More Dictyobia adults

Gonna stop announcing new adults now.

Of interest is that one individual seems to be "right-handed" in terms of wing-raising behavior, the others so far all seem "left-handed".





Pissonotus delicatus released, it was doing perfectly fine but I realized I was biting off more than I could chew again and needed to keep my unhealthy insect-hoarding habits in check. It was never my favorite anyway. Also I know widespread insects are said to be paradoxically in more danger than rare ones but P. delicatus strikes me more as the sort of widespread insect that'll do fine in the upcoming decades than the sort that's declining drastically. I could be wrong tho. Maybe it's extra vulnerable to climate change because it naturally lives in harsh disturbed environments and can't take any harsher a life than it's already tolerating? Still, I'm not getting many "common bug about to decline violently" vibes from it. I'm more worried about periodically-outbreaking-but-sometimes-naturally-rare taxa like Xerophloea, Vanessa, Oedemasia, & Trirhabda.

In any case I assume the pisso laid eggs inside my telegraphweed, I'll take a laissez-faire approach to its offspring if any hatch.

part 4

Pissonotus-generating telegraphweeds by the side of the road

Finds from Santa Fe Dam chaparral today: Pissonotus delicatus adult fem and one more presumed Lystridea nymph. Also new less hideous blog color scheme.

Kinda surprised the former were able to survive on such low-growing plants, I'm under the vague impression a lot of herbivorous bugs in my area avoid plants that're short and prostrate because it's too hot near the ground. I mean even that thing Xerophloea and co. do where they go to the base of the plant to feed doesn't mean they'll show up on juvenile plants, in nature it tends to just bring them into the shaded undergrowth of their host. I've never seen hoppers of any sort on sufficiently young Croton (or, indeed, sufficiently small individuals of almost every other plant. Santa Fe's rich diversity of annual flora hardly attracts any herbivores as far as I've seen).

2/26 edit: When I released the Pissonotus I saw a conspecific at the Dam nature center surviving in a patch of like 3 super isolated telegraphweeds under the big tree they planted. No wonder delicatus is so widespread, it's clearly one of those species that can teleport to its hosts and not die of metapopulation collapse in small habitat patches. I've never seen them fly to the telegraphweeds I'm growing in my yard tho, maybe I was just unlucky.