Just Hanging Out

I was a bit stumped by this week's 'Hanging' theme for PhotoHunt because the photo I wanted to use happens to be one of my favorite photo's. Unfortunately it was of another button bush and since I used that plant for last week's theme I didn't want to over do it. Then I thought of this photo and realized it should fit the theme nicely.

Many little creatures perch on flowers to feed, but in some cases the flowers may protrude in all directions so what else can they do but try 'hanging' upside down to get a meal. I'm not sure of the species, but it resembles an Appalachian Brown (Satyrodes appalachia) except the coloring is a little more purple than most of the photo's I've seen online.

I went back through some of my other photographs and found a couple more with hanging insects that I thought were interesting. Here's one of a damselfly hanging from a slender blade of grass. Normally they perch on top of a blade of grass or on a leaf. Some damselflies lay their eggs in a slit they make in a blade or leaf over or near water so you will sometimes see them in unusual positions when they perch. I find it interesting that they appear to use their front legs to actually grasp their perch while the larger and longer back legs are normally used for balance. The back legs have little spikes or hooks that penetrate into the perch to hold them in place.

And speaking of hanging in unusual positions check out the one below.

Here we find two damselflies in a circular mating embrace while hanging from the end of a stick out over the water. (CAUTION: Do not try this at home. These are professional damselflies taking advantage of over 250 million years of evolution in the perfecting of this technique.)

PhotoHunt
Weekly Theme - 'Hanging'

Post edited to add the following:

I noticed from the comments that several visitors really like the second photo, the one of the blue damselfly. If you happen to like it perhaps you would like to check out some of the other posts about damselflies and dragonflies. Just check out the labels list near the top in the sidebar for Dragon/Damselflies. If you don't have time today (and I know many of you photo hunters are like me, trying to visit as many of the theme posts as you can) then perhaps you might want to do what I do when I run across a blog I want to spend more time on in the PhotoHunt. Bookmark us and come back later for a more leisurely visit. We would love to see you again anytime.