If you have ever tried to photograph a bee on a flower in crystal clarity and sharpness, you will definitely appreciate this wonderful macrophotograph by showing a lady bug hitching a ride and sailing through the air on a dandelion seed. It truly brings to life the phrase “on a wing and a prayer.” This image is really quite amazing and was taken by nineteen year old polish photographer Jagoda Cholacinska. She spotted it in a poppy field near her home. Jagoda said, that “I was walking in a poppy field when I noticed a ladybird imitating a witch on the pollen of a dandelion.”
I am going to think about this picture every time I take a tricky macroshot only to come home and conclude that it is out of focus or not entirely in focus. Maybe it is truly magic!
Hello David,
this is not your ordinary kind of dandelion (Taraxacum officinale or Taraxacum erythrospermum). I have never seen the hairs of the parachute tangentially interconnected and the seed of Taraxacum is structured to look like a miniature corn cob. I have seen a mite hitch a ride in the way you describe it but a lady bug is a bit of a stretch. Surely the parachute is heavier than air and to carry a lady bug into the blue yonder (actually green in this case) would require a storm.
Greetings
Jan
Jan,
I think what we are actually talking about is called “goats beard clock,” formally Tragopon pratensis, and T. dubius. This is a form of daisey, so not really a dandelion.
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artoct00/goatsbeard.html
You will, of course, appreciate that the source of this is an online microscopy magazine from the UK.
Fall is so glorious here this year. Hope for you as well.
David