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National Geographic : 1966 Dec
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Crossroads of the Insect World By J. W. MACSWAIN, Ph.D. Photographsby EDWARD S. ROSS, Ph.D. I HAD SPENT a sleepless night, and now a tickling in my throat started me coughing. Dawn's pink light tinted the sagebrush and sand of the Mojave canyon around our camp. Lest I awaken my two entomologist colleagues, I dressed and slipped out of the tent. About me I could sense the stirring that greets an approaching day in the California desert. And then, at sunrise, came one of the chance rewards that enrich the lives of those who find lasting fascination in the complexities of the insect realm. Bees began to buzz around me. I recognized them as belonging to the widespread genus Andrena. But these were black andrenas, insects so seldom seen that always before I had inter rupted anything to capture a single specimen. Now, no matter which way I looked, I could see dozens of them, darting about the blossoms of an evening primrose. The flower is a traffic focus of the world of insects, a crossroads where much of the wonder in that world converges. To the insect, the flower offers a banquet table, a hunting ground, a mat ing site, a place of refuge-and of danger. My interest in insects draws me frequently to this meeting place of plant and animal, where I seldom fail to learn some new and intriguing fact. This time it was a ridiculously simple but Harvesting pollen, Ceratinabees balance on yellow anthers of a blossom in a Malay sian jungle. Flowers, whether in exotic forest or quiet garden, provide spectacular settings for the intricate life cycles of insects. KODACHROME14 TIMES LIFE-SIZE © N.G .S . 844
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