Hopper updates

One of the Dictyssa was female as I suspected! Caught it sticking eggs into willow leaves (strangely not in the midrib, in the sides) tonight. Also note that the egg is external (as opposed to being invisible embedded in the plant tissue):

Xerophloea have been moved to a locally nonnative malvaceous plant cutting, which they accepted. Willow and dodder were on the other hand not considered suitable hosts. No signs of oviposition from either yet.

White hopper turned out to be Graphocephala cythura

 

it's blue when teneral

Native here, but an obscure record mentions it having invaded Hawaii, which is concerning. While some invasive taxa are certainly under threat in their native ranges and G. cythura appears more or less unable to survive in the suburbs here (well, either that or occurs in low enough densities that I've never seen it) I don't think it's in much conservational danger.



Also let me vomit some generic photos of the aforementioned Xerophloea duo (note their close textural/color resemblance to Croton) because I've nothing better to do. I'm so bored, photography is so dull.

They're a pretty widespread species too but I'm keeping them around because it costs me nothing and cause I suspect they might be locally (if not globally) in danger.

Update: after hardening the blue has mostly gone away, it's green now.

Oh, and by the way, the willow worm's big now.

 

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 Black Micrutalis dead. I noticed it was suffering from whatever ailment makes hoppers "starve" to death surrounded by food but I couldn't get it back to its habitat in time. I really tried so hard to and I almost succeeded but there was a certain incident that day in which I was being mistreated (because I live a shitty life myself) and it stopped me from getting back. The untreated mental illness only made things worse. In any case, the beige one has been released successfully, apparently in part because it wasn't overexerting itself to death like the black one. 

If Santa Fe Dam weren't being destroyed by idiot restorationists I wouldn't even have to deal with hopper rearing! Not that that'd do much good anyway, considering my inability to get them to stop or to even assess which hoppers are higher conservation priority*, and the rate at which shortlived insects evolve to lose adaptions to the wild when cultured, but it's marginally better than nothing, right? Right?

I'm sick of seeing insects die. Considering that all my "slots" are full or unusable I think I'm just going to stop acquiring more arthropod species for the foreseeable future, lest I create any bigger a mess.





*Commonness isn't a reliable indicator.




Xerophloea and Dictyssa are still doing okay, besides that one and only one dicty is getting restless (oviposition urges?)

Going to have to get rid of Scolops and the weevil

 Former still seems to be suffering from drought-legacy phytochemical effects as it abandoned both willow and Croton (and this despite the willow currently being sopping wet), latter flags petioles and pedicels (not eating the actual leaves/flowers, which die from the flagging) and my Croton specimen simply isn't large enough to tolerate this form of wasteful chewing.

Annoyingly, whatever drought-related phytochem changes certainly don't seem to be affecting this small (1cm) measuring worm, an adult must have oviposited on/near my large* Salix lasiolepis specimen back when the plant was still in my yard. I mean, it's welcome to stay and eat the willow since hardly anyone else wants to, but I'm irritated it seems so content when the hoppers are stressing out. 

*I have acquired more willows yesterday, probably the same species; they were juveniles near the Bridge to Nowhere, and were so crowded they could not have all survived to adulthood so I figured taking a few would be harmless.

Before I realized the Scolops was so distressed I also took this nymph from the Bridge to Nowhere sprouts. Fortunately, so far it has shown no signs of distress after being put on the large specimen (I am not feeding it on the small specimens so they can grow leaves quicker). Not sure why it's white, because S. lasiolepis leaf undersides are white but not this white.

Also took home this Micrutalis pair today (pictured here before capture). They're color polymorphic. Only membracid I've seen ever, and the most common hemipteran on Croton californicus at Santa Fe Dam (but still relatively sparse). I've noted these are often present on small, droughted, and/or thermalrefugeless plants in the wild so figured they probably wouldn't throw a fit in captivity.

Current non-dormant inventory:
- Salix lasiolepis (several)
- Croton californicus x2 (gained one today by pulling it out of a sidewalk crack)
- Heterotheca grandiflora x1
- Calasterella californica x1
- Unidentified white hopper and caterpillar x1 each
- Dictyssa obliqua x2
- Micrutalis x2
- Xerophloea peltata x2 (still feeding calmly)
- Cuscuta subinclusa (much)
- Cuscuta californica (much, but less; I've been neglecting watering its host because mentally ill)
- Various hosts for the dodders, mostly weeds and domesticates
- Disabled Eleodes acuticauda female I offhandedly mentioned a year or so ago x1 (it has not lost any leg since I rescued it from the wilderness, unfortunately it's stressed right now, apparently because its shelter objects have gotten old and stale and apparently smell wrong to it; I need to find it a new thing to hide under)

I also plan to germinate a new Navarretia batch soon.

Soft-chaparral hemipterans update

Caught 1 more D. obliqua (pictured above) yesterday (new total: 2), both specimens still feeding well on dodder.

Caught a pale green morph of what appears to be another X. peltata on the same excursion, both specimens motionless and apparently feeding well on Croton.

Caught weird pinstriped Croton associate weevil on the same excursion, seems to be doing well in the enclosure with the hoppers.

Scolops is not fleeing the hosts but kept shifting around between spots on the willow, and is now of its own volition on the Croton again (unclear if this is male matesearching or if something's still subtly wrong with the host hydration status or whatever it is); I did not find any additional specimens, so it has no mate.



Also of note is that I've noticed D. obliqua will lower their wings when frightened, that when only one of the two wings is raised it seems to be consistently the left one, as is the tendency among Elicini (side effect of brain lateralization?), and that voluntary (as opposed to alarm-induced) locomotion is at least sometimes accompanied by slow, monotonous up-and-down wing flapping movements reminiscent of tephritid wiggling. While I assume the wings mimic chewed holes in foliage, it is clear that breaking up the animal's outline can't be the reason (or at least the only reason) they're held raised, or else why would frightened animals lower them?

Tephritids use their wings as social signals but I've not seen my two dictys socially interacting so far (the wing-flapping observation occurred before I caught individual #2). Like the other hemipterans currently in my care they spend most of their time sitting still, as one might expect from an animal adapted to a low-nutrition diet. As I suspect they are male and female I might try and prod them into standing next to each other to see if they're interested in mating.

Update: prodded them into chemosensory and visual contact with each other. No detectable response.