ““Proboscis””

  1. Paying attention isn’t quite the same as doing what someone else says, mrs kenju ; – )

    Thanks for the advice, Ron, but I figured that out when all the birds in my yard busy collecting food for young ones didn’t glance twice at these guys, or gals.

  2. Bloglines used to show your pictures. Now they don’t, and I realize I’ve missed some lovely ones. I’ll just have to click through! Then again, I’m more likely to comment when I’ve clicked through, so perhaps it’s better for you if you like comments.

  3. I might have inadvertently made it impossible for blogiines to display my pictures when I inserted code to make it impossible for some bloggers to hot link to my site, to use my pictures and my bandwith to show pictures on their site.

    Several people on MySpace were using my pictures on their front page and taking up a lot of bandwith. I really wouldn’t have minded giving them a shot if they’d asked, or given credit, but I wasn’t happy about paying extra to display pictures on their sites.

  4. Loren, yes, when you prevent hotlinking, it prevents it in any newsreader. Ultimately, it’s the way you can really put more controls on where your images appear.

    I’m writing something on this I hope to finish by next week. Might give you some ideas of what to do.

    BTW, I think I caught your flu.

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