The surging news reporter Li Mei sorted out
In the recent special exhibition "Grass Worm Hide and Seek" launched by the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Ming Dynasty Shang Zuo's "Okra Diagram" allows the audience to get a kind of hide-and-seek fun in exploration and discovery. The Okra Diagram depicts a corner of the beautiful garden, which is consistent with the layout style of other court painters in the fifteenth century when they painted vertical axes of flowers and birds, and the space intertwined with strange stones, plants and slopes in the paintings is a stage where grass worms can appear.
The Paper, Ancient Art (www.thepaper.cn) specially organizes and introduces the different grass worm creatures in this rare vertical axis grass worm masterpiece, as well as the various dramas related to life and death that are being exhibited for the benefit of readers.
Ming ShangZuo Okra Figure Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
"Okra Diagram" is a rare Ming Dynasty vertical axis grass worm painting masterpiece. In the gap between the bamboo stones on the left side of the picture, there is a sign of "Shang Zuo". Shang Zuo was the grandson of Shang Xi (15th century), a famous court painter of the Ming Dynasty. This painting depicts a corner of a beautiful garden, with layers of wild grass flowers, strange stones, okra and bamboo bushes on the slopes on the left side of the picture, which is consistent with the layout style of other court painters in the fifteenth century when they painted vertical axes of flowers and birds. The space where the strange stones, plants and slopes are intertwined are all stages where grass worms can appear.
Do you know how many different little creatures are hidden in it? Like the funny wasps that want to fly back to the hive, a pair of dragonflies "standing" in the air chatting, the white moth whose okra petals fall on the strange rock, the small black ladybug that confronts the grasshopper on the ground, the ant colony that decomposes and carries the bee carcass... On the one hand, the painter Shang Zuo took into account the overall momentum of the vertical axis, not letting the trivial details make the picture lose its center of gravity, on the other hand, arranging these grass worms to invite the audience to explore and discover, and get a kind of hide-and-seek fun.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
The genus Longfoot is a nest
From the painting, a canopy-like hive can be seen, which is the nest of the long-legged bee of the genus Polistes of the hymenoptera family, with the upper stalk attached to the branches of the plant, and several vertical long nest chambers arranged inside, opening below. The bee is a true social insect, generally built by a single queen bee independent nest, some species are multiple queen bee cooperative nest record, the painting can identify the existence of 4 bees, usually one of them is a queen bee, because there is no obvious morphological difference between the queen bee and the worker bee, so it can not be distinguished. It is also speculated that this nest should have successfully bred the first generation of worker bees, and the worker bees will immediately take over most of the work of the hive after feathering, such as nest building, raising children, and collecting, while the queen bees will no longer go out and will concentrate on laying eggs and breeding more offspring.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
It is speculated that the female jade band butterfly (individual with decreased white spots), the jade band butterfly is a lepidoptera, the female butterfly has polymorphism, and there are many different patterns of markings, such as: individuals with only obvious white spots, individuals with erythema, individuals with only red spots, and so on. Oval, yielding; The larvae have stinky horns and feed on a variety of plants of the family Rubiaceae after hatching, with the first to fourth instars taking the form of brownish-white guano and turning green at the fifth instar; Pupae are banded pupae, which are brown or green depending on the environment; Adult insects are easy to visit flowers, absorb water, and lay eggs on urban rue family plants, and are one of the common butterflies on campus.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Yellow butterfly
This figure is very different from the yellow phoenix butterfly pattern, but it is indeed possible to use it as a prototype for processing and imagining. Yellow butterfly is widely distributed in the temperate zone of Eurasia, Japan, North Africa, western North America and other places, many regions have different subspecies morphological changes, distributed in Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan subspecies (Papilio machaon sylvina) is now a very rare species, the 921 earthquake records are lacking, but there is still a distribution of mainland subspecies (P. machaon ssp. schantungensis) in the Matsu region. The larvae feed on plants of the family Cunidae, such as carrots and fennel, but the Taiwan subspecies records feed mainly on Taiwanese anterior hu.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Erythematous veined butterfly
This figure is very different from the red-veined butterfly pattern, but it is indeed possible to use it as a prototype to process and imagine. Erythropodae in the family Diplodoceae, usually using four legs for coiled field activities, ovoid and ridged, produced on the leaf surface of the host plant Purana; The larvae are five years old, the head shell has a pair of head horns and is full of many small protrusions, usually builds a silk pad on the leaf surface and feeds on the host, and in the winter, the feeding rate will slow down and overwinter with the third-instar larvae, at which time the body color of the larvae will turn brown similar to the habitat; Pupae are weeping pupae, green leafy with waxy notes; Adults feed mainly on organic ferments such as sap, curd fruit, etc.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Burying insects in Nepal
The insect is presumed to be an earth-dwelling short-winged insect such as burial worms or cryptoptera. Because the important features of the small shield of the mid-chest are not clearly presented, it is not judged to be tsubaki. Only it appears in the position and relative size of this figure, it is difficult to further judge its actual grass worms, but it still does not lose its interest.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Locusts, Orthoptera locusts. Based on the pattern on the wings and the shape of the forebreast, it can be judged that the locusts in the figure should be the Asian locusta migratoria, one of the major agricultural pests, mainly feeding on grasses. The locust is widely distributed, distributed throughout East Asia, and is also the main "behind-the-scenes" of locust plagues. There are still small-scale locust plagues in some parts of China, but there are few major outbreaks.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Female butterfly with red flamboyant
This butterfly prototype may be the female butterfly of the red-breasted pink butterfly that feeds on cruciferous flowers.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Sword Horn Locust
Based on the teardrop-shaped head and slender wings, it can be judged that the prototype in the figure is the sword horned locust (Acrida sp.), a locust widely distributed in East Asia, mainly feeding on grasses, which occurs in large quantities in summer and autumn, but rarely causes major agricultural losses. In Taiwan, the sword horn locust is mostly distributed in the grassy areas of shallow mountains, flat land and coastal areas, and adult insects are more common in summer to autumn.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Regardless of the two dragonflies in the painting, from the perspective of a graduate who loves insects and went to study entomology, I would like to know what these two dragonflies are doing.
First of all, they are definitely not playing a courtship drama of love. Secondly, if it is two dragonflies with very different appearances and a large difference in posture, it can definitely be determined that the large species is preying on the small dragonflies. However, the two dragonflies in the painting are very similar in size and appearance, so it can be determined that they are two male dragonflies of the same species, fighting in the air in order to compete for the field. Usually when the male dragonfly expels another male individual that has invaded the airspace, it will fly forward in the air and drive each other away with a physical collision (the flying frame is a warning), if the other party still does not leave, the competition between the two sides will be white-hot, and there will be a picture of the two male dragonflies falling to the ground at the same time in order to bring down each other.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
The approximate species of celestial calf on the bamboo branches and leaves in the painting is the peach-necked celestial bull (Aromia bungii), a species of the Coleoptera cerambycidae, distributed in China, Vietnam, Southeast Asia and other places. The adult is about 3.5 cm long , with a black head , a deep depression between the eyes at the top of the head , and blue-purple antennae. The back of the thorax is brownish red with one spine on each side and four on the dorsal side. The black surface of the elytra is smooth and shiny. The larvae moth into the xylem of the tree to eat, mainly harming peaches, apricots, plums, etc., causing hollow branches, weakening the tree, and seriously causing plant death. In recent years, this species has invaded Japan, endangering Japanese cherry blossom trees and causing serious losses.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
The approximate species of the white moth on the strange stone in the painting is the yellow mole moth (Stigmatophora flava), a subfamily of the Lepidoptera Erebidae and lithosiinae, distributed in China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. The head, thorax, and front and back wings of the yellow mole moth are all yellow, which is different from the white in the painting. There is a black dot at the apex and base of the forewing, and a row of black dots in the anterior midline and posterior midline; The hindwings are not markings. The larvae of moths (caterpillars) generally eat plant leaves, but moss moth larvae mostly feed on moss. In the wild, the traces on the road signs and railings covered with moss may be the eating marks of the moss moth larvae.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Little thirteen star ladybugs
Ladybirds are Coleoptera insects that will suspend death or secrete alkaloids as a defense mechanism when threatened, and the wing sheath often has black and red markings, so the bright black-red contrast color is often regarded as a warning color, used to warn predators that it is not a good prey. In agriculture, some species of ladybirds are important natural enemies for the control of pests, and larvae or adults can prey on pests such as hemiptera aphids, mesophylls, and whiteflies, and are an important helper in biological control.
Ming Shangzuo Okra (partial) Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
There is a group of ants working the slope in the lower right corner of the picture, and the ants have never been polite to the protein (insect carcass) that fell from the sky, especially in the breeding season, protein is very important for the nest! When a usable corpse is found, the ant will leave the pheromone to attract more companions to dispose of the corpse, and gradually dismember it into a state that can be carried back to the nest with a large jaw.
The decomposed insect corpse in the picture may be a cicada from the appearance of the head and the wing veins, and it has a clear gap in the lower left corner of its abdomen, or it may be the food that fell down and became an ant after being injured by a predator attack during flight.
(This article is compiled from the official website of the National Palace Museum in Taipei and related insect information.) ）
Editor-in-Charge: Weihua Gu
Proofreader: Ding Xiao