Nonvisual flight in a chironomid?!

 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152884

Visually unmediated flight is one of those things one expects insects to evolve regularly but which seems to be almost nonexistent for some reason (even Tenebrionidae have larger eyes in flighted than flightless species, said some paper I'm too lazy to refind).

Addendum, 12/21: I also suspect some (perhaps even most) epigean Tipulidae may be capable of flying more or less correctly if experimentally blinded.

Tray 12/17

 

Tray 12/16

Still not much has happened besides growth (I bet they won't be much interestinger during flower time either). Also yes yes I know the leaf tips are getting burnt, I bet the tray evaporates water too fast.

Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area tray 12/10

 

A few new seedlings of various spp. exited dormancy and germinated, but nothing detectably interesting happened. The leaves of all the plants got bigger, and some jelly dot algae (domeshaped as oppposed to spherical, probably Nostocales) showed up, but that's about it.

Also, remember the "long cotyledon" plant from that other post? It looks like this now. Note the suspicious resemblance of the mature cotyledons to the mature true leaves.

I'm now highly confident it's the suncup Camissoniopsis bistorta. Google Scholar indicates that nothing has been written on the adaptive function of that genus's cotyledon longness, but I suspect it has something to do with competition and/or resource limitation.

If things work the way I suspect they do, then "make its preexisting photosynthetic organs longer" is a way less resource-intensive strategy than "rapidly kill them off and grow new ones" and/or allows it to grow hastily-but-sloppily during a part of its life cycle where haste is more important than quality. Perhaps they help it race against the clock to grow a deep taproot before the ground dries up? After all, it (and micrantha) seem to be far more tolerant of poorly-water-holding habitats than most other native microflowers in my area.

Also note one of the hairless Riccia I transplanted from Bonelli Park making a cameo (I really ought to create a blog label for the marchantiophyte).

Iridescent fernthing plasticity part 2

 

Note the long gemmifers (gemma-bearing "stalks").

Succulent update

 Pleased 2 report: annual micro-Crassulaceae can, in fact, grow roots out of their leaves. Or at least it looks like they can.

Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area sand tray, 12/1/2022

 

Note the low density of the non-succulent angiosperms. I bet they're doing that bet-hedging thing where only a fraction of the seeds germinate each year (I didn't refrigerate my tray this year so cues for 100% of seeds to sprout may not be present).

I also tossed some native crystalworts in there and they're growing (this one is Riccia trichocarpa if my key can be trusted).

Its photograph's blurry until you click on it, for some reason.

Someone made a meme video about them?!

 

Golly gee!

I feel... weirdly honored?

More of aridland wildflower tray

Those big grasslike things in my last post about these have metamorphosed, developing spikes. Highly confident they're Navarettia hamata because no other angiosperm from Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area (where I collected the sand) seems to have spikes like that. The small spineless grasslike thing in the middle of this pic seems to be Linanthus dianthiflorus.

The succulents have gotten bigger but seem to have done nothing of much interest. Despite being annuals, they seem to be capable of asexually reproducing via stem fragments and detached leaves. I wonder if I can perennialize them by forcing them to regen from leaves too frequently for flower production (and thus blooming-related programmed death) to occur? After all, Physcomitrium has been perennialized in a very similar way (namely, being repeatedly ground to a pulp so often it can't make sporophytes). Also, I suspect that at least some of them may be invasive Crassula like C. tillaea.

Leaf propagation'll be a pain though. The leaves don't detach easily, and the stem is prone to snapping. In any case, at least one of my detached leaves is getting bigger, so fingers crossed!

Whatever this (and the unidentified thallus I mentioned Nov. 10) was have both died of dehydration. Several of the grassy spineleaves also show purple pigment as a result of heat stress. Look, I'm life-threateningly depressed, okay?

I also yanked out the probable Erodium on an impulse. Wish I kept it alive long enough for it to mature, but my depression seems to be making me uncontrollably impulsive.

Also this thing popped up a while ago. My god, those cotyledons are huge! (The cotyledons are the largest leaves in the pic if you 're wondering.) They look eerily similar to Pholistoma membranaceum cotyledons but the true leaves look different from that species. Some other Boraginaceae seem to have similar seedlings; I've tentatively ruled out various Cryptantha, Phacelia, Emmenanthe, Pectocarya, Amsinckia, Eucrypta, Borago, Heliotropium by searching various websites and looking at whether the cotyledons and/or true leaves look the same as the ones in my photograph.

Interestingly, the oval things at the tips of the cotyledon have remained more or less the same size as they were during germination whereas the rest has gotten steadily longer. The long part's the petiole I think?

(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.

Three papers on the subject of insect "tameness"

I've always wondered why aphids have a tendency to completely ignore predators right next to them and why aposematic insects are often as easily frightenable as nonaposematic ones. My curiosity has been sated!

The economics of escape behaviour in the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum

Predator foolhardiness and morphological evolution in 17-year cicadas (Magicicada spp.)

Hidden in plain orange: aposematic coloration is cryptic to a colorblind insect predator

Bonus:

De novo origins of multicellularity in response to predation

(Now I'm really tempted to mess around with mutants of my own. I wonder what kinds of weird shapes/behaviors I can selectively breed into Asterella.)