bugs – Page 9 – Seabrooke Leckie

An Inordinate Fondness #5

As spring begins to give way to summer, we’re starting to enter the peak months for insects. The hot, dry weather is their kind of climate, and numbers boom. Every plant has one or two or three on it, it seems. Your back starts to get sore from stooping to look at them all. But what diversity! Nearly 90,000 species of insect occur in North America north of Mexico, and of those some 24,000 are beetles. That means that 4 out of every 15 insects (one in every 3.75, but I assume that, like me, you look at your bugs in wholes) you stoop to check out is going to be a beetle.

Well, probably the proportions don’t work out quite so neatly as that as some species are much more abundant than others, but you get the idea. There are a lot of beetles. There is a well-known quote attributed to JBS Haldane (though its authenticity is sometimes disputed) wherein he reflects that his studies of nature’s diversity have shown him that God “has an inordinate fondness for beetles”; it is, of course, from this quote that this blog carnival appropriately takes its name. God, or natural selection, may have given us the diversity present today, but we are the ones who get to enjoy it. AIF #5 shares with us ten different species of eight different families, and all different shapes and colours.

Margarethe of Arizona Beetles, Bugs, Birds and More starts us off with a small but lovely weevil, Coniatus splendidulus. The beetles were recently observed by a coworker in stands of tamarisk, an invasive plant that is slowly spreading through parts of the US including Arizona. While C. splendidulus, which feeds exclusively on tamarisk, had been considered for biological control measures, none to date have been officially released. The weevils observed by Margarethe’s coworker seem to have made it there under their own steam.

Arati of Trees, Plants and More shares another world-traveler, the lady beetle Coccinella transversalis, the Transverse Lady Beetle. Arati blogs from India, but the beetle is actually native to Australia. She observes that her lady beetle has markings that differ from the usual stereotype of black spots on red. However, only a small number of lady beetle species actually sport such markings; most either have more black like this one, black in different patterns than spots, or are different colours entirely.

Hugh of Rock Paper Lizard searches for a typical lady beetle, a favourite of the kids’, among yellow Santolina blooms. What we think of as the typical ladybug is a non-native species here in North America, too. The Asian Multicolored Lady Beetle, Harmonia axyridis, was introduced to North America on multiple occasions by the US Department of Agriculture as a biological control for aphids in orchards. The first release was in 1916, and the last in 1982, but it was an accidental introduction in 1988 to which we can attribute most of the lady beetles we encounter today.

Dave at Things Biological brings us Oedemera nobilis, a flower beetle of western Europe. He photographed this one in Provence, France, where it is native. It actually belongs to the family Oedemeridae, which are given the common name false blister beetles. In North America, the Kaufman Insect Guide suggests the group is most common along shorelines, though I don’t know if that’s true for this species in Europe; Dave seems to have found this species to be abundant on Spanish Broom (an evergreen shrub) throughout France, in any case. The KIG warns that members of the group will release strong skin irritants when crushed, not unlike actual blister beetles, so probably best just to look, don’t touch.

John of A DC Birding Blog spent some time watching several individuals of Strangalia luteicornis as they clambered about the flowers of a winterberry bush. These guys are in the subfamily Lepturinae and are properly called flower longhorns, according to the Kaufman Insect Guide (my “bible” for all things six-legged, if you haven’t already guessed). The larvae are borers of trees; this species focuses on hardwoods. The adults, unsurprisingly, feed on pollen from flowers in deciduous woodlands.

Rob Mitchell, blogging at Alex Wild’s Myrmecos, brings us another longhorned beetle. This one is Neoclytus tenuiscriptus, native to southwestern North America. The KIG indicates there are 26 species in this genus, and suggests that they are wasp mimics. Rob’s interpretation is that they do a better job imitating grasshoppers, with their short antennae and long hind legs. Other, related species are found across the continent. All are wood borers, and some species can sometimes be found emerging from firewood.

Over at Willow House Chronicles, Barefootheart recently discovered a population of Rose Chafers, Macrodactylus subspinosus, which were released from the soil as she was taking up sod to expand her garden. Most likely they were just about to emerge as adults from the soil, where they spent their larval stage, when she helped make it a little easier for them. Despite their common name, the beetles aren’t just interested in roses but will feed on the leaves and flowers of many different species of plants. In very large numbers they can become a pest, severely defoliating plants and potentially even killing them as a result, but fortunately numbers rarely get so high.

Cindy at Dipper Ranch reflects on some beetles that emerge in late spring with the first rainfalls of the season. Appropriately, they are called rain beetles, and are members of the family Pleocomidae; others in the group come out in late fall or winter, but rainfall or snowmelt is always the trigger. They are all contained within one genus, Pleocoma, of which there are about 30 species in North America. The group is restricted to the west coast of the US. Amazingly, the larvae of this group may take as long as 8-13 years, feeding on roots in the soil, before they reach adulthood. When they finally become adults, the beetles have vestigal mouthparts and cannot feed; they die shortly after mating and laying the eggs for the new generation.

Not nearly so interesting in habit, but certainly eye-catching in colour, yesterday I posted about some Milkweed Leaf Beetles, Labidomera clivicollis that I encountered a couple of weeks ago. These guys are variable in colour and pattern through their range east of the Rockies. As their name suggests, both the larvae and the adults feed on the leaves of milkweed plants; predominantly Swamp Milkweed, but also Common.

So now, if all that diversity has gotten you enthused and you want to go out to look for some beetles yourself, swing over to Beetles in the Bush where An Inordinate Fondness founder Ted will teach you everything you need to know about dressing for success in beetle-collecting. He outlines everything you should take with you into the field, from what to hold in your hands, to what to wear on your head, and how to carry all your bits and bobs, in order to produce the best results. And if you read Ted’s blog, you’ll see that the results speak for themselves. (The obvious key is item #5. Make sure you get one, too.)

An Inordinate Fondness goes next to Insect Art. You can submit your posts directly or use the handy blog carnival submission form. Either way, make sure you get your posts in by July 15!

Milkweed Leaf Beetle

A couple of weeks ago as I was walking down to my veggie garden I spied something bright amongst the grass at the side of the path. Stooping to have a look, it turned out to be a rather large beetle. I hadn’t brought my camera, having been going to the garden for another purpose, so I hurried back to the house to grab it, hoping the beetle would stay put. When I returned, sure enough it had taken off from where I’d left it, but a bit of searching and patience revealed it a short distance away.

I wouldn’t ordinarily be so determined in trying to relocate something, but this was an eye-catching beetle: large, at nearly half an inch (10mm), with bright orange-spotted black elytra and a shiny green-blue thorax. I was convinced it had to be something unusual – wouldn’t I have noticed one before, otherwise?

Well, it turns out to be fairly common and widespread. It’s a Milkweed Leaf Beetle, Labidomera clivicollis. The species ranges throughout North America east of the Rockies and varies considerably in pattern across that area, with some being quite pale or having very reduced markings. The paler individuals all seem to occur west of the Mississippi. As its common name suggests, the beetles feed on the foliage and flowers of milkweed, primarily Swamp Milkweed but also Common. Apparently prior to feeding on a new leaf, both adults and larvae will clip the side veins as a drain, reducing the sticky latex left at their feeding site.

Tomorrow I’m hosting An Inordinate Fondness #5, the blog carnival about all things coleopteran. If you have a post about beetles I encourage you to submit it! Try to get it to me by tomorrow (Friday) afternoon; the carnival will go up in the evening, but I’ll still try to squeeze last-minute submissions in. Submit your posts here, or email them to me at canadianowlet [at] gmail [dot] com.

Mantisfly

This is likely the coolest insect I’ve encountered in some time. I discovered it a couple of days ago, at our Maplewood Bog MAPS station. It had flown to, or crawled up on, my backpack and I only noticed it as I was going to reach inside to pull out a snack. I knew right away what it was from browsing through my Kaufman Insect Guide from time to time, though the specific ID would have to wait till I could get back home to look it up. Its front legs give it away: it’s a mantisfly, and it does in fact use its front legs much like a praying mantis, the organism from which its name is derived, would do. Just like their namesakes, mantisflies will stalk other smaller insects and snatch them with their strong front limbs. The larvae are also predatory, but some are very specialized in their choice of prey: they predate the egg sacs of spiders, and to reach the egg sac they’ll ride around on the female spider until she lays the eggs, at which point it jumps ship, sneaks inside, and has a handy stockpile of food to see it through its development.

This particular species is Climaciella brunnea, the Wasp Mantisfly (BugGuide calls them mantidflies, while the KIG calls them mantisflies; I find the s easier to say than the d). Its coloration and general shape is intended to mimic paper wasps in the genus Polistes (I think that bit stuck to its abdomen is a stray bit of brown leaf or somesuch, and not actually part of the disguise). It does a pretty good job of this, and I expect this mimicry affords it some protection from predators who think twice before catching a wasp, even though the mantisfly itself won’t sting. Although I found this one on my backpack, they’re most often encountered on flowers, where probably they sit in wait for their prey in the form of insects coming to sip on the nectar. BugGuide suggests that mating will take place on the flowers as well. Apparently while they’re not rare, they’re not all that common, either, so I was glad that this one was considerate enough to seek me out!

Blue Lakes

Monday was the last day of my contract with Innis Point Bird Observatory. The spring migration monitoring wrapped up with a reasonably good day, despite some wind that required a few nets remain closed. Although it was a slow season compared to some other stations in Ontario, I enjoyed it, and the low capture volume allowed me to provide plenty of training to my two “interns” and a few other volunteers. I handed in my gate keys at the end of the day, and all that’s left is for me to computerize the data and get it sent off to them.

Yesterday was therefore my first day “off”, but I hardly spent it sitting around. In fact, I didn’t even get to sleep in much past my usual 3am wake-up time. At 3:45 the alarm went off and Dan and I climbed out of bed to head out to the first of Frontenac Bird Studies’ three MAPS sites.

MAPS stands for Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship. Basically it’s the banding program that fills in where migration monitoring leaves off. While migration monitoring (and the non-banding surveys of the Breeding Bird Survey) are able to detect and document the overall trends of bird populations and individual species, they are unable to say why they’re trending that way. In fact, no generalized surveys can give us really specific information – in order to know whether it’s habitat loss or pollution or environmental contaminants or something else very specific targeted research must be undertaken for each species. But it’s a pretty big haystack and often a fairly small needle. MAPS banding can kick-start the process by being able to give an idea of which part of the haystack the needle is in. The program documents “birth” rates by monitoring proportions of the different age classes in the population, and “death” rates (where death might mean either actual death or simply the departure of the individual to other localities – either way, it’s a loss of that breeding individual to the local population) by banding year after year and seeing who returns the following summer. If we know that there are lots of chicks but adult survivorship appears to be very low for a particular population, we can then focus our efforts on finding out why the adults aren’t returning.

There are over 500 MAPS stations in North America, but fewer than 10% of those are in Canada. Only thirteen stations have been established in Ontario, four of them are defunct, and three of the remaining eight are Dan’s. Part of the problem is the availability of skilled personnel – the US has some 2000 federally-permitted banders, while Canada only has about 200 (the last time I heard the stats, anyway). Another part of it is that so much of our landscape is remote and, often, inaccessible. A single MAPS station only requires seven visits over the course of a summer season, so they’re usually run on a volunteer basis and tend to be located within an easy drive from the bander’s home. But I suppose an additional part of it is just that Canadian banders haven’t embraced it the way Americans have; there have been, for instance, nearly four dozen MAPS stations set up in Alaska over the years, and while it’s certainly a large state, it’s hardly any more populous than much of Canada.

Anyway, enough with the background info. This was supposed to be a post about our outing yesterday. Last year Dan had set up three stations in or near Frontenac Provincial Park, but one of the three had to be retired early due to some unfortunate logistical difficulties (a shame, as it was quite a nice spot). He wanted to replace it this year so he would again be running three stations, and after much scouting of crown land along the Frontenac Arch north of the park he located a spot out near Sharbot Lake, about a half hour’s drive west of us, and about 19 km (12 mi) north of the other stations, as the crow flies.

It’s nestled between two small lakes, possibly oversized ponds depending on your point of view, the larger of the two only about 14 acres of water surface. This site is similar in many respects to the other two, but even the short distance north gives it a slightly more northern feel, with a greater proportion of conifers and several bird species not found (or found in lower numbers) at the other site. One of these species is the Black-throated Blue Warbler, of which Dan and I estimated 5-7 territorial males singing within our netting area alone. My short name for the species is simply “Blue” (Black-throated Green Warblers are “Greens”), and because the most dominant landform feature was the dual lakes we decided to call it Blue Lakes (Black-throated Blue Warbler Lakes being a bit of a mouthful).

Dan has already posted a summary of the morning’s banding, so I won’t repeat that here; you can head over to his post to read about what we found, including our first-ever banding of a Yellow-throated Vireo, a Hermit Thrush (another of those northern-feel species), and of course a Blue. Instead, I thought I’d highlight some of the other interesting things I found about the site during the morning.

The lakes themselves are actually more green than blue, being covered with plentiful pond lilies. We didn’t notice any fish, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not there, just that they weren’t close to shore. There were, however, plenty of frogs. Most of them seemed to be Mink Frogs, a species I hadn’t ever encountered prior to moving to eastern Ontario. There were also a few Green Frogs and Leopard Frogs thrown in for good measure. I spotted a few turtles basking on exposed logs, at least one of which was a Blanding’s, a Species At Risk in Ontario.

In the larger of the two lakes there were a few tall standing snags that still retained many of their larger branches. In a couple of these Great Blue Herons had built nests, and in one of them, at least, there were a couple of youngsters, getting near to the age where they will leave the nest. I didn’t bring my long lens with me, so the photo was taken by holding my camera up to my binoculars. I used to do all of my long-distance photos this way, before getting a DSLR, but the image quality isn’t nearly as good. As it turns out, the method is a whole lot easier when you’re using a point-and-shoot. I went back with Dan’s super-zoom camera after borrowing it from him the next time our paths crossed, but by that time the chicks were hunkered down again.

Speaking of nests, Dan was halfway through clearing out a net lane last week when he discovered this Chestnut-sided Warbler nest just a foot and a half from where he was cutting. She’s been studiously incubating over the last week, and was still present today; hopefully the habitat modifications haven’t put her off too much.

These flowers are growing abundantly in a couple areas of our site. I was quite taken with them; the flowers are just small, only about a centimeter (<1/2″) in diameter, held aloft on dainty thread-thin stems, and a cheerful orange accented with red. As far as I can tell, they’re Whorled Loosestrife, Lysimachia quadrifolia, although every photo I’ve looked at for the species has shown yellow flowers, not orange ones. Whorled Loosestrife is one of our native species, and is unrelated to the invasive Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) even though they share the same common name.

This plant grows at both Blue Lakes and Maplewood Bog. It may also be at Rock Ridge, though I haven’t noticed it there myself (it is on the official park checklist, though). It took me a while to figure out what it was: Sweetfern, Comptonia peregrina, though it’s not actually a fern at all and the name just refers to the similar appearance of the leaves. It also refers to the fragrance of them. The leaves can be crushed and steeped in hot water to make tea; it was a traditional Native American remedy for diarrhea and dyssentry, but it also tastes very pleasant. The intriguing burr-like balls are actually the plant’s seeds, and within that spiky exterior is an edible and tasty “nutlet”. I’ll have to try it next time I’m there.

Another plant starting to bear fruit already is the Dwarf Raspberry, sometimes known as Swamp Raspberry, Rubus pubescens. Despite its alternative name, it’s found in most northern forest conditions. Related to our domesticated raspberries, this one rarely grows more than half a meter (~18″) high. The berries are, as with all Rubus species, edible and sweet, but as each plant bears only a few fruit they make more of a treat than a snack.

At one spot along the shore an old fallen log had fetched up in the shallow mud leaving its top side exposed as it rotted. It’s been colonized by sedges and other plants, as well as one of my favourites, sundew – I believe these to be Round-leaved Sundew, Drosera rotundifolia. I wrote about some sundew at Rock Ridge last year, but I believe those were a different species, Spoon- or Spatulate-leaved Sundew, Drosera intermedia.

With the log so close to shore I was able to simply lean over to take a few photos, something I hadn’t been able to do at Rock Ridge. I even found a small patch of it growing at the shore edge there, where the water had become trapped and somewhat stagnant behind the grounded log.

And the last one, for today: this guy was hanging on one of the nets when I went to close up at the end of the morning. It’s a net-winged beetle, Caenia dimidiata but no common name. These guys are neat not only for their own appearance, but also because they are part of a mimicry complex that includes the Black-and-yellow Lichen Moth (below; taken at our last house). Presumably somebody in the complex tastes bad, and they all benefit from the learned avoidance behaviour of predators that the common aposematic colouration gives them.

Hatching a pupa

Two weeks ago, the same weekend Dan walked back with me to show me the jewelwings, he pointed out what he thought was a chrysalis that he’d spotted dangling from the branch of a shrub alongside the path. (This was the primary purpose of the expedition; the jewelwings were a nice addition.) When I stooped down for a closer look, it turned out not to be a chrysalis at all, but actually the pupa of a moth that had slipped out of its silken cocoon. (Butterflies, when they pupate, form hard-shelled cases without any additional protection, while moths usually form soft-shelled pupae that they encase in a cocoon spun with silk fibres, sometimes incorporating other material such as leaves.) The fibres of the cocoon were still affixed to the branch, but now the pupa dangled delicately from one end. From rain, perhaps, or other weather effects?

I took a few photos of it in situ, and then (at Dan’s suggestion) carefully broke the branch off to bring it back to the house to try to rear it and see what was inside. I placed the twig into a large, clear mason jar, crumpling up a tissue and placing it underneath one end so that the pupa would be elevated from the floor of the jar, aware that the moth would need room to be able to stretch its wings out as they dried. I covered the top with cling wrap to keep the moth inside until I found it, poking half a dozen holes into it with the tip of a pen to allow air circulation. And then I put it on the kitchen counter and waited.

Four days later when I came home from work, Dan pointed out a moth inside the jar. But it wasn’t the moth I was expecting to be inside the jar. Not that I had any idea, really, what species was inside the cocoon, but I did know that as the pupa was about 15mm (3/4″), the moth inside it would also need to be at least that big. The moth fluttering about the jar now, scurrying over the cling wrap and around the glass walls, was just a little micro, less than a centimeter (1/2″) long. I jarred it and placed in the fridge to cool, with the intention of slowing it enough that I might be able to manage a decent photo to identify it. I eventually got one through the clear plastic of the container, but it was sufficient to pick out a probable ID: Olethreutes albiciliana, a member of the family Tortricidae for which there is several records but no detailed life history information on the web. The records I’ve found have been for Alberta, Ontario, Indiana, Massachusetts and Vermont, suggesting it’s primarily a northeastern species perhaps extending west through the Boreal. I don’t recognize the plant it was attached to, but the substrate the caterpillar pupates on isn’t necessarily the same one it was feeding on.

A closer look at the plant revealed this tiny pupal case affixed to the twig at the base of some leaves. It looks a bit like a mantis or some other bug, but the long hooked “arms” are just bits of the pupa that split along thinner creases in the shell when the moth forced its way out, probably where the pupa traced the antennae (if you look closely at the top photo you might see that the pupa clearly shows an abdomen, two sings wrapped around the front, and the antennae folded down against the body in front of the wings. It even sort of shows the eyes, though they’re harder to see). It’s funny that I hadn’t even noticed this one when I broke the twig off and brought it inside.

It was a longer wait for the original pupa to “hatch”. Finally, when I came home from work yesterday afternoon, two weeks after collecting it, the top of the shell had been neatly popped off and lay on the floor of the jar.

And running around the mouth of the jar, under the cling wrap trying to find a way out, was the adult that had emerged from it. But it wasn’t a moth at all. It was a wasp!

I chilled this guy, too, and then took a couple of photos which I posted to BugGuide. The long, narrow body and antennae identify the wasp as a member of the family Ichneumonidae, a group of wasps that parasitize the larvae of other insects, primarily lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and beetles. The expert on BugGuide placed it in the subfamily Ichneumoninae, and I browsed through the BugGuide catalogue till I found a possible match: Ichneumon annulatorius, based on thorax and leg markings and lack of white on the antennae. This species also seems to be a northeastern species, based on the locations of specimens submitted to BugGuide for ID.

This PDF had some useful information about the group, including the species I. annulatorius. The wasps emerge and mate during the summer and fall. The females then spend the winter hidden under loose bark or sometimes moss on trees or logs. In the spring, they begin searching for a suitable lepidopteran host, either caterpillars or newly-formed pupae, and lay their eggs, fertilized using the sperm they’d stored over the winter. The wasp larva develops in the pupa and emerges a few weeks later to start the cycle again.

This individual is a male, as it lacks a long, thin ovipositor at the tip of its abdomen. After I’d got my couple of photos I let him go so he could find himself a female. Interestingly, though, the paper notes, “Specimens may also be held for months at room temperature by supplying ample water and nutrients in the form of a 50/50 honey/water mixture.” If you think of the amount of time between when a female would have emerged from her host pupa in the summer, to when she lays her eggs the following spring, they actually have a reasonably long lifespan, for an insect. Although I don’t think the males sting, lacking the ovipositor (which is the organ that stingers are modified from), it’s hard to think they’d make very good pets.