entropy wins another round

 Due to a certain incident involving the police (no not ICE), a significant portion of my plant and bug collection has been destroyed (mostly the plants). Gemma-making iridescent probablyfern dead. Dictyssa eggs dead. Native gastropods dead. Probably all my ungerminated seeds dead. Preserved insects and vertebrates... well, they can't get any deader, but they're gone now. The police didn't actually do any of it by the way. Despite never even showing up to bother me, they indirectly helped cause the incident in a way that is banal but which I will not describe here because it would indirectly cause a small leak in my personal privacy.

List of survivors:
- Nongemmiferous probably-fern gametophyte (if I haven't told you, I realized that despite my previous comments it does seem to iridesce after all, or if not at least develops a metallic sheen)
- Chinese cryptogams, adventive hothouse cryptogams, at least some dried lichen samples, Calasterella
- The one Cryptocephalus sanguinicollis larva that still hasn't pupated
- Millipedes that might be Cylindrodesmus
- All the sucking hoppers besides the Dictyssa eggs
- Cuscuta subinclusa (C. californica is possibly dead of unrelated mental illness related neglect)
- That disabled Eleodes acuticauda I keep making offhand references to
- The big Salix lasiolepis (small willows died of unrelated causes remember?) and both Croton californicus
- Weird mystery angiosperm I will probably offhandedly mention a few years later

I have so little control over the trajectory of my own life. Being intelligent and persevering just doesn't work sometimes.

I wish I had more interesting complex dynamics in my life

nymphs are dimorphic

As there is no light visible at the end of the tunnel, however, here are the latest boring updates on my specimens:

- Micrutalis nymphs and adults are still doing well. The ones that aren't being eaten, I mean. At night little spiders sometimes show up and bite them, apparently whatever they sequester from their host isn't enough to protect them from Generic Generalist Predators. It seems that bringing their host indoors causes subtle phytochemical changes that may(?) make them freak out and die which is why I've been leaving them outdoors. The ones in the pic seem to be last instar btw.

- On the other hand Xerophloea peltata are both still alive and enjoying the great indoors. I saw the green one oviposit last night.

- I've been calling my non-gemmiferous Mysterious Fern-Type Gametophyte Thing the "noniridescent gametophyte" but recently noted it does apparently iridesce under certain conditions? Will post photo later cause I'm unmotivated but I got a photo of it doing that. The fact that the first two ferns I've grown have been doing that suggest that iridescence is a widespread and undernoticed phenomenon in fern gametophytes in general.

- That one Cryptocephalus larva still hasn't pupated like its brethren. It's been in its drought dormancy mode for the past weeks, I've been slacking on its care from depression. It doesn't seem to mind too much fortunately, I'd feel bad if it did.

- The nearly legless Eleodes has been refusing to hide under its cardboard these past months for some reason. I've repeatedly tried changing its substrate, changing its hides, nothing seems to work. This is not a problem for which caresheets offer any help. I nevertheless have a feeling I'm about to be figuring things out.

- Cylindrodesmus-type millipedes continue to breed, eat cereal, etc.

- Calasterella recovering from a watering mistake I made but otherwise isn't doing anything. Some of the chinese and other exotic cryptogams are still alive.

- Dodders and other angiosperms not doing anything worth my time to mention.

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.

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.

Current inventory (excepting dormant specimens)

Most of these IDs are (as usual) provisional but almost surely correct. The remainder are undoubtedly correct.

Cryptogams:

Iridescent gametophyte (due to its low-light-tolerance it is basically immune to the cyanobacteria mentioned below)

Noniridescent gametophyte (seems to be slowly dying from cyanobacterial allelopathy)

Asterella californica

Sphaerocarpos

Invertebrates:

That unidentified millipede species I've been posting about (it's visually identical to Cylindrodesmus hirsutus, if I haven't said so here already)

Angiosperms:

Crassula connata (most are dormant seeds, the three that germinated in the summer are growing very slowly due to chronic neglect; admittedly I'm favoritism-ing the Asterella)

Cuscuta californica(?)

Cuscuta subinclusa

Several potatoes and weeds (for feeding dodders)

Sorry, not going to post dodder/Crassula pics here, see previous commentary on marcescent leaves aesthetics crisis (I know dodders have nonexistent or barely visible leaves but I am also suffering from a floral abscission scar aesthetics crisis).

In case I haven't mentioned it subinclusa turns green in low light just like californica(?), and when grown side by side the vegetative parts of the two look noticeably different (subinclusa is thicker on average, able to turn greener, has leaves(?) that are consistently larger, and has little prickles like a cucumber on parts of its stem near the haustoria). I'm going to assume the fleshiness is because subinclusa is a taxon of less arid microhabitats than californica(?), no idea what the prickles do though.

I regret calling my gemmaless gametophytes noniridescent

Left some in a bag for several days cause I was depressed, and they turned slightly metallic (well, either that or the gemmiferous one infested its container, which is very unlikely).

Remind me to not make sloppy assumptions.

Edit: perhaps I may have mistaken their standard satiny sheen for iridescence. Remind me to not make sloppy assumptions.

(Permanently) noniridescent gametophyte morphospecies gets another glamour shot

 

I just love the way this morphospecies seems to be permanently solitary whenever it hasn't been injured in a way that makes it produce additional meristems.

Solitary specimens also seem to stop growing once they reach Harmonia axyridis size, but seemingly make no attempt to reproduce unless I slice them in half or otherwise injure them.

Perhaps these habits may imply that it isn't biologically adapted to having a long gametophyte lifespan and that my gametophytes only became longlived because they're a unisexual clone (in other words: I suspect that in the wild the gametophytes of this sp. quickly fertilize each other and then die of fertilization-induced programmed death, as is usual for ferns). I read in a paper somewhere that most if not all ferns develop unnaturally long-lived gametophytes if artificially prevented from producing a sporophyte, and that most if not all such gametophytes can be clonally propagated via fission.

Macro pics of my probable fern gametophytes

 

Sorry if the pic of the iridescent species looks oversaturated. It looked fine on my other device because different devices display colors differently. With that being said, the pic under "hi sorry for not posting" post seems to render its colors consistently more accurately across the majority of devices.

Update to previous post

 

Here is the specimen I had labeled "not pictured"; I finally summoned up the energy to rephotograph it. Also I just discovered at least one unsolicited moss gametophyte which popped up in the cup (I say "at least" because the algal covering is so dense I can barely tell alga from moss).

Hi sorry for not posting

Over the course of the past few months I've managed to have a ton of adventures but they were all extremely boring ones, and summoning the motivation to post has been rather hard.

Anyways, remember that thing I found as a grocery store weed? Yeah here it is, it's grown considerably and become all shimmery (reminds me of Schistostega or some of the green-iridescent Begonia). Normally, neon iridescence of this sort concentrates dim light to aid photosynthesis, but I'm not 100% sure it has any adaptive benefit in this case; the effect seems to be caused by tiny condensation droplets on the underside and apparently disappears when the soil is sufficiently dry. But then again, perhaps the plant is "deliberately" engineering itself in a way that the droplets focus light onto its body? Who knows!

Also note that the center of this rosette is non-iridescent. This is because of the powdery gemmae that develop at the edges of each thallus.

Other news: the more fern-like thallus (not pictured) is still doing well and has gotten bigger (though still no detectable sporophyte or asexual reproduction).

Oh yeah all my Sphaerocarpos died months ago (long unimportant story involving water chemistry difficulties) but I acquired a ton of other Marchantiophyta! More on that later.

In which I (among other things) suddenly begin to enjoy seafood

 Hiiiiii! Long time no talk! Though admittedly almost nothing has happened in the past months, so it's not like I had anything to say.

First: Sphaerocarpos! As I mentioned in my last post, I have found a wild colony. After numerous mishaps involving desiccation (one particularly amusing incident involved the sample pictured above somehow drying out and dying while in a sealed cup) I have finally established a culture. More on them later.

I also keep neglecting to mention this moss, which has not visibly grown at all since I found it last June. It appears to be a hydrophilous specialist as I have never seen it away from leaking water and seem to have only seen it twice ever (perhaps it is Didymodon tophaceus).

Unfortunately, a few days ago its top rapidly died. I assume that being suddenly moved to bright indirect light harmed it (yeah, mosses have been known to be sunburned by even weak light). In the wild it was in a place with direct sun but I had been keeping it shaded for a long time, so perhaps it had desynthesized its anti-sunburn defenses in the shade and could not resynthesize them rapidly enough.

You may note the green thing to its left. That is a gametophyte (fern it seems) of unknown origin. It probably arrived in my garden soil bag as an unintentionally imported spore, because the USDA is terrible at its job. Hopefully it will produce a sporophyte one day. Although given that there is only one of it in the cup I'm not optimistic.

I also went on a rather exciting shopping trip yesterday! I found several large marine algae as bycatch in the snail tank. Unfortunately pretty much all the snails were quite dead (in addition to being unethical, I'm also pretty sure it violates several food sanitation laws). Here you can see a bleached coralline alga and some sort of buoy-possessing seaweed. If I get a marine tank and learn how to disinfect live algae I'm going to fill it with rescued bycatch from the seafood tanks.

Also a number of the store fruits were heavily infested with scale insects. Did I mention the USDA was terrible at its job?

Anyways, I also brought home an unidentifiable gametophyte! It was growing as a weed in one of the store flowerpots so I took it home for free. It was neither of the two thalloid marchantiophytes that are supposed to be greenhouse pests (Lunularia cruciata, Marchantia polymorpha), so I suspect it may be an undiscovered invasive. Hopefully I can culture it to a size where it's less unIDable.