Many questions came up? Just a few of them: “How do these larvae get out of the tube?”, “Obviously not all capsules resulted in growing larvae, how do the living ones pass the non viable?”, “Where do these larvae get their oxygen from?”, “How is this creature able to count the amount of leaves used for capsule and cap?”(NB all capsules had the same basic count – apart from one that contained 8 layers in the cap), “How ever did this practise evolve over time to what it is today?”, “Did the creature that created these ‘capsules of live’ also create the tube or did it use the tunnel of a e.g. a longhorn beetle?” (NB Looking at the single entry point and it looking – to my layman’s eyes – as build for purpose I would not be surprised if the tube was created by the capsule maker itself.)
But last but not least “What type of (most likely) insect did create this wonder of nature?”
One of the neighbours, after some research, came up with the (Dutch) “Behangersbij” a specific type of bee. Its Latin name is – I think – Megachile versicolor. (German: “Blattschneiderbiene”) Apparently it uses the leaves of roses to create the capsules which is consistent with our observations (both from capsules and corresponding cut-outs from the leaves of our roses.
It is this type of little encounters that makes me marvel at nature’s complexity and diversity.