Cryptocephalus hunting again

 

Have continued to be bored to the point of serious mental illness. Went to the Santa Fe Dam soft chaparral a few times again to see if I could bag anything because collecting bugs is my unhealthy coping mechanism apparently.

Now, the thing about the soft chaparral here is that whenever the summer dry season hits and the bushes "die" (aestivate) the already low insect density drops even further (the hard chaparral and sclerophyll oak forest stay active a bit longer into the season because they are by nature less arid habitats). It's our version of winter; it's when life drains out of the world; it's the end-scene of HG Wells' Time Machine with the quiet beach and the endless night and the red-overripe sun waiting to burst. It's kind of sad that extremophiles (for all their tenacity) are still so helpless against natural extremes. Why can there be only a few snow crane flies, a single Antarctic midge? Why must serpentine flora be forced into stunted growth? Why does Mono Lake lack a second brineshrimp?

Nevertheless, life still goes on, albeit not very vigorously. The cacti here do not turn brown, of course, because they are cacti (Narnia and Chelindea continue to suck on their fruits all summer but the few cactus genera here don't seem to host much more than that at any time of year, unlike in, say, parts of Arizona, so I will not be mentioning them further), and Malosma plus the lemonadeberries stay almost as alive, but they seem to support even fewer local insect taxa than the cacti this time of year so will not be mentioned further either. This leaves us left, for the most part, with the summer-specialist dandelion guild: Lepidospartum squamatum (scalebroom), Ericameria pinifolia (pine goldenbush), Lessingia glandulifera (vinegar tarweed), Heterotheca grandiflora (telegraphweed). I'm tired and not in the mood to talk fluidly any more right now so suffice it to say:

- the above pic is one of the lushest microhabitats left right now (not pictured: miles of brown desolation)
- summer-specialist insect guild largely gone from soft chaparral, the occasional Eleodes acuticauda notwithstanding; many of the other spp. emerge and die earlier in the summer when the growing season is ending but not ended for the summer-dormant shrubs; no Elicinae seen
- Cryptocephalus spurcus is still in season as it eats goldenbushes and scalebrooms, which are both blooming and lush
- yesterday I caught a mating female of Cryptocephalus spurcus
- it seems to be slightly (but only slightly) less behaviorally problematic than C. sanguinicollis but "slightly" can make a big difference; after some initial struggling I've successfully gotten it out of "too scared to eat and rest" mode and so far it has not resumed panicking/flying as sanguinicollis has always done in my care (hoping I don't jinx it)
- to my unsurprise I am still exactly as bored and mentally ill as before

Update 7/31: caught a second one. First one has made exactly one egg capsule so far, it has the cool helical ridges typical of this genus (which is formed, if you weren't aware, by the female turning the egg spirally as it defecates, which I assume is the simplest way to coat a round object without missing any spots).

What is it like to be a leafhopper?: a speculative essay

Imagine that you live on a tower of pipes so tall it extends beyond view.

Imagine that it is filled with juice, and that you are thirsty; you bite into its soft side, and it takes a while before you can get at the juice, but you do manage.

And it tastes good. It tastes so good. You never want to stop. You drink for hours and time speeds up and the outside world fades away. You don't even notice you are asleep by the time the sun has set, and the next day you hardly realize you are awake.

You are rudely returned to full consciousness by a dry sensation in your mouth. Evidently your tower only has so much juice to give. How? You were only there for a few moments (you had not moved from the spot in two weeks) it was hardly enough (it was more enough than you could ever remember) you do not feel well-rested at all (you were designed to never know peace).

Fortunately, there is another pipetower to the north, and the journey there is not too arduous. When you arrive you will find it to be as juicy as the first one used to be, but it will not feel satisfying either because when you are satisfied you will not feel.