Lost specimen returns (and promptly leaves)

deformed male

Today I caught the missing Scudderia mexicana deformed male! Previous attempts had been thwarted by the animal, which refused to eat my baits and positioned itself in a heavily tangled region where its songs bounced off the leaves (making it impossible to locate by ear).

I found it in a conspicuous position on a palm frond; there was another rose pruning today and this may have disabled its auditory camouflage. Fortunately, the species seems largely oblivious to danger unless touched/blown on and I easily caught and repositioned it to a shorter rose bush. It calmed down and resumed singing very soon after I left it alone with a pollen cluster.




Edit: after the sun set, I saw the katydid slowly approaching a nearby taller bush and then making an attempt to fly onto it. It landed near the tall bush's basal stem (too deformed to fly) but I failed to recapture it. Evidently the short bush is not suitable for some reason; perhaps the animal somehow senses that the foliage is insufficiently dense? I have also previously seen females feeding on the short bush's roses and then promptly fleeing after satiation.

I both win and lose the staring contest

The lethargic Scudderia mexicana  deformed male has vanished for the past several days. I still cannot find it and probably never will.




Assorted news:

I have discovered another "aphideating party" composed mostly of what appear to be adult Cycloneda sanguinea.

Phaneroptera nana lives in my area! I thought it was a small pure green Scudderia sp. until a Bugguide expert corrected me yesterday. Today I took some more pics of nana and have put them below. They are on the same bush as the coccinellids.

Unfortunately I will probably be unable to do any katydid or coccinellid posts for quite some time due to troublesome circumstances relating to the front yard.

Phaneroptera nana male

Same male

Nearby inseminated female

Same female (note spermatophore)

Staring contest continues

News:

Scudderia mexicana deformed-wing male (pictured above) is still doing fine. Yesterday the rosebushes were pruned and nearby resident female(s) have moved elsewhere. The male simply relocated itself to a taller bush next door.

Night walks have been unremarkable; surprisingly, the katydids seem very lethargic even in the darkest hours, although they do wave their antennae near-constantly once the sun sets. The deformed male often assumes an odd nighttime position in which it sits on a tall stem with head down and two front legs slightly in the air; perhaps this is a mate-searching behavior because scarabs have been known to use the same posture. I also did see a few small carabids (mostly Tanystoma maculicolle) and a pillbug with abnormally large yellow splotches, but the carabs failed to perform interesting behaviors.

No more coccinellid posts for a while; their aphids are all gone

I stare vacuously at katydids

deformed Scudderia mexicana male

I have been feeling very lacking in sanity lately, but I have been watching and feeding pollenclusters to this deformed male since Thanksgiving; the local tettigoniid species here are quite lethargic, and rarely move far unless on dispersal flights or alarmed (allowing me to revisit the same wild individuals over amd over again). The male appears to have inseminated a nearby female when I was not looking. I was rather annoyed at having missed the full courtship sequence (I took great pains to relocate females for the male), but here are some more pics:

inseminated mexicana female

female eating spermatophore

clearer spermatophore shot

Coccinellids (as promised!)

Cryptolaemus montrouzieri grub

There are some hibiscus (well, at least they appear identical to hibiscus) bushes in a nearby parking lot; the violent pruning they regularly experience encourages them to constantly produce large quantities of young nutritious foliage. The large quantities of young nutritious foliage attract many small hemipterans (apparently these are mostly aphids/softbodied scales/mealybugs). Likewise, the small hemipterans attract many coccinellid beetles.

Unfortunately the coccinellids were not particularly cooperative today; I was only able to photograph the lethargic fluffy larva pictured. I have observed several interesting phenomena, though:

- Two coccinellids which visually appear to be Cycloneda sanguinea and Cryptolaemus montrouzieri apparently dominate the scene; in fact they often seem to easily outnumber any Harmonia axyridis present. During today's visit I saw no Harmonia specimens present. I suppose this may be additional evidence that H is not as "invasive" as many terrified native-coccinellid enthusiasts think. I also see a very small black coccinellid (even smaller than Cryptolaemus) every now and then, but it and the other three seem to be the only major ones. I think there were several sevenspot ladies around in the summer too but my memory is fuzzy.

- Around one of the less violently pruned bushes I saw a low-density swarm of male mealybugs or other waxytailed scales (I can't tell the difference) hovering erratically around (but rarely landing on) the leaves. It was quite beautiful; my phone could not photograph the tiny gnatlike things though (sigh)





Hopefully I can drag my blog out of dormancy with further observations of the hibiscus population dynamics; if everything goes well I should be able to produce a new post on the hemipteran-eating contest every week or two until it fizzles out

Various small updates

- The Domino campaign has run out of steam yet again. Research papers state that successful scientific outreach requires feedback from the audience so that techniques can be adjusted; despite all our (yes, "our"; this is a multiperson effort) attempts, feedback was too sparse to be useful.

- In several of my previous posts I have been complaining of problems w obtaining cocofiber. I still haven't used brick #2 (brick #1 turned moldy); I am in such a terrible mood that I am unmotivated to hydrate (the brick expands into soil-like shreds once wet) and put insects in the fiber.

- Coccinellid posts are planned for the future!

Winter bug-hunting

As much as I like complaining, I do get tired eventually.

Here is a somewhat pleasant (mis)adventure from several years ago







(Some background: here in arid CA it is never cold enough to snow, although temperatures can drop precariously close on wintery nights; we thus even have katydids year-round)



On the first weekend of Jan 2015 I decided to stop biting my nails over a perceived lack of interesting invertebrates and dig through some forest logs with a large chisel.

It worked, ...somewhat. The logs were almost completely empty of woodborers but I located a wrinkled and surprisingly small ironclad (approx. 1 cm) under a rock.

I put it in a small box with three small pillbugs but it often feigned death for hours when disturbed.




Later I found a few interesting pancake-shaped woodlice in another wooded area. I misidentified them as Trachelipus rathkii after miscounting their lungs.

the animals later turned out to be Porcellio dilatatus

Sometime later I also took home a small (approx. 1 cm) red-anteriored carabid (Calathus ruficollis) for breeding experiments. I failed to find any conspecifics but kept it anyways.

This pic makes the front end unnaturally non-glossy and the legs too red

Unfortunately, arthropods are delicate organisms (despite their resilience). After living with some Zophobas adults for a while, the carabid broke several of its legs mysteriously; I had to relocate it to a small cup of forest woodchips. It lived for a long time in this pathetic state and quietly died in the summer. The Porcellio did well with the pillbugs and later I added some shimmery gray Porcellionides, but due to an under-ventilation error several pillbugs and all Porcellio perished (pillbugs need more fresh air than the others, so presumably they died first and then released poisonous vapors). The small ironclad simply went limp a number of days after capture; in hindsight it probably could not tolerate the moisture desired by the woodlice in its box.

(in reality the Porcellionides were not orange, it is just bad lighting)

"Surprise bonus" takes unexpected swerve

Fungus update: dead, rotting, starting to turn into mush. I saw a few wing-wiggling flies but not much else





Unexpected swerve: fortunately I got a surprisingly good pink moth photo (ID: Pyrausta inornatalis). I used just a phone and a flashlight; minor color correction was needed but nothing else.

Edit: here it is!

It will certainly make an excellent Domino Project post















Edit 2: Here’s a somewhat amusing thing I produced (click to zoom)


Make your own at createyourcover.nationalgeographic.com! I am slightly distrustful of NatGeo; one time, a biodiversity photographer they promoted made the terrible error of saying that the non-feeding adult of Hyalophora was a pollinator. Their web toy is still fun to play with though.

Surprise bonus

Finally found a shelf fungus!

If nocturnal fungus beetles appear then I will have more content to post soon

EDIT: this species is apparently not a host of Diaperis rufipes.

How to kill your fashion models

Yesterday, in addition to the events in the previous post, I also rescued a Cotinis mutabilis specimen from overheating while ensnared in a net fence. If this sounds familiar, it is. The exact same thing happened during last year's Cotinis season.

I've realized that the dust from my vertebrate captives' droppings is contaminating nearby objects, so I plopped the half-dead animal onto a watermelon lump in the front yard and avoided touching it as much as possible.

The next day, the green fruit scarab was still there. Evidently, it had tried to take shelter in a nearby tangle of roots and ended up covered with spiderwebs/ants instead. It was also even weaker than before (couldn't walk), but it still eagerly lapped up a yellow kiwi slice. I used the opportunity to attempt Domino Project footage capture:

They weren't professional-looking enough to make the cut, but I came pretty close.


Of course, I have obligations, and I left the animal with its fruit until afternoon.


I failed to consider that it would be too weak to move very far despite having been in the infamous Cotinis food coma for several hours.

That afternoon, the sun had shifted position; the scarab's shady brick was now in full sun and the animal had apparently been baked to death. At least I gave it a few days' worth of happiness, if insects are indeed conscious (this is a subject of apparent controversy).




It's been moved to shade, but since it was so overheated its mouthparts went limp I doubt it will ever wake up again

Today is a productive day

For the past few days my perpetual misery has come back again, so I am glad that today was an exception

In the morning, we managed to launch a second Instagram post for my ento outreach campaign (@thedominoproject)!

And as the sun was setting, I found a living Coniontis beetle in its natural habitat (the sidewalk near a garden). I've been Coniontis-hunting for several years, but this is my first living specimen that wasn't floating in a pool or hanging from a web. Hopefully I can film some more specimens for the campaign!

Half-insane "dung scarabs"

I managed to find three Cotinis mutabilis today (two soggy, one sitting on ground).

While still underwater, the less drowned of the two wet scarabs expelled a beautiful white jet of liquid excrement when I grabbed it. Cotinis is a cetoniine flower/fruit scarab (not a melolonthine June beetle, as the English name suggests), but its defense mechanisms certainly wouldn't look out of place on a smelly Egyptian ballroller!

The more drowned of the two was unconscious

I tried to video them in the sun (the devices are terrible in shade), but like several previous attempts the enormous beetles simply overheated and ran away

The less-drowned flew off

The ground one burrowed to escape the sun

I left the unconscious beetle under a tree, and after recovering it stayed in the shade licking fruit juices. Its exoskeleton was severely "rusted" though; it certainly wouldn't have been a good spokesbeetle for the Domino campaign.




I couldn't allow half of my remaining photo subjects to casually sink into the ground, so I dug up and seized the digger

More accurately, the digger (whose back was by then covered in white liquid droppings after a misfire) seized me right after I seized it

It inseminated my finger, but not before carefully excreting brown sludge to relieve itself

(Cotinis males will repeatedly mate with fingers, other males, and in one instance a metal lid; when one's adult life is normally a handful of months, not being reckless carries a severe genetic-fitness risk)



I carried both of them to a shady area, where they had some minor fights over apple peel (the rusty beetle was quite famished and zealously monopolized its food) and later half-buried their faces in the dirt for a few hrs in an attempt to ward off the heat

After they finished sleeping I offered some more drinks (see below)

Overheated finger addict licks melon

I couldn't initially find the rusty beetle after it woke up, but when the sun cooled off (my only and last chance to get a video) the "finger addict" was nowhere to be seen, the rusty beetle having evidently evicted it from the fruit










Random update: moldy-smelling kitchen towel shreds (I have a cocofiber shortage) are no place for a darkling beetle to be burrowing in, so I released the Coniontis

Fun misadventures in bugworld, Domino edition

trap

The orange-juice trap mentioned earlier failed to catch a fly, let alone Cotinis mutabilis. In desperate need of footage for my sci-outreach campaign, I decided to try fiddling with the summer nocturnal insects instead.

Results of night garden walks a few days ago and today:

• Many small (less than a cm) and medium (roughly a cm) click beetles on ground
• Not a single carabid in sight, oddly.
• Many moths on oregano inflorescences, including a pink sp (Pyrausta inornatalis). My camera is lousy at night flashlight pics though
• No living Coniontis, despite many corpses

Cotinis baiting 1

Cotinis mutabilis is an excellent species for use in entomology outreach efforts: it is enormous, breathtakingly beautiful, day-active, and isn’t excessively well-known like the Monarch or the European honeybee.

Luckily for me, I managed to obtain a jug of overripe orange juice; hopefully efforts to attract and obtain video clips of the huge fruit scarabs will go well.

Trip pics

Amata? Very widespread and abundant

Last month I saw a number of colorful bugs while away. Unfortunately, due to being in a severe rush I could barely look at most of them for more than a few minutes

Medium-sized gregarious leafbeetle

Clanis bilineata pair

Stag

Dying giant longhorn

Other finds included some sort of giant brown starry-specked pentatomid-y truebug, flat millipedes with rose-colored bands, and tons of squished giant gold-green carabids (Carabus?). I also managed to see living bristletails and tiger beetles for the first time in my life.

The sheer biodiversity was quite strange, because I most certainly was not camping in the middle of a South American rainforest. In fact, the orange moth was living in a world of inescapable tobacco fumes.

Summer continues well

Normally I spend most of my time getting very mad over beetle-related things, and I wasn't expecting last post's Coniontis to survive the night.

It survived anyways.

The animal seemed to have odd behavior for a dying specimen; despite initially being too exhausted to walk, it displayed a short bout of suspicious antenna-waving (normally moribund beetles refuse to move unless poked around) in my hand.

I just concluded it was somewhat healthy but still moribund.

Then, I noticed it had changed positions in its container when I wasn't looking.

After prodding it a bit more around midnight, it walked without showing weakness and slowly ate a fruit piece.

As of this afternoon it is quite healthy. Perhaps it was simply stunned for a few hours after being overheated in its spiderweb...?

Summer begins well

7/9:

This afternoon I saw my first Cotinis mutabilis adult of the year

A short while later, I found an area with extremely large amounts of dead webbed Coniontis

One animal was still alive and hanging midair in silk, but after I removed it its sickly behavior suggested that it was too exhausted to recover from its ordeal




hopefully the rest of the summer is productive

Fun summer misadventure #1

A small (roughly 5mm) beetle landed on my neck about a week ago. It was apparently some sort of alleculine.

I tried to pose it for photos, but it ran like a bolt and eventually flew off after several failed attempts



Then, I found what was apparently the same animal inside my pants; I used fruit to placate it and this time it posed for the pic above

Due to absentmindedness I left it overnight in a container away from my house, but due to quick thinking I saved its life. It flew off evidently unharmed the next morning

Relocation notice

The site has moved here due to issues with email and blog spam. Sorry about the posts before this one disappearing.

Also note that my Google account has changed