Trompe l'Oeil

A rumor has been afoot in Sewanee for several weeks that baby copperheads have been slinking about under the dam bridge.  Today, two friends put that rumor to rest with a visual confirmation that the snakes are young North American Watersnakes, no doubt produced by the big mama I saw and photographed almost a month ago.  The thing is that the snakes might look like copperheads or rattlers, as the big one did to me, when glimpsed briefly.  Note, however, that there is no pointed head although the markings disguise her as poisonous.

Disguise is a fascinating phenomenon in the natural world.  Bee flies, for instance, only look like bees and thus fool predators.  Antennae-like flags on the back of Tailed Blue butterfly wings fool predators into taking a bite of the presumptive head.  Red-spotted Purple butterflies look like Pipevine Swallowtails, which taste bitter to their potential predators.

And then there's camouflage, which quite likely is accidental.  This morning, on my way back to the car, I decided to look once more into the lovely little cabbage head plants by the dam to see if I might spy another of the mysterious damseflies I photographed yesterday.  Suddenly, in the way I used to see animals in Weekly Reader puzzles, the Eastern Pondhawk teneral appeared, and then only at home did I see the exuvia.

Oh, the close looking.  How rewarding it can be.  And how beautiful are nature's fool-the-eye treasures.