Here’s another view of the wonderful prickly pear flower (Opuntia spp). It gives a better view of the soft, folded petals, and shows the largest of the pollenators that were on it. If you look closely at it you can also notice several small ants. Even the larger one, a beetle, is pretty small, but once it’s fully open this flower will also attract some larger pollenators like butterflies, bees, and wasps. Beauty and usefulness seem to rarely occur in the rest of the world, but they are common traits of many things in nature.