Your friend C goes to China

[I'll update this post as the season progresses instead of making new posts.]

I'm in China for the rest of the spring (and a few days of summer) this year! Yeah, you read that right! I'm still not rich though, if I was I'd be all happy playing with Fancy Science Machines, I went only on other people paying for the trip (but no one's paying for any Fancy Science Machines sadly). The main target for my visit is thalloid marchantiophytes since 1. according to a Bryonet post by moss researcher Bill Buck (and several not-Bill-Buck bryologists I personally asked) there are no import restrictions on Marchantiophyta/Bryophyta entering the United States, as long as no soil is brought along with them 2. I aesthetically prefer the thalloid over leafy ones, mostly because leafy ones' leaves tend to overlap or touch each other in mildly annoying-looking ways when they branch. You know how those rosette succulents start off as paragons of mathematical stylishness but tend to get kinda misshapen when they branch because the two rosettes squish against each other? Yeah, not a fan of that. I mean, even thalloid ones can overlap each other, but because they don't have leaves to squish against each other they don't look so annoying when they do it. Also yeah yeah I know self-shading is so common in angiosperms because the ecological costs of doing so are low (and, more interestingly, because some species grow phenotypically different leaves specialized for shade, and potentially are thus able to use light the sun leaves absorb poorly) but I can't help but feel a little annoyed when a leafy marchantiophyte grows over itself instead of in neat and tidy self-avoiding fractal patterns. They don't look as good as bushes/trees when they self-shade.

Anyways, enough blabbing about aesthetics. I'm in subtropical Taicang as of this writing (it's my "home base", so to speak) and I've found lots of bugs (some of which I'm also on the fence about aesthetics-wise, so I'm going to post them all on a separate page instead of here so as to not potentially interfere with my own aesthetic. Don't judge me! I know it's kind of weird to be doing this (especially considering I'm an Uncharismatic Microfauna/flora person, although in my defense I don't consider merely drab taxa to be ugly) but I'm still having my personal little aesthetics-ontology crisis okay? With so little known about their ecology it's hard to judge whether a superficially unappealing look actually serves some sort of ingenious purpose or if it's just a flaw. And as I need to eat aesthetic decisions to live the inability to figure out what's going on's really frustrating. Wait, did I start blabbing about aesthetics again? Sigh. Anyways, aside from that, eye candy without cool ecological stories behind it bores me to death and if you're anything like me it'd bore you too, and I'd rather not clog up my blog with too much boringness. I've already posted years of mind-numbing small talk here for lack of anything better to do and I've had enough of that (but the data is still useful scientifically, which is why I bother to post it at all).

But let's not go on another digression about that. So far as of this writing (5/1) nothing particularly fun has happened yet, although what I consider "fun" seems to be pretty different from most people's so maybe you'll get a bigger kick out of it than I did. Taicang's ecology is pretty wrecked, there're lots of Big Fancy Subtropical Bugs even in the really shitty suburban areas but there's very little wilderness-in-the-sense-of-nonanthropogenic-habitat remaining. If you've interacted with me extensively you've probably heard me mention how in Greater Los Angeles (and often in general, not just LA) even highly weed-free urban/suburban anthropogenic native gardens have a pretty messed-up ecology compared to weed-infested nonanthropogenic wilderness. Some organisms just can't fly over to the urbs, and some organisms require abiotic conditions abundant in disturbed wilderness but not undisturbed artificial habitat, and no one entirely knows what those abiotics actually are (although for LA thermal/hydrational refugia appear to be a primary factor regulating aridland bug abundance, especially considering how easily a lot of the rare LA ones reproduce and survive in captivity indoors). I recognize the value and biodiversity of what ecologists these days're calling "novel ecosystems" but to not overcomplicate things let's just say that LA urban nature (while impressive) is missing immense numbers of key floral and faunal components and probably isn't the most valuable novel ecosystem, and for Taicang the line between disturbed wilderness and urban/suburban nonwilderness habitat is far blurrier than LA's but I want my thalloid Marchantiophyta and as a rule urb/suburb nonwilderness tends to be too disturbed to host many thalloid Marchantiophyta aside from the nursery weeds.

To say "anyways" again, anyways I should probably take some landscape photos of the area immediately adjacent to my residence to give you an idea of what my surroundings look like. Internet photos don't do it justice, they tend to be super photoshopped and fake-looking (not even in the pretty sort of fake-looking, the cheesy sort). My macro cam broke when it fell on the ground too many times and now it can't zoom out very far. =(

Okay, enough trip-report-unrelated rambling for real this time. Now it's time for trip-report-related rambling!

Log:
Pre-4/30: lots of bugs seen, not the Large Fancy Bugs but bugs nonetheless. The ground has remained pretty dry lately but it did rain lightly one day, I've read that the heaviest rains in this part of the world are during the summer monsoon (which may have something to do with there being fewer big bugs rn), and back when I was at Taicang in summer 2018 the Large Fancy Bugs were everywhere. I didn't go very far from my residence before 4/30 as I was scouting out the area for suburban Marchantiophyta (not much luck) and documenting bugs (much luck) and more importantly waiting for stuff to get fixed (among other things, part of the ceiling had mildew everywhere and the hot water wasn't immediately working).

4/30: went to 金仓 Lake Park. The dirt was that sort of awful-looking dried mud that I've come to associate with really wrecked soil in California (e.g. Debs/Griffith/Elysian Park). It is of note that despite having only somewhat more invasive plant biomass (and in some areas significantly less invasive plant biomass) than places like the woods around NASA Jet Propulsion Lab the lab woods are significantly more biodiverse and normal-looking than anywhere in Debs/Griffith/Elysian if you ask me. The poor Targionia populations in Griffith are just barely hanging on. Anyways, I found no thalloid Marchantophyta but in a forest of identical-looking trees-in-rows ("liminal space" vibes) some petroleum company apparently created as "ecological restoration" there were some epiphytic leafy ones, to my mild(ly pleased) surprise.

Eventually I realized the petrol forest wasn't the main entrance to the park and went into the main entrance, which was pretty and colorful (there seem to be no imgs of the colorful entrance online, maybe it's new enough that no one's posted to Google/Baidu yet, but don't worry you're not missing out on much it's an aesthetic you've probably seen before) and had some generic ornamental landscaping flowers, which led to the eponymous lake (no flowers there, just a dry-looking lawn). Inexplicably the leafy Marchantiophyta were not around the trees at the entrance and lake despite them seemingly being the same species as the petrol forest ones, maybe because the petrol forest was densely planted and thus allowed the bark to stay wet longer after rains. Anyways, here's a pic from some random internet stranger of what the lake and surrounding lawn area looked like. This internet photo does do the scene justice, which is to say that it was not particularly impressive. I figured that considering how fancy the entrance looked there might've been something cool on the other side of the lake, but it was a large lake to walk the entire perimeter of and golf cart* rides to the other side were absurdly expensive so I decided not to chance it.
*I don't think it was for golf, but it was more or less the same type of vehicle as a golf cart.
Then I went back to my "home base" to do some research on iNaturalist to see which angiosperms in Taicang and neighboring areas were associated with true wilderness.

5/1: did more research on iNat for much of the day (and wrote this blog post), I feel like I've a reasonable understanding of the bioindicators now (directly searching for which ones were bioindicators on Google/Baidu is unhelpful, which is why I looked at iNat and why it took me so long. Wouldn't have gone to 金仓 if it weren't so timeconsuming to find wilderness areas or bioindicators of such. Scanned several thousand plant spp. and counting). 5/1 is Labor Day ofc so I didn't go out much to avoid the traffic jams. Oh, and I realized the landscaping around my residence has a single very small patch of thalloids:

Suspect Reboulia.

5/2: page added for images of the less notable bugs. To be fair, even most of the pretty ones count as "less notable" here, because it's not like I can take any of them home alive can I? Nor do I want to take them home, they'd bore me if I did. Minor edits made to add additional commentary for previous parts of this post. God my picture backlog's huge.

jfkdls;gjfdslk;jdslf

 Datura wrightii seed x1 covertly planted into LA Library Edendale Branch. Too depressed to write more. But nothing fun happened (the Ultraviolet Grasslands stuff stopped due to friends being busy) so there's not much to write about anyway.

Spring pachy triage commences

Okay I'm still extremely depressed but I'm playing a game of Ultraviolet Grasslands with my friends and the cool art and worldbuilding we've been making have been good for my mental health. Sometimes I even feel like a real person.

Anyways, I found Pachybrachis hepaticus in the swimming pool on Valentine's, which is pretty weird, as they're not normally known to emerge so early (only 2 record on iNat, both from Mexico, and none on Bugguide). Happened straight after the unusually bad CA drought was ended by abrupt rains too.

Threw it in a bag with some lettuce, which it did eat, but every time I allowed it to bask in even mild sun it got restless (it seemed to be male and was presumably mateseeking) so I released it. Was always calm in the shade though, maybe it's like those butterflies/wasps that crave direct sunlight and go inert on overcast days. Haven't seen any other Cryptocephalinae emerge this year yet, they seem to only really get going in mid to late spring (have I told you I'm on a cryptocephaline conservation investigation? I'm too tired/depressed to reread my old posts), but the fact that even a widespread taxon like hepat seems like it might be getting phenology shifts from climate change weather is concerning. I keep seeing research papers talking about how widespreadness and synanthropy don't necessarily protect insect species from conservational danger in this day and age, and they weren't just talking about that one extinct locust either.

I can't be bothered to give my usual round of generic updates because they're boring as shit anyways but the gist is that everything is going as usual for most of my specimens and that the Sphaerocarpos died again. In other news I've continuing to grow tentacles everywhere into the local native plant and gardening and ento and museum-institution groups, largely in hope of gaining backdoor access to maybe a fancy science machine to finally investigate those super cool complex ecological dynamics I've been craving. No luck on the complex dynamics there yet, though I did persuade one of the gardening collectives to leave some unmulched spots for the burrowing bees and the more mulch-hating sorts of native flora.

Also, going to post a short story I wrote later. I'm too tired to do it right now.

please save me I don't want to die

Today's round of boring updates:
- I rehydrated a Xanthoria parietina specimen I had in dry storage. It was dead, because it did not become greenish after hydration. That was my last one.

- I did recently take a sample from the unidentified sunburst lichen pictured above, it was from my own city so it presumably doesn't need salt spray like X. parietina does. The unidentified was growing on painted wood, so it can probably grow on other unnatural nutrientless substrates too, like plastic. To decrease the risk that a heterospecific lichen would grow in my culture and make it easier to peel off the wood, I only took the part that was already loose and hanging in the air.

- Cuscuta subinclusa doing well. Nothing interesting has happened.

- Shortly after I posted my last post all the sealed Cryptocephalus sanguinicollis unsealed their cases when I misted them heavily by accident (light misting did nothing). This did not appear to harm them, and now all 4 are eating petals again. I should also mention C. sanguinicollis larvae are prone to destroying (likely eating) each other's cases, seemingly mistaking them for food. This seems to be why the 7 larvae I had went down to 5; the missing larvae left behind cases with big holes in them, and holes in cryptocephaline cases interfere with proper moisture homeostasis and can kill larvae that way. I should note that 2 of the 4 recently had massive holes made in their cases but then managed to successfully fix them without dying; this is because at the 4-5 millimeter stage larvae are relatively hardy compared to newly hatched ones, and because I kept them all lightly damp after noticing the holes so they wouldn't desiccate while trying to patch them. Weirdly enough the holes are not patched immediately, instead they wait a few days before doing so. Also, behavioral notes: larvae kept dry with water-containing food e.g. petals or larvae kept lightly damp well ventilated are lethargic, which seems to be a sign of health. Larvae that are too wet run around energetically a lot and try to circle/climb walls.

- I don't know if I mentioned it before, but the round-leaved Huntington wort died from mold and depression-induced plant neglect. A few ramets of the unknown pincerwort survived and have grown well on wood-rich soil. Evidently this is a case of the fundamental niche being wider than the realized niche, because in the Huntington the pincerworts only lived high up on trees, with various tropical-looking mosses monopolizing the ground.

- More telegraphweed/Datura seeds added to NHMLA. I also brought and planted some Datura seeds at the Junior High native garden.

title text

 A while back I saved a wild E. acuticauda female that had only one and a half intact legs left, unlike young healthy members of the species it spends much of its time sleeping and doesn't do the unpleasant-looking "pace around in circles and/or back/forth in a corner" thingy, it utilizes the entire cage. Anyways, it laid some eggs, I hatched the eggs and reared the worms to medium size, threw all 30+ worms in NHMLA yesterday, fingers crossed yeah. E. carbonaria did start doing the pacing thing, I'm going to release the latter back into its habitat.

Also threw some locally wild collected telegraphweed and devil's trumpets in there too, NHMLA has only small amounts of Datura and no preexisting Heterotheca as far as I know.




Down to 4 C. sanguinicollis larvae. For a long time I had 5 but recently I sent the fifth one flying by accident and lost it (I do not expect to refind it). 2 still feeding last time I checked, other 2 are sealed. During their summer dormancy they all simply plugged the cases with their heads, but this time the sealed ones have actually cemented the cases shut with excrement. It should be noted that the sealing coincided with a sudden drop in weather from 80-something fahrenheits to 70-somethings, it seems that chronic exposure to artificial light at night doesn't affect their dormancy circadian rhythms too badly.

Also, acquaintance gave me a piece of my Cuscuta subinclusa clone back, it's curled 4 stems around some strawberry plants but is a little confused because it thinks it's tightly wrapped around its victim (in actuality part of it is touching the strawberry hairs but not the stem the hairs are growing out of). It'll likely succeed in penetrating the host anyways, given that during the penetration process the dodder inflates like one of those blood pressure cuffs they give you for medical checkups.

No noteworthy Asterella californica news, I only have 2 apical notches and both of them are getting etiolated (although not pale) and growing upward instead of touching the sand. They do that when air humidity is sufficiently high.



Sudden wild orbweaver dieoff this year. To reduce the chances of this being a statistically insignificant phenomenon, I corresponded with some relatively trusted acquaintances, who noted the same. Pretty sure due to starvation, because there's anomalously low flying insect density around my house (even invasive flying insects are usually sparse). One Neoscona crucifera I've been feeding with false widows and drowned swimming pool insects has remained plump, although it's run away somewhere to where I can't find it a few days ago (I may have upset it during a certain unsuccessful feeding session attempt) and might therefore starve like the rest of them. It deflated severely whenever I didn't feed it.

I should also note that ground-dwelling urban detritivores have not suffered the same fate as the frequent fliers; for one, Gryllodes sigillatus still comes out in droves every night the way it usually does. Also, while insect density in my area seems often naturally low (especially in arid wilderness), the orbweaver/flier dieoff seems unusually severe.



Anyways that's all for today's soporific updates, have fun I guess.

blugh

 Using the last of my mental health to note that I brought the pot beetle grubs out of their dormancy a week or so ago by spraying them and then partially closing the lid for several days (thus ensuring their cup was lightly damp for the duration of those days). They are now ravenously eating petals again.

Apparently merely spraying the animals is insufficient for them to exit dormancy, even if the spraying is very intense, because it seems that dormancy only ceases when there is a prolonged exposure to humidity.

Also, no detectable "long COVID" symptoms so far. Yay?

I have been mistreated by the hospital

 Not posting details here, sorry! I will however note that it is a pretty big-name hospital.

I am home now. Was actually getting sicker as a direct result of the hospital's actions impeding my recovery.

I have COVID-19 now

 I don't want to reveal too many personal details in public, but long story short, I was absolutely fastidious about sanitation protocols, I wore masks long after everyone else stopped, I frequently didn't leave my house for weeks at a time. But no amount of caution can save you if you're being forced to eat off poorly washed plates (with rice grains and sauce still on them) at shitty restaurants just not to starve [note that this sentence is potentially misleading but is factually true - I eat well, for lack of a better phrase.]

I don't live in a bloody slum. So why do I live like I'm in one when I'm in one of the most well-off cities in the nation?

Apparently C. sanguinicollis larvae have a summer dormancy

 

Which makes sense, considering that it's when all the sage scrub plants dry up in the heat.

Abnormal photoperiods from indoors lighting and abnormally generous moisture regimes also did not break the dormancy, misting causes them to walk around in annoyance but eventually they retract and stop moving again. With that being said, the grubs do consume small amounts of food despite the dormancy.

Some have voluntarily refused both food and water for as long as 5 days, possibly even longer.

Got a cool video

 

Nooooooooo!

 I have recently had to, umm, let's euphemistically call it a forced vacation. Had to temporarily give my bugs to an aforementioned entomological acquaintance. Cryptocephalus sanguinicollis was unharmed afterwards (indeed, the grubs more than doubled in size in the two weeks I was away and are now very roughly a third of the size of an adult specimen), but the probable Haplodesmidae and Macrosternodesmidae suffered heavy mortality, and now the only live millipedes I have left are a few of the haplodesmid-shaped ones. I think he overwatered them to death despite my warnings, cause when I came back the dirt was all soggy and glistening (my impression is that they probably died of humidity-related causes instead of drowning). He also reports that his Pachybrachis bivittatus all died from excess sun exposure, with no surviving eggs. Additionally, the Huntington worts (which I also left to him) are significantly moldier than before, though still bright green. It's possible the mold's only growing on the dead parts of the worts, I'm not sure. I'm not exactly mad at him, cause everyone makes mistakes, he has a busy schedule, and I'm a pretty forgiving person, but, well, ouch.

Asterella was unharmed because I left it completely dried out for the duration of my absence, and since it can do the poikilohydric resurrection plant thingy it was fine afterwards. Other plants I didn't mention are all fine, and the Eleodes carbonaria is doing fine too.



In other news, my current dodder is Cuscuta californica var. californica, according to the key. Also confirmed the one that died is indeed the subinclusa I provisionally thought it was, but the only surviving fragment is at that acquaintance's house.

I also scooped up some ostracods (maybe they're tiny conchostracans; probably not but I can't tell the difference) from an ornamental waterfall fountain that various birds visit. Looks like that implausible-sounding adage about birds dispersing fish eggs and crustaceans via wet feathers/legs is true, after all. I have no inherent interest in ostracod husbandry but they might be useful for some sort of restoration project later on in some unforeseen future.