Final-instar nymph of Leptoglossus zonatus

 

Hi I grabbed some juveniles and prevented them from being murdered. I'll probably release them as soon as I have an opportunity; all they do is sit around and slurp their tomato, it's not very interesting.

Bust, apparently

 The A. californica specimen from the previous post turned gray wherever it remained too wet. The parts of it that didn't were still green, and according to my calculations the light, substrate, and pH levels are all within a suitable range, so I'm more or less certain the water's indeed the problem. By the way, have I mentioned it was a calcareous-substrate plant? Yeah, the research papers never mention this but in the wild I found it growing with Bryum argenteum + lanatum, which are known calcicolous taxa, so we can deduce it's one too.

Anyways, I've decided that I'll let my wort go dormant for now because of the heat wave (I suspect it cannot gain any calories from photosynthesis above 79 Fahrenheit or so). Let's hope that once the weather cools down it'll start growing sprouts when I start watering.

Asterella or bust

 

Time to make a fourth attempt at raising Asterella californica! I've never mentioned my second and third attempts on this blog because I'm good at procrastinating. I'll try my best to mention them as soon as I summon enough motivation to.

Long story short: this specimen was collected around (if not at) the same time (last spring) as the ones in the third attempt. All specimens from said third attempt are now dead; the cause of death appears to be poor ventilation. When not dormant, many cryptogams (even tropical ones, oddly) suffer heat stress around 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  The common aquarists' moss Fontinalis antipyretica is known to turn brown at 68°F, for example. And 80 fahrens is a pretty comfortable temperature for me, so it's possible for me to be shivering and sneezing at the exact same temperatures that a moss or lichen is being scalded to death at. Some cryptogams solve the heat problem through evaporative cooling, and in a poorly ventilated moist container evaporative cooling is barely possible. I could not dare ventilate mine because whenever I did so sciarid larvae ate them. Yeah.

Anyways, this Asterella specimen was originally sitting around dormant in my bedroom as a spare, just in case the ones in attempt 3 died. And die they did. But the sciarids have naturally died off too so I un-dehydrated my spare yesterday.

Here's a pic of the rarely-seen underside! Note the herringbone pattern of its various appendages. It's not too obvious in this photo (all my more dramatic photos of the herringboning are blurry).

I also hasten to add that a few months ago I got myself a specialized plant-growing light and that my A. californica is its current user! Now I'll no longer have to worry about my dim win- well, actually, I still have to worry about the dim windows. My fern gametophyte cultures all still have tons of annoying mites in them and for that reason I'm unwilling to put them under the light with the Asterella; we've discussed below how the mites in question appear capable of dispersing themselves (and unwanted spores) to nearby containers. With that being said, I recently discovered the iridescent ones can grow on mite-unfriendly surfaces like roughened plastic, so maybe I'll acquire a mite-free fern culture pretty soon.

Minor note

 I've updated the "finally found Xanthoria" post below with a photo of the park so you can get the aesthetic vibes of the place. Also, the xan-culturing experiment has stalled again due to unexpected financial difficulties.

Cotinis mutabilis macros (plus a springtail)

Now that I finally have a macro cam I shall never be low on footage for any entomology outreach projects I decide to resume! Not that that's happening any time soon (am too depressed and honestly don't even like bugs that much any more).  Here is a C. mutabilis specimen I rescued (not from plastic entanglement this time; the trees near that plastic net from last year are now so large the beetles avoid flying into the latter) and released. Also, note the mites "inside" its face.

What else can I say? They look just the same as any other Cotinis pictures online so it's not very exciting for me. Here's a video anyways I guess.

Oh, also, here's the springtail (Lepidocyrtus).

Two of my plant cups are respectively infested with Lepidocyrtus and "springlesstails" (generic white Onychiurinae); you may have seen the onychiurines in the background of my iridescent gametophyte photos. They evidently hitchhiked in with the soil because the USDA is crap at its job and almost every soil bag I open is filled with mites, collembolans, and/or mushrooms. Who knows how many nonnative ones have established in the US by now? I'm not going to post my onychiurine and soil mite macros here though, it's not worth my time.

I also must say that despite their ability to keep the soil clean I'm going to try my best to make at least one microarthropod-free subculture for each of my plant taxa. The smaller mites are especially problematic as they may eat my lichens and act as unwanted dispersal agents for all my small-propaguled cryptogams (the animals easily crawl through gaps in the clingfilm and could cross-contaminate my cultures or, worse, spread my nonnative species from indoors to outdoors). Besides, microanimals in general fertilize the soil, which is not good if one wants to grow oligotrophs. Aaaaaaand I plan to acquire a lot of oligotrophic plants.

Admittedly I do feel bad about actively killing the bugs; guess I'll just avoid promoting their population growth as much as I can.

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.

Xanthoria or bust (continued)

 

I am pleased to report that I went to a coastal urban park and got my hands on Xanthoria parietina last Sunday! My painful lack of specimens is finally over!

I also discovered that its preferred temperatures during photosynthesis were way lower than I thought. I'm keeping my specimens dehydrated (and thus dormant) until my new mini refrigerator arrives.

Stay tuned I guess.

Update: forgot to post pic of park. Here:

20-day timelapse of iridescent thing (June 4 to 24)

 

Note the stick in the top left. I painstakingly adjusted both pics so the stick was pretty much the same angle and size in each. I also no longer think there is much chance of it being a marchantiophyte; morphological cues strongly hint to me it is a self-replicating fern gametophyte that is unable or unwilling to produce sporophytes.

Also, I am planning to send it to a lab for analysis! To my (and the fern researcher I talked to's) knowledge, iridescence has never been documented in fern gametophytes before.

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.

Second generation already

 

The base of one of my plants has finally died! I forgot if I mentioned it before here or not, but basal death in Marchantiophyta is a natural part of their fission process and may serve to increase carbon dioxide absorption efficiency.