[Taxacom] odd botanical? fragment

[Doug Yanega]

I try to avoid attachments when posting to mailing lists, so forgive me 
this one. I received the following photo from India, from someone who 
thought it was a mass of insect eggs, but I'm reasonably certain it must 
be botanical. I will note that: (1) given the shape of the margins, I 
assume it is a fragment of a larger object; too many of the subunits 
along the edge are "clipped off" for these to be eggs that have been 
attached to one another as they were laid. (2) there seems to be some 
fluid where it contacts the leaf, suggesting that it has/had a moist 
surface, and that (in addition to its orientation) suggests the entire 
fragment was dropped onto the leaf from a distance, rather than 
deposited there, as eggs would be. (3) while the subunits are arranged 
rather geometrically, they are far from perfect and uniform, and also 
VERY small, and so I rule out that this is something artificial. I 
assume it's a piece of some fruit that fell while some animal was 
feeding on it. That being said, I am unaware of any aggregate or 
accessory fruit that have this appearance. By any chance, is this 
something familiar to anyone here?

Thanks,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82