Yesterday during a walk in the veldt, I stumbled upon a pleasant
surprise, and today, I’ve been treated even more. I came across the most beautiful small Pelargonium (family: Geraniaceae) flowers I’ve ever seen. They have an unusual cream colour. Back at home I consulted my copy of Jan and
Anne Lise Vlok’s book, “Plants of the Klein Karoo”. Low and behold, this species is novel and
does not even have a proper species name yet! And the population I came across is the only one known of!! Wow!!
And to my delight, the pollinator of the
flowers decided to show up when I went back this morning to take some
pictures. Luckily I managed to catch,
what I think is a needle nosed fly (family: Tabanidae), in action, with my
camera just wanting do to it’s own thing and miss behaving when I need it the
most. The other possibility is that this is a long-tongued fly (relatively rare), which I will only know for sure if I have it identified by an expert.
Unfortunately the fly and the flower it
visits are out of focus in the next picture.
But if you look carefully, you’ll see the length of the fly’s tongue as
it hovers over the flower in the distance.
Here is a specimen of the fly species I caught in August 2011 while it foraged on Jamesbrittenia
tortuosa (family: Scrophulariaceae).
