Depresso updates

 

Peppertree dodder: devoting most of its energy to making flowers, most of the vegetative portions seem to be wilting for some reason. I hope it's not making flowers because it's about to kick the bucket (I've noticed that stressing it induces flowers).

Lace bugs (pictured): they vibrate inaudibly. I have been staring at some in hopes of finding some complex dynamics of interest, but I haven't been able to make heads or tails of the situation despite watching them for hrs. Although in other lace bugs they are used in various maternal care behaviors the species I have around here don't use them for any clear function. I've tried everything I can think of: disturbing specimens, introducing foreign specimens, watching courtship behavior (which doesn't seem to involve the vibration type I'm investigating and isn't very exciting to watch it seems), even trying to see if there's any vibrational correlate to leaf lushness. No luck. I do know that both nymphs and adults do it, that specimens may occasionally vibrate even when on my hand or otherwise frightened (but do not seem to use it as a distress signal and typically do not vibrate when alarmed), that adults sometimes fan their wings during vibration bouts, and that specimens do not tend to visibly react to others' vibrations or wing fanning, but not much else.

Casebearers: Cryptocephalus sanguinicollis grubs seem easy to rear and eat a wide variety of rotten plant matter. They also accept nonrotten fare, including grocery vegetables and rose petals. They don't do much besides eating and walking.

Millipedes: haplodesmid-type things definitely getting out of hand. Also if I didn't mention this before sometimes they make egg nests with only one egg inside (these nests don't seem any smaller than the ones with around a half dozen eggs). Inspected the gut of the new Griffith Park macrosternodesmid-type thing and it's still dark, implying it's still feeding on rotten matter in captivity. It's nice that (since its body is translucent) I can see the animal's digestive system without killing it. Added some white rot wood to both macrosternothing localities' cups, because I suspect brown rot may not be the right type of rot to feed them.

Asterella californica: grows slowly, doesn't do much.

Eleodes carbonaria: doesn't do much either. Hisserdude said it seemed male, which was my suspicion too.

More tenebs moved, plus commentary on invasive natives

 Elysian Park is closer to NHMLA than Griffith Park is, although I assume that before the surrounding land was urbanized their darkling populations were genetically connected. Anyways, I booked a taxi ride to Elysian today and caught about 20. Tenebs from there will be posted at the same link as the one in the previous post.

Also, while strolling around Santa Fe Dam recently I saw a small, localized population of tidytip daisies and purple-houses and several other species of so-called native plant that are common in commercial native wildflower seed mixes. I mean, I have trust issues from rampant mislabeling of flora in the horticultural industry (sometimes the mistakes aren't discovered until many years later), but some of the other questionable things in there were the same morphospecies as Gilia tricolor, G. capitata, and Collinsia (likely heterophylla but I can't be bothered to check). These are not locally native here at all, and given that the population seems to be self-sustaining without irrigation, as well as spreading into patches of truly native annuals, I think we're dealing with an incipient intra-state invasion here. The nature center didn't look to have planted them (none of those plants are in the nature center's official garden, which also contains locally nonnative flora, albeit not the same ones; I fear the nature center sunflower bushes may engage in maladaptive introgression with wild Encelia), but Californian plants have been known to do intra-state invasion things of this sort before; just look at Lupinus arboreus and the havoc it's wrecked (note that arboreus does not appear to be present cultivated or feral in my area; I am merely using the lupine as a talking point).

It's a shame that no one on the internet seems to be talking about the potential problem Gilia and co. pose. Some other questionable choices I've seen elsewhere include the wrong Eriogonum species/subspecies (this is particularly problematic since some insects have been proven to die if consuming the wrong genotype of an otherwise suitable host Eriogonum), the Californian orange poppy Eschscholzia californica (which has already invaded Chile, has explosively dispersed seeds, and can grow in sidewalk cracks, and seems to be hated by almost every insect here, even Apis mellifera, which visits it only reluctantly), and various Nemophila/Clarkia. Again, there's pretty much nothing on the internet warning against them; some websites even claim they're locally native here. So it's no surprise even the world-class botanical institutions* are doing these for their native gardens, as opposed to popcornflowers and Zeltnera venusta and Linanthus dianthiflorus and Camissoniopsis. L. dianthiuflorus and popcornflowers are barely even commercially available. Sigh.

*I know the NHMLA is doing this on purpose for its own reasons, and while I don't entirely agree with that (mostly I fear it will cause shenanigans related to insect microevolution) I'm going to let it off the hook. On the other hand, I'm giving the Huntington's semi-"free-range" Nemophila and Gilia population a rather concerned glance, although they're unlikely to escape compared to the ones around Peck Road Water Conservation Park.

Update re: Griffith teneb transplant

 Luck was had. Here is every live individual caught for the transplant.

Also I found some feather millipedes under a really unpromising-looking log only a few yards away from Griffith's irrigated lawn (I didn't keep the pedes of course, they are notorious for dying in culture). But it was neat that such a sensitive specialist is still managing to survive in such a terrible-seeming habitat. There were no visible macrofungi and the wood smelled awful, as seems to be typical for wood in this county.

New pet

 

Was messing around at Santa Fe Dam and found this Eleodes carbonaria individual under a wood chunk. Although rather plain-looking, I knew at first sight that this was one of the rarely-encountered Eleodes species but it wouldn't hold still so I put it in a vial to photograph later.

Well, guess who accidentally brought themself home a darkling? Yeah, you guessed it. I totally forgot about the vial and went home and, well, then I was stuck at home with a darkling in a vial.


I've noticed that this species doesn't run around rabidly in circles like E. acuticauda and gracilis (and Coniontis) do. Instead, it sleeps most of the day and most of the night, and when it does come out (usually to eat fruits and vegetables) it seems pretty calm. Also, I'm really a fan of the way its elytra and pronotum have matching textures, and how its gait is smooth and fluid instead of clunky like acuticauda/gracilis and a lot of the other long-legged darklings. Was this thing custom made to appeal to me?

Anyways, it's certainly no fun watching a beetle that spends much of its life asleep, but I like its not-circling behavior so I'll keep it captive for now in hopes that maybe I'll be able to captive breed a colony and release specimens to places in need of darkling repopulation. Also, speaking of which, I'm heading to Griffith Park to catch some darklings (to throw into NHMLA) tomorrow, wish me luck. I'll probably avoid tossing non-Griffith ones into NHMLA for the sake of local genetics, just in case the museum decides to build a wildlife corridor all the way into the hills one day far into the future.

Added more cactus to Plymouth

 Also a Dictyobia I caught died from overheating even tho I gave it shade (apparently the mere air was too hot). Ouch.

I'm trying out hosts that aren't white sages to see if dicty will become less tantrum-prone on them.

C. sanguinicollis grubs hatched a few days ago

They lack the obnoxious climbing obsession of the adults. I've been following standard Cryptocephalus care protocols for them, and they've been making holes in brown rose petals, lettuce, etc. Of note is that the lettuce was eaten while still green.

I've kept them too humid and their shit shells have been getting moldy, which is not good, but other than that they all seem to be doing pretty ok.


Also did a checkup on the macrosterno-things. The two that were alive are still alive; bigger one has gut full of wood/leaf and acts like a normal bug, smaller one has unfilled digestive tract and was curled up, almost but not entirely unresponsive. Not sure if latter in premolt, some sort of aestivation, or is about to die.

P. vert? to Huntington

 Title says it, pretty much. Read up on metapopulation dynamics and water-mediated herbivory effects, released more sunflower bush leaf beetles at Huntington. Gave acquaintance more scrubland Anthonomus.

Plagiognathus verticalis? introduced to Plymouth

I accidentally killed one because it squeezed itself into a tight end of the bag and got squished until the juice came out. Not sure how it died, given that I was careful not to pinch the tight ends, but now I know not to carry squishy insects in non-rigid containers. Really need to reduce the death rate, it makes me feel bad and also can be problematic for practical reasons when target insects occur at low population densities. Anyways, the survivors fed on a sunflower bush's sunflower and stayed on it for at least a while, on the other hand one I put on a yarrow tried to probe it but quickly gave up and flew away.

Of note is that P. moerens has high dispersal ability and can fly large distances from suitable reproductive hosts (undoubtedly aided by an ability to consume nectar from nutritionally inadequate secondary hosts) and that P. verticalis doesn't normally if ever occur in urban/suburban native plantings. Maybe this is like how Oncopeltus has a tendency to unwittingly fly over small patches of milkweed? Or if we're going to be pessimistic maybe the artificial native gardens simply don't have the right living conditions.

Loensia maculosa dies

 I have good reason to blame the yeast paste being inadequate nutrition. I had a feeling that would happen but the animal showed no clear signs of the frantic behavior one often sees in insects being kept incorrectly, so it caught me off guard.

Boring updates of the day

 - Church dodder is huge now and flowering. I also got myself the small presumably-annual species from Santa Fe Dam. Unfortunately my personal subinclusa culture has fizzled out because the plants were too dumb to grow downwards, and I'm trying to reestablish it from cuttings of the bit I put into the church.

- Grabbed myself a Loensia maculosa specimen. Call it maladaptive coping mechanisms, because honestly non-indoors Psocodea consistently seem to be among the most painful of the detritivore taxa to feed (it would not eat a lot of things tenebrionids, isopods, etc. love). I have it in a dry container full of dead leaves/petals smeared with yeast (it doesn't seem to require drinking water or even juicy food and apparently is one of those species that magically hydrates itself out of thin air), and it did eat the yeast, but seemingly refuses to eat anything else. I know L. maculosa is a facultative synanthrope (specimens have even been recorded from bark of Eucalyptus) and thus of relatively little conservation value, but in this day and age, well, one never knows.* I collected mine from native plant wilderness though, maybe the wilderness genotypes are different from the urban ones? Something something intraspecific invasive genotypes something something? Also I threw in a probable Blaste oregona nymph (suburban origin, not from native vegetation stand) in with it a few minutes ago on a whim. This seemed to go poorly so I re-released the nymph.

*I keep hearing about potential declines of synanthropic birds and native semiweedy flora.

- At least one of the macrosternodesmids? is still alive and eating. Now that the weird horrible mold has left their enclosure and the dirt actually smells nice I've dared to put in dead leaves more generously, and the Hibiscus ones are being eaten enthusiastically.

- F2 generation of haplodesmids? produced, although my attempts to delete excess eggs have prevented a population explosion. Nevertheless some of the F1s apparently died for some reason and I feel bad about it (although I still have way too many of the species for my and their own good).

- Sent some more misc. insects to acquaintance for potential conservation-rearing.

- Asterella californica project severely stalled due to rains and resulting mudslide and resulting forest closure, the ones in my culture are doing okay tho. The Sphaerocarpos in the same cup suffered a huge dieoff as I kept the dirt slightly too dry (was trying to prevent soil algae), but I still have some balloonworts alive in another cup.

I should stop calling it "sunflower etc. project", the emphasis on sunflowers is getting rather misleading now

In one of those depression moods again (I say "again" as if I had ever stopped being sad), but here's the important stuff:

- Attempting to rear Pachybrachis bivittatus with an acquaintance (pic credits his). He reports they don't do the obnoxious "continuously try to escape via ceiling" thing. Also, he's discovered the adult not only eats willows but will also reluctantly consume Baccharis. New host record. Also threw in some hemipteran hoppers in his rearing jar.

- He's also trying to rear a native-looking Anthonomus I found.

- Turns out Closterocoris amoenus (I have confirmed them as such due to having reared to adult) and Dictyobia were getting restless and stressed due to host plant phytochemical reasons (I did a little controlled-variable experiment and ruled out overheating, lack of leaflitter shelter to hide in, sleeve interfering w sap flow, etc.) Evidently some hosts are simply unsuitable even when other identical-looking ones are not. The adults I reared seemed to have molted more from their stored calories than any new nutrition gained while sleeved on my host at home, although they did feed with reluctance on the latter (and somewhat less reluctantly on supplemental honeyed cashews I offered). If you really want to see pics of them go stalk my Bugguide. In any case, I will not be attempting to rear any more hemipterans that show this sort of severe host-intraspecific pickiness for now. I already have enough blood on my hands.

- The adult Cryptocephalus may have been awful captives, but they did leave some egg capsules behind if I didn't mention that before. They look similar to those made by other members of the genus. None have hatched as far as I can tell.

- Threw some more gray Spastonyx? into Plymouth a few days ago. Several if not all have survived till today.

By the way, if you're a biohistorian from the future and are reading all this to figure out whether some distributional anomalies were my doing, rest assured that I am extremely cautious not to forget to mention any insects I've relocated to non-captive habitats (I may be sloppy with the tags these days but not the actual post documentation). By the other way, it seems that fasciatus-morphospecies Oncopeltus wildtypes experience low mortality on a diet of honeyed cashews and Asclepias curassavica buds/flowers/leaves when no fruits/seeds are available (as opposed to reports in the literature of high mortality when offered only sunflower seeds/cashew and water, or only vegetative/floral milkweed parts but nothing else).