Egg of Common Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni)
The situation around this photo was quite ironic:
My partner and me were doing a little hike up the eastern slope of a mountain in the alpine region near Garmisch. We were discussing that the number of insects in flight was rather lower than expected. He said, with all those alder buckthorns (Frangula alnus) around, there should at least be a female Common Brimstone depositing eggs. About 5 seconds later, we saw a female Common Brimstone… I then asked: “Remind me again, what does an Alder buckthorn (in German: Faulbaum) look like?” Just a couple of steps down the path he points to a tree, shows a bunch of leaves and tells me: “This is it. Look, this would be a typical batch of leaves for Brimstone eggs. And here we have one!”
Needless to say I would never ever have spotted it on my own. The benefits of hiking with a lepidopterologist :)
''Gonepteryx rhamni'' is a butterfly of the family Pieridae. It lives throughout the Palearctic zone and is commonly found across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Across much of its range, it is the only species of its genus, and is therefore simply known locally as the brimstone.
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Philip is another example of a person that reveals all the biodiversity in "mundane" habitats: