2019 desperate spring tipulid-chase

resting male

and female

Over the past few weeks, the annual swarm of giant brown tipulids has been (and still is) active in my yard; on the other hand, the Vanessa public garden swarms have nearly disappeared. Having finally armed myself with a red flashlight (most insects are unable or nearly unable to see it) and a somewhat decent slow-motion camera, I was quite impatient to collect some footage for the entomology outreach campaign.

I was rather startled to see the following thing one afternoon:

it was quite a surreal scene; swarm specimens would also occasionally cease their careful vegetation-colliding and literally bounce across the ground in a ridiculous, majestic fashion.



I wasted quite some time trying to film them.



After finally managing to align the phone camera with the fast-flying dipterans, I realized that the videos were still too blurred to be of much use for public campaigns; still, under slow motion the animals' seemingly senseless bumbling revealed a fascinating phenomenon.

From the beginning I had suspected that they were using their vast array of legs as pseudo-antennae; though they flied quite erratically when in the fenceside weed patch, they moved with a sense of purpose, as if carefully palpating the plants for suitability. Furthermore, they often also bounced against fences in an even more chaotic fashion, but did so even in the absence of lamps (contrary to popular belief, nocturnal insects' lamp bouncing is a highly abnormal stress-behavior). Upon video slowing, the tipulid flight patterns certainly appeared to support my antennation hypothesis:

(for some reason, ground bouncing usually occurred in straight lines or arcs, unlike wall bouncing)







Further attempts at flight video capture were wholly unsuccessful, although I did manage to capture several other things.

male and tenerally pale (I think) female

(unfortunately a planned timelapse on mating dynamics failed hilariously; during most of the filming period no additional males came, and after taking a long break I arrived just in time to see the female fly over the fence while still copulating)


Several other tipulomorph species were present, but these were not very abundant and I was barely able to observe any behaviors from them. EDIT: A while after the Large Brown swarming ceased, the first morphospecies became abundant for a few weeks. I have also seen wulpiana bouncing briefly on grass.

mottled sp. sitting on web

Nephrotoma wulpiana, a bright orange tipulid

3/4 minor news

Vanessa adult activity has resumed due to sunny weather, but only non-large aggregations (a handful per nectaring area) were visible. I was surprised to find that annabella were mixed in with the cardui:

cardui

annabella

Milkweed hemipterans were still sparsely distributed but I saw a single large cluster on a pod (perhaps the pod was unhealthy and the resulting loss of defense chems made it more palatable than the others?)

Also finally managed to photograph + identify one of the massive non-katydid hoppers:

Schistocerca nitens

Ento-walk large post!

2/25: Bland pics

The small Sphaeralcea hemipterans have not done anything too interesting, though I did see an adult and nymph excitedly running up and down the stems for some reason I couldn't determine. I was able to find few other interesting arthropods in the public garden despite seeing many freshly and heavily chewed leaves as well as large diurnal predators; any advice?

large diurnal predator

Interestingly, several nearby honeybees were displaying an intriguing behavior; they would happily pollinate Sphaeralcea flowers that were open, but would attempt to nectar-rob closed flowers and shove themselves inside of partially closed flowers. Even more interestingly, I later saw an entire foraging party apparently nectar-robbing a bushful of dead dried Salvia flowers. Befitting for a highly adaptable synanthrope, I guess.

hard-working but certainly not honest

Here are a few other random pics I took, by the way

Halictus tripartitus

Mecaphesa trying to ambush hover flies

2/26: Not all locusts have jaws

I was rather surprised to see hilariously large Vanessa cardui swarms in the European flowers section; it seems the recent few weeks of rain here have triggered a migration. The butterflies were evidently rather famished, too; they frantically stuffed their tongues into anything that had petals, including fancy-looking cultivars which even the honeybees refused to touch. I think I once read somewhere in a technical book that Vanessa spend 90-something percent of their time nectaring, because many flowers give meals sparingly to encourage pollination. Unfortunately, my phone refused to photograph the whole swarm, so here are a few individuals:

2/26 (cont.) and 2/27: Fun with the milkweed crew (and more)

I found a small party of milkweed hemipterans on a bunch of sickly-looking plants in the herbs section! Unfortunately, all hemipteran species had sparse populations despite plentiful seeds; perhaps only two or three adult Oncopeltus and a single adult Lygaeus were around, with a few large nymphs present. A few Aphis nerii clusters were also around but they were busy getting themselves killed.

Cycloneda sanguinea

(can you find the aphid?)

The Tagetes lemmonii bush nearby was also quite biodiverse (its passionfruity scent was excellent too);

yellowish inchworms were abundant

Erynnis tristis, far handsomer than the overdressed Vanessa

these wingwiggling flies were common too; learning their sign language might be interesting

3/7: A few more bland but interesting pics

I found my first iridoviral blue pillbug today! It wasn't very blue, though. My phone camera made it look more vibrant that it actually was; here is a heavily edited pic showing realistic colors.

Also, I have finally managed to get a non-blurry pic of this large bumblebee; although it visits several unrelated species of flower, it appears to be quite selective about its dining options (I have never seen it outside the public garden) and is extremely wary + restless.

Bombus melanopygus

More pleasant observations

another view of the CA-native garden

Today was also an excellent day in the botanical garden; I was able to observe the small true bugs (mentioned in the previous post) again. Interestingly, some of the reddish nymphs appeared to "attack" conspecifics by chasing/pushing (I couldn't see the behaviors clearly) them away from seedpods, which seem to be a highly desirable food source.

The rest of my walk was rather uneventful, although I did see a single Strymon melinus adult performing nectar robbery on Sphaeralcea ambigua:

it is feeding from the side instead of the center

By the way, here is a bonus pic of Lithops pseudotruncatella groendrayensis in the desert greenhouse section; it has been on my wish list for quite some time due to its obligate non-clustering behavior (unfortunately I suspect that captive specimens are relentlessly boring though).

its lack of brown maculations is also pleasant

Finally, a decent bug hunt

Adult basks with large nymph (click pics for full size)

I have located a colony of Crophius (max size approx 5 millimeters, though it's larger than it sounds) in the local botanical garden's California natives section! Due to CA rainseason winters the sky has been wet for roughly three weeks with intermittent sun, and I was only able to photograph them today (a few days after discovery).

Here is a quick visual tour of the planted area:

and here is their hostplant

Sphaeralcea ambigua

flowers

Here are a few more pics of different adults and nymphs; the adult was surprisingly cooperative (though still restless) after I startled it into dropping off the leaf. After the initial drop it did not fly away in my hand and was reluctant to perform escape-dropping when photographed.

unlike the other one this adult has unicolored front wings

most nymphs had brownish red abdomens

but this one was redder and maybe a bit teneral

Bonus pics!

Here are a bunch of old pics previously in the deleted Gallery; I have also added a carabid pic from this winter and a long-lost pic of the ironclad

Pholcid

Hoplia

Very likely Calathus

Pillbug and small ironclad (from “winter beetle hunting” post)

The world is a strange place

I have performed several more experiments with brown widows and pholcids; none of them were particularly successful because sooner or later I would send the poor animals running for their lives.

Also, I have decided to quit bugworld for a while! Invertebrate ethics can be extremely weird (see here for several morbidly interesting phenomena, including senility-induced starvation in Carabus) and it is giving me a severe headache. I expect to continue regurgitating advice in entomological discussion circles though; entomology is a dying art and I refuse to completely abandon it.

In the meantime I suppose that I will start posting more non-entomological strange things here (feel free to leave entocomments on my old posts though)

More arachnological comedy

probably a brown widow too, but identity uncertain

I managed to accidentally rip up this specimen’s web after getting not one but two prodding-sticks entangled in it, but it seemed unperturbed. Also, tangerine bits are not exactly the most cooperative of victims, either:

I revive slightly

Tanystoma maculicolle eating honeybee carrion

I have finally been able to access garden areas (mostly) free of small vertebrate droppings! Nighttime arthropod activity has been slow lately; aside from the omnipresent small ants (Linepithema humile?)  very few specimens are active. Even synanthropes like small carabid beetles and fat webbuilding spiders have very sparse visible populations, although I was able to find a very small number of foraging Tanystoma maculicolle and unidentified Calathus-y solid black carabids on many of my nightly trips.




Here is a somewhat blurry video of me trying to convince a small brown widow to kill a tangerine pulp “capsule”; it aligned its mouthparts with the fruit in a manner strongly suggestive of feeding. Unfortunately, it decided to run all the way to its shelter (not shown) after I jiggled the tangerine too violently.

Lost specimen returns (and promptly leaves)

deformed male

Today I caught the missing Scudderia mexicana deformed male! Previous attempts had been thwarted by the animal, which refused to eat my baits and positioned itself in a heavily tangled region where its songs bounced off the leaves (making it impossible to locate by ear).

I found it in a conspicuous position on a palm frond; there was another rose pruning today and this may have disabled its auditory camouflage. Fortunately, the species seems largely oblivious to danger unless touched/blown on and I easily caught and repositioned it to a shorter rose bush. It calmed down and resumed singing very soon after I left it alone with a pollen cluster.




Edit: after the sun set, I saw the katydid slowly approaching a nearby taller bush and then making an attempt to fly onto it. It landed near the tall bush's basal stem (too deformed to fly) but I failed to recapture it. Evidently the short bush is not suitable for some reason; perhaps the animal somehow senses that the foliage is insufficiently dense? I have also previously seen females feeding on the short bush's roses and then promptly fleeing after satiation.

I both win and lose the staring contest

The lethargic Scudderia mexicana  deformed male has vanished for the past several days. I still cannot find it and probably never will.




Assorted news:

I have discovered another "aphideating party" composed mostly of what appear to be adult Cycloneda sanguinea.

Phaneroptera nana lives in my area! I thought it was a small pure green Scudderia sp. until a Bugguide expert corrected me yesterday. Today I took some more pics of nana and have put them below. They are on the same bush as the coccinellids.

Unfortunately I will probably be unable to do any katydid or coccinellid posts for quite some time due to troublesome circumstances relating to the front yard.

Phaneroptera nana male

Same male

Nearby inseminated female

Same female (note spermatophore)