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.

Plymouth Elementary update

I've checked up on some of the wood I've moved in there, and added some additional wood. I didn't see any specimens underneath the logs despite my efforts to provide a damp microclimate protected from insolation*, but at night the usual largebodied invasive urban bugs (Armadillidium, etc.) show up to stroll around on it. They've already eaten all the splitgill fruiting bodies, apparently. Guess I'm not gonna attract any fungus beetles any time soon.

Not sure about how the native termites that came with one of the logs are doing because lizards/mammals keep shitting on/around that one and I can't be bothered to get my hands dirty. Also, Xylocopa and other native bees were in the area but showed no interest in using the wood either.







*In soggy and cold European countries where a lot of saproxylic organism research is conducted sun exposure is important for many threatened taxa, but what little research literature I could find on stuff in Mediterranean climates suggests the opposite is true where I live. It sounds intuitive (too hot + no water = all the bugs die of thirst) but that doesn't explain why weirdo hyperthermophile insects don't seem to be interested. I mean, there's Psocodea in the garden that can live their entire lives in dead marcescent leaves crisping in the sun, "magically" summoning liquid water from vapors in the air or something like that. How are things like those refusing to eat my log? I don't get it.

asterello aster jello

 

Don't mind me, I'm just posting a pic for my personal records (note 2 self: Deukmejian sample).

Also, I don't feel like checking to see whether I posted about it before but I have the annual-looking Santa Fe Dam dodder in culture again. Sadly my portion of the Cuscuta subinclusa (perennial species) is still dead (unless there's a dormant endophytic nub I'm unaware of), and I'm hoping the acquaintance I gave a piece of that C. subinclusa clone to manages to get it to put on enough biomass that he can safely give me some of it back; right now his portion is also ailing and I'd rather he not return any pieces to me yet, for fear of them dying in transit.

Depresso updates

 

Peppertree dodder: devoting most of its energy to making flowers, most of the vegetative portions seem to be wilting for some reason. I hope it's not making flowers because it's about to kick the bucket (I've noticed that stressing it induces flowers).

Lace bugs (pictured): they vibrate inaudibly. I have been staring at some in hopes of finding some complex dynamics of interest, but I haven't been able to make heads or tails of the situation despite watching them for hrs. Although in other lace bugs they are used in various maternal care behaviors the species I have around here don't use them for any clear function. I've tried everything I can think of: disturbing specimens, introducing foreign specimens, watching courtship behavior (which doesn't seem to involve the vibration type I'm investigating and isn't very exciting to watch it seems), even trying to see if there's any vibrational correlate to leaf lushness. No luck. I do know that both nymphs and adults do it, that specimens may occasionally vibrate even when on my hand or otherwise frightened (but do not seem to use it as a distress signal and typically do not vibrate when alarmed), that adults sometimes fan their wings during vibration bouts, and that specimens do not tend to visibly react to others' vibrations or wing fanning, but not much else.

Casebearers: Cryptocephalus sanguinicollis grubs seem easy to rear and eat a wide variety of rotten plant matter. They also accept nonrotten fare, including grocery vegetables and rose petals. They don't do much besides eating and walking.

Millipedes: haplodesmid-type things definitely getting out of hand. Also if I didn't mention this before sometimes they make egg nests with only one egg inside (these nests don't seem any smaller than the ones with around a half dozen eggs). Inspected the gut of the new Griffith Park macrosternodesmid-type thing and it's still dark, implying it's still feeding on rotten matter in captivity. It's nice that (since its body is translucent) I can see the animal's digestive system without killing it. Added some white rot wood to both macrosternothing localities' cups, because I suspect brown rot may not be the right type of rot to feed them.

Asterella californica: grows slowly, doesn't do much.

Eleodes carbonaria: doesn't do much either. Hisserdude said it seemed male, which was my suspicion too.

More tenebs moved, plus commentary on invasive natives

 Elysian Park is closer to NHMLA than Griffith Park is, although I assume that before the surrounding land was urbanized their darkling populations were genetically connected. Anyways, I booked a taxi ride to Elysian today and caught about 20. Tenebs from there will be posted at the same link as the one in the previous post.

Also, while strolling around Santa Fe Dam recently I saw a small, localized population of tidytip daisies and purple-houses and several other species of so-called native plant that are common in commercial native wildflower seed mixes. I mean, I have trust issues from rampant mislabeling of flora in the horticultural industry (sometimes the mistakes aren't discovered until many years later), but some of the other questionable things in there were the same morphospecies as Gilia tricolor, G. capitata, and Collinsia (likely heterophylla but I can't be bothered to check). These are not locally native here at all, and given that the population seems to be self-sustaining without irrigation, as well as spreading into patches of truly native annuals, I think we're dealing with an incipient intra-state invasion here. The nature center didn't look to have planted them (none of those plants are in the nature center's official garden, which also contains locally nonnative flora, albeit not the same ones; I fear the nature center sunflower bushes may engage in maladaptive introgression with wild Encelia), but Californian plants have been known to do intra-state invasion things of this sort before; just look at Lupinus arboreus and the havoc it's wrecked (note that arboreus does not appear to be present cultivated or feral in my area; I am merely using the lupine as a talking point).

It's a shame that no one on the internet seems to be talking about the potential problem Gilia and co. pose. Some other questionable choices I've seen elsewhere include the wrong Eriogonum species/subspecies (this is particularly problematic since some insects have been proven to die if consuming the wrong genotype of an otherwise suitable host Eriogonum), the Californian orange poppy Eschscholzia californica (which has already invaded Chile, has explosively dispersed seeds, and can grow in sidewalk cracks, and seems to be hated by almost every insect here, even Apis mellifera, which visits it only reluctantly), and various Nemophila/Clarkia. Again, there's pretty much nothing on the internet warning against them; some websites even claim they're locally native here. So it's no surprise even the world-class botanical institutions* are doing these for their native gardens, as opposed to popcornflowers and Zeltnera venusta and Linanthus dianthiflorus and Camissoniopsis. L. dianthiuflorus and popcornflowers are barely even commercially available. Sigh.

*I know the NHMLA is doing this on purpose for its own reasons, and while I don't entirely agree with that (mostly I fear it will cause shenanigans related to insect microevolution) I'm going to let it off the hook. On the other hand, I'm giving the Huntington's semi-"free-range" Nemophila and Gilia population a rather concerned glance, although they're unlikely to escape compared to the ones around Peck Road Water Conservation Park.

Update re: Griffith teneb transplant

 Luck was had. Here is every live individual caught for the transplant.

Also I found some feather millipedes under a really unpromising-looking log only a few yards away from Griffith's irrigated lawn (I didn't keep the pedes of course, they are notorious for dying in culture). But it was neat that such a sensitive specialist is still managing to survive in such a terrible-seeming habitat. There were no visible macrofungi and the wood smelled awful, as seems to be typical for wood in this county.

New pet

 

Was messing around at Santa Fe Dam and found this Eleodes carbonaria individual under a wood chunk. Although rather plain-looking, I knew at first sight that this was one of the rarely-encountered Eleodes species but it wouldn't hold still so I put it in a vial to photograph later.

Well, guess who accidentally brought themself home a darkling? Yeah, you guessed it. I totally forgot about the vial and went home and, well, then I was stuck at home with a darkling in a vial.


I've noticed that this species doesn't run around rabidly in circles like E. acuticauda and gracilis (and Coniontis) do. Instead, it sleeps most of the day and most of the night, and when it does come out (usually to eat fruits and vegetables) it seems pretty calm. Also, I'm really a fan of the way its elytra and pronotum have matching textures, and how its gait is smooth and fluid instead of clunky like acuticauda/gracilis and a lot of the other long-legged darklings. Was this thing custom made to appeal to me?

Anyways, it's certainly no fun watching a beetle that spends much of its life asleep, but I like its not-circling behavior so I'll keep it captive for now in hopes that maybe I'll be able to captive breed a colony and release specimens to places in need of darkling repopulation. Also, speaking of which, I'm heading to Griffith Park to catch some darklings (to throw into NHMLA) tomorrow, wish me luck. I'll probably avoid tossing non-Griffith ones into NHMLA for the sake of local genetics, just in case the museum decides to build a wildlife corridor all the way into the hills one day far into the future.

Added more cactus to Plymouth

 Also a Dictyobia I caught died from overheating even tho I gave it shade (apparently the mere air was too hot). Ouch.

I'm trying out hosts that aren't white sages to see if dicty will become less tantrum-prone on them.

C. sanguinicollis grubs hatched a few days ago

They lack the obnoxious climbing obsession of the adults. I've been following standard Cryptocephalus care protocols for them, and they've been making holes in brown rose petals, lettuce, etc. Of note is that the lettuce was eaten while still green.

I've kept them too humid and their shit shells have been getting moldy, which is not good, but other than that they all seem to be doing pretty ok.


Also did a checkup on the macrosterno-things. The two that were alive are still alive; bigger one has gut full of wood/leaf and acts like a normal bug, smaller one has unfilled digestive tract and was curled up, almost but not entirely unresponsive. Not sure if latter in premolt, some sort of aestivation, or is about to die.

P. vert? to Huntington

 Title says it, pretty much. Read up on metapopulation dynamics and water-mediated herbivory effects, released more sunflower bush leaf beetles at Huntington. Gave acquaintance more scrubland Anthonomus.

Plagiognathus verticalis? introduced to Plymouth

I accidentally killed one because it squeezed itself into a tight end of the bag and got squished until the juice came out. Not sure how it died, given that I was careful not to pinch the tight ends, but now I know not to carry squishy insects in non-rigid containers. Really need to reduce the death rate, it makes me feel bad and also can be problematic for practical reasons when target insects occur at low population densities. Anyways, the survivors fed on a sunflower bush's sunflower and stayed on it for at least a while, on the other hand one I put on a yarrow tried to probe it but quickly gave up and flew away.

Of note is that P. moerens has high dispersal ability and can fly large distances from suitable reproductive hosts (undoubtedly aided by an ability to consume nectar from nutritionally inadequate secondary hosts) and that P. verticalis doesn't normally if ever occur in urban/suburban native plantings. Maybe this is like how Oncopeltus has a tendency to unwittingly fly over small patches of milkweed? Or if we're going to be pessimistic maybe the artificial native gardens simply don't have the right living conditions.

Loensia maculosa dies

 I have good reason to blame the yeast paste being inadequate nutrition. I had a feeling that would happen but the animal showed no clear signs of the frantic behavior one often sees in insects being kept incorrectly, so it caught me off guard.

Boring updates of the day

 - Church dodder is huge now and flowering. I also got myself the small presumably-annual species from Santa Fe Dam. Unfortunately my personal subinclusa culture has fizzled out because the plants were too dumb to grow downwards, and I'm trying to reestablish it from cuttings of the bit I put into the church.

- Grabbed myself a Loensia maculosa specimen. Call it maladaptive coping mechanisms, because honestly non-indoors Psocodea consistently seem to be among the most painful of the detritivore taxa to feed (it would not eat a lot of things tenebrionids, isopods, etc. love). I have it in a dry container full of dead leaves/petals smeared with yeast (it doesn't seem to require drinking water or even juicy food and apparently is one of those species that magically hydrates itself out of thin air), and it did eat the yeast, but seemingly refuses to eat anything else. I know L. maculosa is a facultative synanthrope (specimens have even been recorded from bark of Eucalyptus) and thus of relatively little conservation value, but in this day and age, well, one never knows.* I collected mine from native plant wilderness though, maybe the wilderness genotypes are different from the urban ones? Something something intraspecific invasive genotypes something something? Also I threw in a probable Blaste oregona nymph (suburban origin, not from native vegetation stand) in with it a few minutes ago on a whim. This seemed to go poorly so I re-released the nymph.

*I keep hearing about potential declines of synanthropic birds and native semiweedy flora.

- At least one of the macrosternodesmids? is still alive and eating. Now that the weird horrible mold has left their enclosure and the dirt actually smells nice I've dared to put in dead leaves more generously, and the Hibiscus ones are being eaten enthusiastically.

- F2 generation of haplodesmids? produced, although my attempts to delete excess eggs have prevented a population explosion. Nevertheless some of the F1s apparently died for some reason and I feel bad about it (although I still have way too many of the species for my and their own good).

- Sent some more misc. insects to acquaintance for potential conservation-rearing.

- Asterella californica project severely stalled due to rains and resulting mudslide and resulting forest closure, the ones in my culture are doing okay tho. The Sphaerocarpos in the same cup suffered a huge dieoff as I kept the dirt slightly too dry (was trying to prevent soil algae), but I still have some balloonworts alive in another cup.

I should stop calling it "sunflower etc. project", the emphasis on sunflowers is getting rather misleading now

In one of those depression moods again (I say "again" as if I had ever stopped being sad), but here's the important stuff:

- Attempting to rear Pachybrachis bivittatus with an acquaintance (pic credits his). He reports they don't do the obnoxious "continuously try to escape via ceiling" thing. Also, he's discovered the adult not only eats willows but will also reluctantly consume Baccharis. New host record. Also threw in some hemipteran hoppers in his rearing jar.

- He's also trying to rear a native-looking Anthonomus I found.

- Turns out Closterocoris amoenus (I have confirmed them as such due to having reared to adult) and Dictyobia were getting restless and stressed due to host plant phytochemical reasons (I did a little controlled-variable experiment and ruled out overheating, lack of leaflitter shelter to hide in, sleeve interfering w sap flow, etc.) Evidently some hosts are simply unsuitable even when other identical-looking ones are not. The adults I reared seemed to have molted more from their stored calories than any new nutrition gained while sleeved on my host at home, although they did feed with reluctance on the latter (and somewhat less reluctantly on supplemental honeyed cashews I offered). If you really want to see pics of them go stalk my Bugguide. In any case, I will not be attempting to rear any more hemipterans that show this sort of severe host-intraspecific pickiness for now. I already have enough blood on my hands.

- The adult Cryptocephalus may have been awful captives, but they did leave some egg capsules behind if I didn't mention that before. They look similar to those made by other members of the genus. None have hatched as far as I can tell.

- Threw some more gray Spastonyx? into Plymouth a few days ago. Several if not all have survived till today.

By the way, if you're a biohistorian from the future and are reading all this to figure out whether some distributional anomalies were my doing, rest assured that I am extremely cautious not to forget to mention any insects I've relocated to non-captive habitats (I may be sloppy with the tags these days but not the actual post documentation). By the other way, it seems that fasciatus-morphospecies Oncopeltus wildtypes experience low mortality on a diet of honeyed cashews and Asclepias curassavica buds/flowers/leaves when no fruits/seeds are available (as opposed to reports in the literature of high mortality when offered only sunflower seeds/cashew and water, or only vegetative/floral milkweed parts but nothing else).

Sunflower etc. proj update 4

Attempted to culture Dictyobia, they threw fits for no apparent reason and when I took them out of the rearing sleeve they seemed to calm down at first but then threw an even bigger fit while I was looking the other way and escaped outdoors.

Also grabbed some unidentifiable ant bugs (prob not IDable until mature but context strongly suggests Closterocoris amoenus). All I will say: confining insects in tight bags with resinous leaves is dangerous, the resin gets everywhere and can glue/suffocate them even if they're normally immune to it. One died, the other 3 lost some legs and are recovering. Update: 2 molted and promptly ran away to god knows where because I trusted them to stay put uncaged (I suspect sleeve caves subtly interfere w sap flow and thus feeding). Third has been re-sleeved and didn't make attempt to flee, possibly because it is preparing a molt of its own.

Sometimes I wish I could just quit entomology so I don't have to deal with these sorts of stupid things, but if I don't do the conservation science who will? Just look at Bugguide and bug iNaturalist for LA County, almost no one (except approx. 4 people, including me) photographs anything except butterflies and such because of that stupid shit about only butterflies and such being socially acceptable. Oh god I hate everything.

Sunflower etc. project, cont. 3

 Went back to Peck Road Water Conservation Park just to make sure the leaf beetles I had transplanted there really were absent, and not merely falling below detection thresholds as a result of having had a "bad year" last yr. Despite continuous searching for more than an hr I found none.

The ones at Plymouth Elementary have also been periodically disappearing. Some leave within several hrs to a day after being put there (possibly due to host phytochemical reasons relating to drought?), the rest have a retention half-life of 2-4 days. Given that Plymouth has only three fully leafed-out sunflower bushes at the moment (and therefore it is easy for me to search them extensively), my favored hypothesis is that birds are eating them all because foliage-gleaning bird density is elevated at Plymouth and moreso at Peck compared to Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area's aridland, and because there exist birds capable of detoxifying Encelia (so presumably there also exist birds capable of detoxifying Trirhabda geminata, given that Trirhabda presumably sequesters its defense chemicals from its host). The 2-4-dayers generally seem contentedly lethargic in the days preceding their disappearance (in contrast the quick departers were observed walking restlessly even after feeding), so host chems may not be to blame for 2-4-dayer demises.

In other news an acquaintance also helped me plant a live cactus in there (to further feed the cactus flies, and also Nitops pallipennis, which breeds in the flowers), so at least there's some progress made, I suppose.

No update on the Huntington ones yet, for the simple reason that I haven't bothered to check. I did edit the post preceding this one with some updates, tho.

Sunflower etc. proj, cont. 2

Many of the transplanted geminata(?) continue to stay put on their new hosts, it's always neat how with lethargic insect taxa you can see the same individual animals over and over again.

Also put three Dictyobia (shown above, although above is not necessarily same individual I caught) at Plymouth Elementary recently. One appeared gravid. I could not relocate any of them the next day but imagine they are still alive. Also, their host is the same morphospecies as Salvia apiana.

I have no hard evidence but based on various evidence-based intuitions I'm pretty sure that despite the large wings this hopper taxon is bad at dispersal and is thus vulnerable to habitat fragmentation + failure to colonize native gardens for the same reason flightless insects are. Probably a better bet for transplanting than Cryptocephalus anyways, due to the lack of detritivorous larvae and the seemingly poor quantity and/or quality of detritus in most urbs/suburbs.

Probably gonna leave this post up at the top for a while because the picture's nice and because there's honestly not that much point in further smalltalk about sunflower leaf beetles not dying. When left to their own devices they don't really do much besides not die and sit still for hours (they don't even eat that often). Update: ha, posted again pretty fast didn't I?

Update 5/2: put some geminata(?) in the Huntington. Also added both some rotten logs that fell off someone's front yard tree (and dead cacti from around Santa Fe Dam for the sake of cactophilous flies) to Plymouth Elementary School.

Update 5/6: my intentions to put Dictyobia in the Huntington are cancelled, because I saw a nymph that matched. It was in a really isolated planting in the parking lot too (the plants in question were surrounded on all four sides by many yards of bare asphalt), suggesting that if Dictyobia and such are bad at dispersal their dispersal limitations are not as bad as some other slow-dispersing Hemiptera out there. With that being said, those big round wings don't look very aerodynamic (can the hopper even fly?), and I continue intending to throw members of the genus into Plymouth Elementary given that it's significantly farther from the wilderness than the Huntington is (the Huntington has a secret backwoods that visitors aren't normally allowed into, and that backwoods although extraordinarily degraded is still intact enough to have Phloeodes diabolicus living in it).

I've found several definitely-flightless hemipteran hopper taxa at Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area, and am thinking about culturing them to throw into the Huntington, Plymouth, etc. To my confused horror I accidentally and mysteriously killed this one, somehow (in other news several millipedes have also died, and I feel very bad about it, although the surviving pedes are seemingly doing okay-ish for now).

Added more logs to Plymouth.

Sunflower etc. project, cont.

Some (perhaps all) the beetles I released on Saturday are still alive and eating, because I resighted them doing so. Good for them. I released some more today.

Also put some sunflower micro-weevils (Spastonyx?) in there (fate unclear because no resightings, but they're a species not prone to flying so they're probably still in there) and a single Cryptocephalus sanguinicollis sanguinicollis (groomed for 10-ish mins and then flew away, unsure whether it returned or not).

Update: weevils have been resighted on diff plant. Unsure if same individuals or naturally arrived ones.

Sunflower bush leafbeetle experiment, part 2

 So a while back I tried an aided dispersal experiment (members of the genus are poor dispersers) at Peck Road Park. Didn't work, it seems.

Trying again this year with a different location and more beetles. So far I've covertly put three in Plymouth Elementary School's garden (at least one was a mated female). I have a lot of spare time right now so I plan to watch them and see for myself if the adults get eaten.

Note 2 self: don't give rainforest worts direct sun even while shadeclothed

 Instant death.

(Fortunately I have backups.)

Yesssssss the church peppertree is beginning to die

 I'm still on the fence about whether to put pictures of taxa I have aesthetic-ontology unease with on the blog, so instead of putting them directly I'm going to post them as links. Anyways, yeah, the dodder I put on that tree is growing pretty fast, and based on looks it's probably succeeded in putting at least one haustorium into the branches.

The aforementioned succulent is this, by the way. It appears to be Kalanchoe marneriana if that's of any use. It's certainly not one of the invasive mother-of-thousands Kalanchoe species because the intact plants rarely produce leaf-edge pups at all. 

Updates on everything, 3/11

Anomalous cryptogams: the Huntington Botanical Garden's humid greenhouses (I say humid because it also has dry ones for growing succulents) contain large quantities of accidentally imported exotic cryptogams. Most of these are mosses, and some of the mosses are pretty weird-looking (here is the weirdest-looking one, moss biologists take note), but I disprefer mosses as study organisms (to be fair all organisms are cool, more or less) so they shall not be discussed in detail here. Anyways, it's doubtless that a lot of the cryptogams in there have never been documented in California before I did so, but I'm even more depressed than before so I'll keep things short [edit: I failed to keep things short because it is in my nature to be verbose, oh well whatever]. Several species of thriving indoors lichens in there. Given that lichens are not generally supposed by lichen biologists to survive unsterilized greenhouse care, this is significant news (although I don't doubt that easily indoor-culturable lichens are commoner than the scientific field as a whole currently believes). There are at least four morphospecies of hitchhiking Marchantiophyta in there too (probably not more than that; I am very thorough and like I said most of the cryptogams are mosses). One morphospecies is so tiny I can barely see it even on my macro cam; you can see it attached to the bigger one in the pic above. I shall not discuss it further because it's hard to discuss something one is largely unable to perceive. One morphospecies is thalloid and appears to be a common weedy Marchantia, but is very sparse (found less than 5 ramets in the carnivorous plant bog). The other two morphospp. are heavily corticolous (dominant on certain trunks, large branches, and large logs, occurring sporadically on thin branches, seemingly outcompeted by mosses on soil and most rocks) and are this roundleaf one (Lejeuneaceae?) and one (pictured above) that has the toothed appearance of Geocalyx/Lophocolea. I have taken samples of roundleaf and lophocoleoid with the intent of getting them IDed as they are almost surely undocumented in California (I have some academia connections with the Huntington, though unfortunately not enough to be of appreciable use to me). Both my current roundleafs and lophocoleoids have survived long periods in my culture cup (the roundleaf in the linked post died because it was too dry and/or too wet) but are getting pale from not enough lighting. I need a better grow space. Bad pic of a crust lichen (on orchid bark mount) below. I did not take any lichen samples because I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. By the way the recent greenhouse quarantine lockdown for veronicellids they did clearly wasn't very good at defaunating the place, an acquaintance informs me there are still several different weird ants in there and I wouldn't be surprised if I saw some live veronicellids still inside. I've certainly seen the occasional mealybug (although the hemipterans were not at visibly high densities, as was the case the last time I visited before quarantine).

Note 2 self: both wort samples in cup from thing labelled Sauraia madrensis, study 4 future: does leaf tooth of lophocoleoid increase evaporation and thus allow CO2 uptake when otherwise too wet to absorb gases correctly? How does niche stratify with lejeune thing?

Cuscuta subinclusa: specimen at my residence has been ailing due to nightshade-eating caterpillars having defoliated its host. It's been a while now, and the nightshade leaves are back, but the dodder is still ailing because it prefers to grow up or sideways and has an aversion to growing down (where most of the leaves are). I've sprouted some potatoes but the sprouts aren't tall enough for the dodder to easily attach yet, in the meantime I've fed it a weedy daisy of some sort (not sure whether this will actually work, because the lace-like leaves of the daisy appear to confuse it). Also, I infested an invasive peppertree at a local church with it (first I got it to parasitize a succulent so it wouldn't dehydrate to death when tied to the tree, I feel clever). To be fair, peppertrees don't seem to be making any surviving feral offspring in my area, but to be fair peppertrees are poor quality invertebrate habitat. I'm impatient to see the church dodder feed some bugs. You might want to stop reading now, the rest of this post is not particularly important. Have I mentioned the tomato story on here, though? I probably should if I haven't (it's a neat story) but I'm more depressed than usual today. Although what constitutes "usual" has also been getting worse as my life in general has been going more and more downhill.

Macrosternodesmidae(?): They've been eating yeast pellets and wood (and I know it's actually being eaten, not just sitting in the cage). I don't want to talk about them because Reasons. No interesting behaviors noted. 

Haplodesmidae(?): I don't want to talk about them because Reasons. No interesting behaviors noted, but the culture appears to contain both sexes (am seeing offspring making probable mating attempts with F0 female).

Sphaerocarpos: doing nothing interesting. I have successfully re-isolated a cutting in a cup seemingly free of mosses and algae. Not sure how mosses/algae stay out of the cup, given that I walk past it constantly (and spores could likely enter with tap water or from my clothes), but somehow they're not growing in there.

Asterella californica: just got a fresh batch of these a day or three ago for the upcoming experiment (which proves more and more delayed due to various setbacks), I have carefully handpicked females with tetralobate, symmetrical fruiting bodies as I suspect these are most genetically healthy (pentalobates, trilobates, etc. may result from failed ontogenic canalization as in Linanthus). Interestingly, although most specimens I encountered in the field had tetralobate ones the vast majority were more or less lopsided. Weak selective pressures? Evolutionary constraints? Just stressed from climate change or whatever? Who knows! Anyways I found a pentalobate that was so malformed it was bilaterally and not radially symmetrical (there was also a six-lobed one near it and the tetralobates in the vicinity were more teratological-looking than usual too).

Assorted small esoteric annual wildflowers: mostly cotyledons of Crassula connata. Not getting enough sun. Limited space, difficult to give them proper care. I've  No interesting behaviors noted.

Iridescent gametophyte: nothing interesting to report. Still thriving. Their tolerance of low light makes algal prevention easy.

Noniridescent cordate gametophyte: still slowly declining, seemingly still from cyanobacterial allelopathy. Attempts to transplant fragments onto fresh soil have been repeatedly met with death of fragment.

Latest Sphaerocarpos pic

 

This phenotype manifested during high humidity and dim sideways lighting (sideways because from window). It's apparently not dying of under-illumination though as it continues to grow considerably (and asexually reproduce) in this state.

A pretty thing I wrote for lack of anything better to do

As Eleodes molts to adulthood, it unfurls both elytra and pumps them to full size. They weld themselves together as they harden and soon they will never be separate again.

Perhaps it is natural for us to anthropomorphize - to mourn its loss of flight (not that it would have been able to fly even given the chance. Its hindwings were atrophied from the start). But is its situation actually bad like one might think?

Let us consider a few of its relatives. Not all darklings are unable. Blapstinus can fly, and so can Zophobas, and Tenebrio, and Diaperis. Yet they refrain from it except under the most dire of circumstances, and even being seized and thrown into the air usually fails to count as "most dire". Apparently they are not fond of strenuous exercise.

(Disinterest in flight probably came long before disability of flight in the Tenebrionidae, if you ask me.)

When we wish for wings we are really wishing for freedom much of the time and Eleodes is free. Not against habitat fragmentation; it can hardly cross a freeway without getting squashed (this is why even if you live in its range your park lawn probably has no Eleodes). But its fused elytra trap watervapors like a second skin, and thus it can tread unharmed in lands that could kill you if you were to forget your canteen and your vehicle. It has a domain to itself just like the birds overhead, and is that not a sort of freedom? It's not like there's any grass to eat in the sky.

The misery did not actually end

 I completed a semi-formal research study on Asterella californica around last month, but I still did not obtain access to any scanning electron microscopes or other desired science machines so it was boring. Cue continued daily mental breakdowns.

Also, I went and grabbed a bunch of these from Franklin Canyon in early December (killing one in the process; it had somehow been smashed under a piece of wood I thought was too lightweight to smash millipedes. Oh god). Hoping to breed them for restoration/conservation reasons.

They're likely native Macrosternodesmidae, but, again, will probably need that SEM to identify them. They're eating unsweetened cheerios, carrots, and plant detritus, though I've had trouble obtaining plant detritus they seem to enjoy as they seem to dislike the wood I provided. Fortunately the cheerios seem to be well-accepted. Of course, I could feed them the leaves the Cylindrodesmus(?) are currently thriving on, but I don't want any microbes from that container to hypothetically get in. I've recently learned some microbes are bad at dispersal and therefore are both prone to becoming invasive spp. and not necessarily requiring aseptic conditions to prevent containment breach)

Due to the death, it's likely I'll have to go all the way back to Franklin to get a safer chance of having both males/females (the three macrosternos I currently have belong to two morphospecies; I do not know if they are different species, for obvious reasons). My knees are not looking forward to any of this.

Also, I've determined that the restless stereotyped pacing many aridland tenebrionids are prone to in captivity is correlated at least in part with light pollution. I kept a Helops confluens(?) adult for a while (it has now been released back into its wild habitat) and noted that (as with Coniontis I had previously kept) its pacing was invariably confined to the brightest two or three inches of its enclosure at night, even when the light was extremely dim. I shall refuse to keep live tenebrionids (aside from mmmmmaybe Zophobas atratus, which is pretty immune to such behavioral pathologies and behaves very normally in captivity) for the foreseeable future. Not that I desire Zophobas. Lays too many eggs for its own good, and I have no predators I can feed off the excess to. Going to separate the sexes in the unlikely event I do somehow end up with some superworms.

Addendum: before I forget, here are all my currently nondormant plants:

- Iridescent unknown gametophyte (still doing well)

- Noniridescent unknown gametophyte (ailing, may be dying from cyanobacterial competition; attempts to save it have so far been fails because it seems picky about what dirt it likes)

- Sphaerocarpos (namely, the descendants of this; they survived the summer unscathed, in case I didn't mention it)

- Various mosses that I don't particularly care about

- Cuscuta subinclusa (feeding on weedy nightshade of some sort)

Addendum 2: My C. californica(?) was able to induce the formation of a green island on a dying chili pepper's stem which remained fleshy/green even as the rest of the stem dried out (this does not appear to be a known ability that dodders have), but I have not noticed this ability in C. subinclusa on dying hosts. Note that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence; perhaps the green islands are only induced in some circumstances and not others. Time will tell.

Addendum 3: I'm also micromanaging some wild Oncopeltus nymphs that were likely the eggs laid by a dispersing adult I helped find a host for. Like their parent they're boring and mostly just sit in place drinking seeds all day (and when they do walk around I've seen many examples of irrational foraging and (almost) no evidence of intelligent behavior, though I know they're definitely smarter than they seem.) Hopefully the population sustains itself long enough for me to give them a locally-native milkweed genotype. Gotta provide habitat for native bugs, etc.

Addendum 4: my yellow slime mold dried up cause I forgot to water it. I also have a pink one (dry) that appears to be ripe fruits of Lycogala. Will rehydrate them in an estimated year or two (if I even manage to live that long) and see if they're still alive.