Beauty Or The Beast

These are the larvae of the sawfly and grouped together like this they are a wondrous sight. Locally we call them spitfires because when disturbed they do shoot out a yukky liquid as a defence mechanism which after a little bit of research turns out to be eucalyptus oil not fire which is what I thought as a child!!

These ones were about 7cm long and they all lay still for a short while and then they would all writhe around together, kind of creepy but fascinating too!! The adult sawfly is rarely seen but I'll keep my eye out around this eucalypt tree in the hope of seeing one or two!

The sunset tonight was really beautiful and I took a lot of shots as it kept changing and getting better and better! In the end I couldn't decide between beauty or the beast! The beasties won out because I've only ever seen the spitfires once before around here! :o)