The Home Bug Garden

Friday Bug: Cosmopepla and Stachys

2012-01-27T15:18:00.002-07:00

Two Twice-stabbed Stinkbugs do their thing on a bed of Hairy Hedgenettle

Bug blogging is fun, but also a chore that I find hard to keep near the top of the list of things to do. A major reason for that is my tendency for prolixity and another is that once I start a post I tend to get interested, dig deeper, and blather on. I guess those two reasons are actually one and the same and the solution obvious: a day with only short, simple posts. Here's a bug: isn't it pretty (not a question).

More 2-stab bugs with flowers

So, here’s my new attempt to increase my productivity but reduce my prolixity: Friday Bug. First up is the Twice-Stabbed (i.e. two blood-red spots) Stinkbug now correctly known as Cosmopepla lintneriana Kirkaldy, 1909 (but with one of those long and complex nomenclatorial histories that I tend to run on about – short story: it was once Cimex carnifex Fabricius, 1798, then Pentatoma bimaculata Thomas,1865; and later and best , but wrongly, known as Cosmopepla bimaculata (Thomas, 1865)).

Twice-stabbed is a point of view

One of the interesting things about the Twice-Stabbed Stinkbug is that it seems to prefer to mix sex with flowers and so one has the opportunity to obtain colourful images. One can even find aggregations of butt-to-butt bugs on flowers; perhaps, as a result of males emitting a chemical scent that attracts females (and perhaps other competing males).

Bugs with purving crane fly

Additionally, of course, stinkbugs are interesting because they stink. Krall et al. (1999) can tell you all about the chemical composition of the stink glands (aka metathoracic glands). More interestingly, they observed bugs have a good deal of control over their metathoracic glands and can shoot off one or the other or both if they so desire. Also, they nicely demonstrate that birds and a lizard are repulsed by bugs with full stink glands (but not with depleted glands).

Pasque flower seeds spark bug passion

Apparently, Ted MacRae’s cat likes to eat Twice-stabbed Stinkers, but in general, the bright black and red colouration and stink gland chemicals probably act as warning and revulsion to visually orienting vertebrate predators.

Yes, I smell and taste bad: Beware!

On a final fine note, the Twice-Stabbed Stinkbug has actually been studied in Alberta – and even better – the brief paper is now freely available.

Just hatched on a pea leaf - not a good sign

Only a few entomological journals are open access – Psyche and The Florida Entomologist come to mind. But the late, great Quaestiones Entomologicae has now joined these ranks thanks to the generosity of the many authors who have made their papers available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License and Kipling Will at the University of Califonria Berkeley who digitized the papers.

Twice-stabbed nymph in flower cluster

The Twice-Stabbed Stinkbug is a host generalist, but feeds almost entirely on seeds. So, finding them on your peas is not good, but on your garden flowers, not so bad. In Alberta, one preferred host is hedge nettle Stachys palustris. Well, that is what I thought anyway, but it isn’t only bug names that change. It seems former subspecies is now considered a distinct species by some: Stachys pilosa – Hairy Hedgenettle.

New & improved Stachys pilosa

In any case, except in New Jersey where a subspecies of S. pilosa is considered endangered, hedgenettle is doing fine and Twice-stabbed Stinkbug can’t be considered much of a pest. However, there is a crop species of hedgenettle – the Chinese Artichoke (aka Crosne, Chorogi) Stachys affinis.

Chinese Artichokes in Year III - a good crop for those who don't need to eat much

I’ve been trying to grow Chinese Artichoke for the last three years here in Alberta. The good news is that so far they have overwintered. The bad news is the tubers haven’t gotten very big (about half of marketable size) and the plants have never flowered. Our growing season is too short. On the other hand, no flowers = no seeds. So, Twice-stabbed Stinkbug will never be a pest and crosnes never a weed (they are naturalized in New York). Well, not a short and sweet post, but at least done and on Friday.

Crosne yield after 3 years (less nibbles)

References:

McDonald JD. 1968. The life history of Cosmopepla (Thomas) (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) in Alberta Quaestiones Entomologicae 4 (2): 35-38.http://nature.berkeley.edu/%7Ekiplingw/QE%20documents%20for%20public/McDonald%201968%20QEv4n2%2035_38%20CC%20released.pdf

Krall BS; Bartelt RJ; Lewis CJ; et al. 1999. Chemical defense in the stink bug Cosmopepla bimaculata . Journal of Chemical Ecology 25 (11): 2477-2494 DOI: 10.1023/A:1020822107806

http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=100746

Clivia Foodweb: Part II

2012-01-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

Simple Food Chain: bulb - mite - mite

A few weeks ago I introduced the actors in the unfortunate demise of one of my favourite bulbs, a hybrid Clivia. Above is a simple food chain showing the relationships between the three most important species. Red arrows point to the consumer from the organism being consumed: what is eating what. The primary miscreant in this story is the Bulb Mite Rhizoglyphus robini Claparède, 1869. Bulb Mites are major pests of stored bulbs and of field crops such as onions. The predatory mite Gaeolaelaps aculeifer (Canestrini, 1884) is known to be an effective biological control agent. Well, the most abundant predatory mite in my Clivia pot turns out to be this same predator. So why did my bulbs still rot and die?

Bulb Mites don't eat just bulbs

Well, one reason is that Bulb Mites don't just eat bulb tissue. In fact, they would probably starve if all they had to feed on was healthy bulbs. Instead, they vector microbes that rot the bulbs and are attracted to small wounds on a bulb which they inoculate with disease causing microbes. Bulb Mites get most of their nutrition from these microbes. The bad (and opportunistic) microbes eat the bulbs. The predatory mites can do little to save a bulb that is already being eaten by microbes, but they may reduce the population of mites enough so that other healthy bulbs do not get infected.

A more representative food web

A second reason that the Predatory Mites may not have saved my Clivia is that they are not specialist predators on Bulb Mites. Gaeolaelaps aculeifer are very aggressive and will attack and eat any small arthropod or worm that they can overcome. The soil extracted from the Clivia pot had lots of tiny worms and tiny arthropods to distract the Predatory Mite from doing its job. Soil has many bacteria and fungi that live off of nutrients that leak out of roots or are present in humus and these microbes are necessary to healthy soil. These microbes are the primary foods of most of the small mites, springtails, and worms that live in pots with healthy plants.

Actors in the Clivia soil food web

Each of the three representations above of what is eating what have gotten more and more complex. The first is a simple food chain that represents the most important elements of the story if your primary interest is growing healthy bulbs. The first level of the chain is a primary producer (Clivia) that captures sunlight and makes plant matter. The second a primary consumer, the Bulb Mite. The third a secondary consumer, the Predatory Mite. Each of the next two representations of the feeding interactions adds more reality and complexity: a simple chain becomes more like a web of interactions. But the Clivia extractions had a dozen species of arthropods: 8 species of mites, 2 of springtails, and 2 of rove beetles.

A soil food web based on Clivia bulbs

This is the best that I can do to enumerate the feeding interactions in one pot of soil with a couple rotting Clivia bulbs. The good news is that except for the two species of bulb mites, the other animals are harmless or beneficial. The Rove Beetles are probably the top predators in this system - munching on all the smaller arthropods and worms. But I haven't found any papers that give details of their diets other than that Anotylus insecatus is known too feed on bulb maggots. Besides, if I had to draw in arrows linking the Rove Beetles to their probable prey, then things would really get messy. But, that's the way Nature operates.

What’s Afoot in the AB Winter: 8-legged Moose Nightmare

2012-01-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

Male Winter Tick

As a general rule, I don’t like ticks. Actually, that is an understatement: I loathe ticks! But it is winter and, even during this unusually mild version, there are few arthropods around to enliven the out-of-doors. Here’s an exception that showed up with the New Year, a bit earlier than expected, but a real live winter arthropod and not unattractive at that. My appreciation of this rather large (6.6. mm long) blood-sucking 8-legged fiend is influenced by the knowledge that it probably wouldn’t bite me: it is a male Winter Tick, Dermacentor albipictus (Packard, 1869).

Winter Tick-infested Moose - 3:12 AM
trail camera shot

Winter Ticks appear to prefer to suck the blood of moose and their relatives (Cervidae – moose, elk, deer, caribou). Moose can be very heavily infested - the average load in late winter is 30,000 ticks (see Samuel* 2004 p. 31). Heavily infested moose spend more time rubbing up against trees and the like trying to remove the itchy ticks than feeding. The result is a Ghost Moose – skinny, with ragged coats, open sores, and a grey-white colour. Many such moose will die overwinter, but if they can last until May, most of the ticks will have dropped off and they have a chance to recover.

Ghost Moose at Dawn

Winter Ticks are the only ticks you are likely to find in Alberta in the winter, so identification is not too challenging. The adults are ornate ticks, i.e. the dorsal plate (covering the whole body in the male, but only the part just behind the ‘head’ in females) is patterned and they have 11 posterior festoons (the tooth-like grin at the rear). A pair of small eyes on the margins of the plate and a spiracular plate with large ‘goblet cells’ (unless you know what small goblet cells look like, this isn’t a great character) completes the identification. Males also have a distinctively formed spur on the base of the first pair of legs. Adult males are not above wandering around looking for females, so you or your dog may pick-up one of these ticks while on a winter hike on a mild day. Usually, they would keep wandering until they found a moose with female ticks, but if they are more hungry than horny, the males may bite (or at least I was brought a Winter Tick male that someone claimed bit them near their eye).

Winter Ticks have eyes too (arrow)

Most hard ticks (Ixodidae - the family that includes the Winter Tick) have three different hosts during their life cycle – one of the reasons they are so likely to pick-up and transmit a disease causing pathogen. Each life stage - larva, nymph, and adult – attaches to and feeds on the blood of a host until full and then drops off. Winter Ticks, however, usually spend most of their lives on the same host. The best place to learn about the fascinating story of the Winter Tick is Bill Samuel’s book (see below*), and SRD kindly provides a good factsheet, but I’ll give a quick overview of the highlights.

Mouthparts (upper) and coxal spur (lower)

From late winter until early spring, you can find female Winter Ticks as blood-filled blobs (to ~1.5 cm diameter) attached to moose and other members of the Cervidae (deer, elk, moose, caribou), and rarely on other large herbivores (bison, cattle, horses) or smaller mammals (coyotes). Males feed a bit, but do not bloat, and wander the moose looking for females to mate. Once the females have dropped off to lay their eggs (about 5000 each), you might come across them on the ground or in the litter around moose wallows and the like. Some of these female ticks may have been buried in the litter by magpies – which will also eat the ticks directly off the moose.

Magpies - boreal tick birds

Tick eggs lie dormant until late summer to early fall when they hatch into tiny (<1mm) seed ticks (larvae – with only 3 pairs of legs). Seed ticks hunt moose, usually by hanging on to low vegetation and grabbing a moose when it walks by. Sometimes larvae get on people by mistake, as we, much to our horror, found out one September, but they don't attach. The larva wanders the moose until it finds a good site to bite through the skin, suck blood, and then shed its skin to become a nymph. Nymphs hang out and wait for things to get cold before sucking enough blood to moult into adults.

Moose Fly - the business end

You’d think that Winter Tick would be all the parasite nastiness that any animal should have to endure, but Mother Nature has a summer surprise for moose too - Haematobosca alcis (Snow, 1891), the Moose Fly. Just as the moose is beginning to recover its condition in early summer, these housefly-sized pests start to appear. The flies hang out on the back legs of moose, pierce the skin with their long proboscis, and cause large, open sores from which they feed.

Sores from Moose Fly bites

If you notice a cloud of flies around the rear of a moose in summer, especially if there are sores on the hind legs, you are likely seeing Moose Flies. The flies lay their eggs in moose dropping, the larval food, so moose give these pests pretty much everything they need. The sores don't heal until frost kills off the adult flies but tend not to fester either. So, it seems likely that the flies introduce a substance that protects the sores from bacteria. You can read all the gory details at another SRD factsheet and see better pictures of the sores than we have here. Next time I’m feeling persecuted by the mozzies, I think I’ll reflect on the life of the moose, and not complain so much.

References:

*Bill Samuel. 2004. "White as a Ghost: Winter Ticks & Moose" Federation of Alberta Naturalists.

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. 2004. Winter Tick - Fact Sheet #21. http://srd.alberta.ca/fishwildlife/WildlifeDiseases/documents/Winter_ticks.pdf

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. 2010. Moose Flies - Fact Sheet #30.

http://www.srd.alberta.ca/fishwildlife/WildlifeDiseases/documents/MooseFliesFactSheet-Aug2010.pdf

The Clivia Food Web: Part I

2012-01-01T15:49:00.001-07:00

Natal Lily (Clivia hybrid) in flower

Bulbs are one of the Home Bug Gardener's obsessions. Not that most bulbs are especially useful plants for promoting insect conservation in the Aspen Parkland of Alberta, but anticipation of the blooming of the 2000 or so spring bulbs that inhabit my yard does help fight off the winter gloom. The most spectacular of my bulbs, however, blooms in the Fall - a Clivia hybrid given to us by a friend. Or rather I should say bloomed in the Fall, which it did in 2010. Last Autumn, though, they could barely muster a few yellowed and sickly leaves. Still I brought the pot inside when the frosts came (Natal Lily hails from Southern Africa) and hoped for the best.

Rove Beetle from Clivia pot - Anotylus insecatus

When a plant starts looking sickly there is often an arthropod or a microbe to blame (or an incompetent gardener) and when one finds an insect associated with a sick plant it is easy to assume the worst. The small (4.5 mm long) rove beetle above, Anotylus insecatus (Gravenhorst, 1806), is both an invasive alien insect and associated with rotting bulbs - so finding it in my Clivia pot was not encouraging. However, the beetle is probably a predator of bulb maggots and other pests (see Campbell & Tomlin 1983) and not a pest itself. Still, as Fall became Winter and no new growth or flower stalks appeared, something would seem to be rotten.

Clivia pot worms, insects, springtails, and mites

A few weeks ago I repotted the Clivia - and yes, half the bulbs were rotting - and sent the soil and slimy bulbs off to the University for extraction. All you need to extract arthropods from soil is an incandescent light bulb, a funnel, a screen, and a small container that fits the stem of the funnel. From these simple ingredients you can assemble a Berlese Funnel (aka Tullgren Funnel) and start learning about the animals that live in soil. As the light bulb dries out the soil, the animals follow the moisture gradient down, pass through the screen, and tumble into the collecting container. Berlese funnels work best for arthropods, but some worms and snails will come through too. The Clivia pot turned out to have a lot of inhabitants (see above): an earthworm (large worm at left above); another kind of rove beetle (black and about 4 mm long), as yet unidentified; several pot worms (Enchytraeidae - the small white worms mid-picture); and a host of springtails and mites. The good news: lots of harmless soil animals and no bulb maggots; the bad news: lots of bulb mites.

Unfortunately, most of the mites from the extraction were the notorious Bulb Mite Rhizoglyphus robini Claparède, 1869. Bulb mites do best in cold, wet weather - like last summer - and once a bulb is colonized, they are difficult to eliminate. But - the second most abundant mite in this extraction was a predatory mite in the genus Gaeolaelaps (also called Hypoaspis). Izabela Lesna and her colleagues in the Netherlands have shown that Gaeolaelaps aculeifer (Canestrini, 1884) can be an effective biological control agent of bulb mites. If only I had been a bit lazier and waited to repot the bulbs until later in the New Year, the problem may have solved itself. Still, I now have the makings of a map of the feeding relationships inside my former pot of Clivia - a food web. That sounds like a good project for the New Year and a chance to contribute to the Wildlife in Our Homes Project.

Mystery Rove Beetle from Clivia pot soil

References:

Campbell JM, Tomlin AD. 1983. The First Record of the Palearctic Species Anotylus insecatus (Gravenhorst) (Coleoptera:Staphylinidae) from North America.The Coleopterists Bulletin 37(4): 309-313. http://www.jstor.org/pss/4008251

Lesna I, Sabelis M, Conijn C. 1996. Biological Control of the Bulb Mite, Rhizoglyphus robini, by the Predatory Mite, Hypoaspis aculeifer, on Lilies: Predator-Prey Interactions at Various Spatial Scales. Journal of Applied Ecology 33(2 ): 369-376 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2404758

What's afoot in the Winter in the Home Bug Garden?

2011-12-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Young Basement Spider Tegenaria domestica

I've always found the first official day of winter somewhat strange, coming as it does, months after winter actually starts. I guess there must be some rhyme or reason to picking the solstice as the beginning of winter instead of say, Winter Hump Day. In much of the world today would be well on the way to Spring. Not in Edmonton, though, we've still a long way to go if previous years are any indication.

A typical March in the Home Bug Garden

So what is the arthropod addict to do with so many more months of winter in the way? Well, our friend John Acorn has come up with the Arthropod Winter Challenge! How many living arthropods can we find in Alberta in the winter? John thinks we can find more arthropod than bird species. Well, inside our house that certainly is true - first look around found three species of arthropods including the half grown Funnel-web Spider (Agelenidae) at the top. That is not quite fair to the birds - we have none to compete - but outside? Yes, there is a cornucopia of arthropods outside that brave the winter weather - but you need to look very closely for them and for many you need to put your nose to the ground.

Microarthropods from a few handfuls of spruce litter under the deep snows of last winter

All gardeners know that a good blanket of snow protects their plants from winter extremes, but even in very cold climates a good snow cover can also capture enough warmth for the tiny animals (microarthropods, nematodes, tardigrades, etc.) and microbes that live in the soil to go about their business. A few degrees above freezing is all they need; but so far, snow has been relatively scarce in Edmonton this winter and so no layer of relative warmth has been trapped. And, while I've enjoyed the less than usual shovelling, it has put a bit of a damper on my response to John's challenge.

A Fairy Wasp (Mymaridae, Polynema sp.) from under last winter's snow

Well, we Edmontonians know that good weather rarely lasts long and I expect that in the New Year I'll have a chance to see quite a bit more snow. I'll take comfort in knowing that under that snow my plants will be safer and there will be tiny arthropods having a good time, like the Fairy Wasp above. This tiny wasp - 0.6 mm long from head to tip of its ovipositor - is a parasite of the eggs of leafhoppers. Bad news for baby bugs, but good news for the garden.

A Week for the Bugs: Part I – It’s all in the beak

2011-11-26T16:39:00.001-07:00

Very young bugs with thrips, their close relatives

Last week I did something that has become unusual for me: I went to an Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (its 59th). Yes, I was one of about four thousand bug-obsessed people who descended on Reno, Nevada, for 5 days of presentations on the current state of entomological research in North America (and the World). One bug or another was the buzz for each and every of the 2,200 presentations from entomologists from all over the United States and three dozen other countries. Well, bugs in the common sense, anyway.

A stink bug deploys its all important beak

When I was a child, defining a bug was simple: if it scurried on spiny legs and wasn’t a spider, it was a bug. Such logic sufficed for a child, but as I grew older and began my indoctrination into the entomological mysteries, I learned that there were ‘bugs’ for the common people and ‘true bugs’ for scientists.

A lightening 'bug' is actually a beetle (Ellychnia corrusca)

The Heteroptera Latreille, 1810, then an order of about 40,000 species of insects, contains the 'true bugs’. As adults, most heteropterans have ‘different wings’, that is the front pair are hardened and thickened (except towards the tips) and the rear pair are larger and translucent. Heteropterans also have their mouthparts formed into a beak or proboscis for piercing and sucking the juices of insects, plants, or even people.

A seed bug Peritrechus fraternus

The true bugs of my youth included the always creepily interesting assassin bugs and ambush bugs. Then there were the pesky plant bugs, lace bugs, leaf-footed bugs, seed bugs, and the smelly and foul-tasting stink bugs. A trip to a pond or stream revealed armies of water bugs, usually going by other names such as toe-nippers, backswimmers, waterboatmen, and water striders.

Bug eats bug - note membranous hind wings of victim

Perhaps the most infamous of true bugs are the bed bugs (family Cimicidae). Along the road to becoming blood-sucking parasites, an ancestor of the bed bugs lost its wings, but otherwise they are typical bugs. Well, so they said, but I never saw one until I was much older. Along the road to becoming a university professor, I lost the Heteroptera as an order, but I gained a world where bed bugs are now common.

Two bed bugs from Queensland with beaks deployed

Heteroptera was good enough to get me through university, and as a suborder sustains me still, but science moves on and today’s true bugs now include the Homoptera (‘same wing’) of my youth. What was once Homoptera have a host of common names. Aphids, plant lice, whiteflies, mealybugs, and scale insects are familiar to anyone who has tried to grow a plant. And then there are the noisy cicadas (aka locusts); bizarre lanternflies; and far too numerous hoppers (plant-, leaf-, tree-, and frog-) and spittlebugs.

Meet the bugs in spittlebug

I suppose, 'spittlebug' should now be two words, ‘spittle bug’, at least for those who feel that common names must follow the current scientific wisdom. All bugs with similar piercing-sucking mouthparts, irrespective of their common names, are now subsumed in the older ordinal name Hemiptera (‘half wings’) of Linnaeus, 1758.

A 'throat beak' leafhopper Colladonus belli (Uhler, 1877)

The Homoptera is well and truly gone (see Gullan 1999) and has been replaced by two tongue-twisters. Auchenorrhyncha is, I assume, from the Greek for ‘throat beak’ and referring to an anterior origin of the proboscis. This includes the 42,000 or so species of cicadas, laternflies, and assorted hoppers and spittle bugs.

'Breast-beaked' Giant Lupine Aphids (with thrips)

The Sternorrhyncha or ‘breast beaks’ have a more posterior proboscis as in the 15,000 or so species of aphids, plant lice, and their scaly, mealy and whitefly relatives. Don’t get too attached to these names, though, because scientific progress may shatter them as well. Some day, a grouchy old throat-beak lover may be bemoaning the Auchenorrhyncha of his youth.

Water strider, currently secure in suborder Heteroptera

Reference

Gullan, PJ (1999). "Why the taxon Homoptera does not exist". Entomologica 33: 101–104.

How to Know a Fly, Part II: Fruit, Pomace, Names & Patterned Wings

2011-11-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

Drosophila 'fruit fly' or 'dew fly'?

Tiny flies with red eyes hover over many a bowl of fruit. I suppose that is why we call them fruit flies, but therein reigns imprecision, confusion, and bad wine. I suppose the most well known fruit fly must be Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, 1830, because it inhabits biology and genetics textbooks the world over. My translations of the genus and species names are ‘dew lover’ and ‘black belly’, neither exactly fruity, but seemingly in agreement with other translations. Carl Fredrik Fallén proposed the name Drosophila in 1823 with Musca funebris Fabricius, 1787, as the type species. Funebris is Latin for funeral or death. That would seem to leave us with the equally fruitless ‘Death’s Dew-Lover’ as the type species of the type genus of the 'fruit fly' family Drosophilidae. No wonder, many entomologists, especially if they work in horticulture or quarantine, use ‘Fruit Fly’ for another family: the Tephritidae.

Adult Apple Maggot - a real Fruit Fly (Tephritidae)

Admittedly, although the Tephritidae does contain many economically important pests of fruit, the name may be derived from the Greek for ashes or ash-coloured. Species of Tephritis Griffith & Pidgeon, 1832, do not occur in the Home Bug Garden, but another tephritid fly in the same tribe and with similar habits and similar looks does: Campiglossa albiceps (Loew, 1873). Like species of Tephritis, the maggots of this fly inhabit the 'flowers' (actually heads of many small florets) of plants in the Asteraceae (asters, daisies, goldenrod etc.) and eat the seeds (achenes), but to a botanist achenes are the fruits, so we have some consistency.

Campiglossa albiceps - a tephritid Fruit Fly of ashy mien?

No joy for the etymologist with Tephritidae, but I’m not the only one to find the conjunction of ‘fruit fly’ and Drosophila objectionable. The eminent geneticist MM Green (2002) has a delightful rant in the journal Genetics on the diversity of habitats infested by drosophilid ‘fruit flies’. Perhaps the only thing that ties together the ecology of most species of Drosophila is a fondness for rotten things. Green points out that ‘Pomace Fly’ was the preferred common name in 20^th Century genetics texts until the Roaring Twenties when ‘Vinegar Fly’ and the infamous ‘Fruit Fly’ started slugging it out.

Scaptomyza sp. a drosophilid 'fruit fly' that breeds in rotting leaves

As anyone who has allowed Drosophila to get into his or her fermenting mash might know, Vinegar Fly is an all too appropriate name: Drosophila carry the microbes that compete with wine yeasts. Pomice, the mush leftover after fruit hs been juiced, also makes a nice base for a common name. For most of the flies in the family Drosophilidae whose larval habits are known, it is the rot in the fruit that makes their habitat. The maggots tend to feed on the yeasts and bacteria that develop (probably after having been introduced by adult flies) in spoiled or damage leaves, fruit, nuts, cacti, sap fluxes, mushrooms, and similarly liquefying plant substrates. Perhaps Fallén knew what he was writing about.

Leucophenga sp. a drosophilid 'fruit fly' associated with mushrooms

But even if Fallén was trying to make his name reflect the behaviour of his species, why should we care? Common names are not for scientists. Besides, generalizing about the habits of a family of insects, or even a genus, is likely to lead to error. There are drosophilid maggots that eat fresh water algae, hang out in the gills of land crabs, live in flowers, mine leaves or stems, and even one or two species that attack fresh fruit. Evolution tends towards the opportunistic and if the right opportunity presents itself an insect is likely to try and take it on. An example of opportunism is the drosophilid Chymomyza amoena (Loew, 1862) – a gift from North America to Europe. This fly breeds in a variety of fallen fruit, acorns, and nuts in Eastern North America and is now spreading through apple and chestnut orchards in Europe. Apparently, there are no European ‘fruit flies’ that fill this niche, and our native is happy to oblige (see Burla 1997, Band et al. 2005, Matteson et al. 2007 in references below).

Chymomyza ('juice fly') from AB that breeds in wounds on aspen trunks

The only Chymomyza I’ve seen in Alberta lacks the patterned wings (or boldly contrasting legs – see Eberhard 2002 in refs below) that are used for sexual signaling in both drosophilid and tephritid (and many other) flies and prefers oozing sap to fruit. However, we do have our ‘true’ Fruit Fly: the Apple Maggot (aka Railroad Worm – presumably from the winding trail of the maggot in the fruit) Rhagoletis pomonella (Walsh, 1867) to entertain us. This fly appears to have originated in North America as a maggot in the fruit of hawthorns (genus Crataegus). Like apples, to which they are related, hawthorns have attractive white flowers in the spring (the White Hawthorn is the state flower of Missouri) and red fruit that somewhat resemble tiny apples. When apples started to outnumber hawthorns, some hawthorn flies switched hosts to give us our Apple Maggot. Although watching one strut around in one's garden is not a good sign, they are far more interesting than the cabbage maggots that wreck the broccoli, turnips, and radish.

Rhagoletis pomonella - not a welcome guest, but an attractive one

Well, enough is enough. As usual, what I thought would be a simple post on a few interesting ‘fruit flies’ that might take an hour or so has led to a weekend’s worth of ‘free time’ lost to reading about bugs (instead of doing chores). And I haven’t even gotten to the really interesting things like the ability of some Chymomyza species to survive freezing to −100 °C (see Koštála et al. 2011) or their use in exploring the ‘Timeless’ gene. I guess there are worse ways to waste one’s time, but just now I’m informed it is time for dinner and I’d better get cooking.

Campiglossa albiceps - a true fruit fly that eats flowers

References

Band HT. 1995. A note on the sympatric collection of Chymomyza (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in

Virginia's Allegheny Mountains. Great Lakes Entomologist 28(3-4): 217-220.

Band HT; Bachli G; Band RN. 2005. Behavioral constancy for interspecies dependency enables Nearctic Chymomyza amoena (Loew) (Diptera : Drosophilidae) to spread in orchards and forests in Central and Southern Europe. Biological Invasions 7(3): 509-530 DOI: 10.1007/s10530-004-6352-2

Band HT, Band RN & Bachli G. 2003. Nearctic Chymomyza amoena (Loew) is breeding in parasitized chestnuts and domestic apples in Northern Italy and is widespread in Austria. Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft 76(3-4):307-318.

Burla, Hans. 1997. Natural breeding sites of Chymomyza species (Diptera, Drosophilidae) in Switzerland. Part II. Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft 70(1-2): 35-41.

Eberhard William G. 2002. Natural history and behavior of Chymomyza mycopelates and C. exophthalma (Diptera: Drosophilidae), and allometry of structures used as signals, weapons, and spore collectors. Canadian Entomologist 134(5):667-687.

Green MM. 2002. It Really Is Not a Fruit Fly. Genetics 162:1-3.

Grimaldi, DA. 1990. A phylogenetic, revised classification of genera in the Drosophilidae (Diptera). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 197: 1–128.

Vladimír Koštála , Helena Zahradníčkováa,& Petr Šimeka. 2011. Hyperprolinemic larvae of the drosophilid fly, Chymomyza costata, survive cryopreservation in liquid nitrogen. PNAS 108(32): 13041–13046.

William Mattson, Henri Vanhanen, Timo Veteli, Sanna Sivonen & Pekka Niemela. 2007. Few immigrant phytophagous insects on woody plants in Europe: legacy of the European crucible? Biological Invasions 9:957–974 DOI 10.1007/s10530-007-9096-y

A long reach: Daddy-long-legs aka Harvestmen

2011-10-30T14:12:00.003-06:00

Meet Phalangium opilio Linnaeus, 1758

I've been trying to decide if a Daddy-long-legs would make a good Halloween costume, but I think the 'face' would be too strange to be scary and the legs far too long and cumbersome for walking around. Even capturing the legs in a photo of the body can be a problem.

Phalangium opilio has only one generation a year in the Home Bug Garden. At the moment they occur only as eggs hidden in the soil by the ovipositor of the female. In the spring, usually in late May, the tiny young can be seen scurrying around the garden, but one has to look closely to see them. By the end of June they are large enough to be noticed as they nonchalantly wander around feeding on small live insects, dead insects, bits of rotting fruit, and probably from pollen in the flowers they frequent. By the harvest season, they seem to be everywhere, and hence, their other common name.

Daddy-long-legs live up to their name - a front leg, about 6x the length of the body, reaches into the upper left corner of the picture.

Alberta is home to a half dozen or more 'native' species of Opiliones, the order of arachnids to which the Daddy-long-legs belongs, but our species isn't one of them. Phalangium opilio apparently came from Eurasian with the more recent waves of Eurasian colonists and, like the sowbugs in last week's post, is found mostly around people in cities and suburbs. We quite like ours, and can't see any reason not to. They don't bite, they don't bother, and they don't do any damage to the garden. Besides, I was told as a child that if you are lost, catch one, and knock off a leg, it will twitch in the direction of home.

Alien but inoffensive

Several other arthropods are called Daddy-long-legs including flies in the family Tipulidae and spiders in the family Pholcidae such as Pholcus phalangioides Fuesslin, 1775. These arthropods are easy to tell apart since the spider has a spider's waist and the crane fly has a pair of wings, unlike Phalangium opilio, which has neither waist nor wings at all. We have lots of craneflies in Alberta, but I have yet to see a daddy-long-legs spider. Although this is another of our arthropod synanthropes that have been moved around the world by people, they haven't made it to our basement.

Another kind of daddy-long-legs: Crane Fly (Tipulidae)

A bit of sun, an absence of wind, and the promise (but not yet the reality) of double digit temperatures (in Celsius) this Sunday, perhaps the last positive double digits we will see until April. Good reasons to get out into the garden, or what is left of it. Alas, it is a sad day for the birds - we have taken advantage of the relative warmth to turn off the bubbler, break the crust of ice, and pull the pump and filter out of the pond. The birds will continue to return for a couple of days, peering down the fountain hole, but no more water will be forthcoming until next spring.

Porcellio spinicornis Say: The Spine-horned Little Pigbug that didn’t belong

2011-10-22T17:55:00.002-06:00

A cluster of Edmontonian Sowbugs aka Woodlice when they aren't in a yard

Swans were winging their way overhead this morning, but the chill and the wind have kept what winged-insects are still about well hidden. It’s that time of the year for raking leaves, cutting down frost withered vines, composting rotting green tomatoes, and emptying pots of browned flowers. Moving pots, though, does give one the chance to observe some of the less obtrusive arthropods that skulk under them and scatter to any convenient crevice when disturbed. Among the skittering is one I have been meaning to write about for awhile, but never had the time to sit down and work out its proper name.

A freshly moulted Sowbug in an Edmonton backyard

What I did know was that the small, flat arthropods that were so common underneath things in my backyard were members of the crustacean order Isopoda (they have 7 pairs of legs). In Australia, I would have called these animals 'slaters', but when I was a kid in another land, I called them ‘so-bugs’. I got the common name, sowbugs, from a book and assumed it had something to do with them being scattered across the ground like sown grain. When you turned over a rock or board or moved a pot, they did sort of look like scattering grains, so the name seemed to make sense. But much to my embarrassment, as a young entomology student I learned that everyone else in North America called them ‘saughbugs’ after fancied resemblance to female pigs! Some sowbugs can roll into a ball (conglobation) when disturbed, and these are called pillbugs for a reason that was obvious even to me.

Conglobated Pillbug (probably Armadillidium vulgare) from BC

Well, whatever you call them, sowbugs are one of the more successful lineages of land animals. We usually think of crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, prawns, and the like) as being inhabitants of the oceans, but most of the 3600 described species of the suborder Oniscidea are fully terrestrial. An exception are members of the family Ligiidae that live an amphibious existence along the coast (see Ted MacRae’s great post). The earliest known fully terrestrial isopods are Eocene fossils from after the great extinction event that removed the dinosaurs inter alia at the end of the Cretaceous Period. Perhaps one or more ancestral amphibious sowbug found life on land easy in the brave new Eocene world, but in any case, their descendants have colonized most of the landmasses on earth (Antarctica and a few small islands excepted). Mostly they all do the same thing – eat decomposing plant matter and so are ‘good bugs’, at least to any gardener that likes a healthy garden.

Sowbug lurking in a crevice - something they do very well

Until about 9-10,000 years ago, Alberta was pretty much free of any animal life, let alone sowbugs. Any that once lived here would have been ground to dust by the glaciers and this state of affairs seems to have held until recently. My wife, who grew up in Edmonton and enjoyed turning over rocks to see what lived underneath, claims there were no sowbugs here when she was a child. Our friend John Acorn, a dedicated Albertan naturalist, supports her claim. Jass & Klausmeier (2000) list no records, whatsoever, of terrestrial isopods from Alberta. So, what is this slater living in my backyard?

Antennal spines (arrows), black head, dark midline stripe, yellow spots, arrangement of lungs, and other characters support Porcellio spinicornis Say, 1818

Answering that question is what took so much time; however, thanks to an excellent key by Stephen Hopkin (1991), the invaluable BugGuide, the University of Alberta library, and a certain terrier-like attitude to unnamed bugs by both Mr & Mrs HBG, we now have an answer. Back in 1818, Thomas Say, the great American naturalist, conchologist, entomologist, and nascent explorer, published a paper in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science (Philadelphia) on new species of Crustacea he had discovered in the United States. Among these hard shellfish was one whose ancestors left the oceans long ago and had spread far and wide on land: Porcellio spinicornis Say, 1818. Apparently, Say was impressed by the dorsal ridges on the second and third antennal segments that ended in stout spines (hence spini [L. spine] corn- [L. horn, or in this case, antenna]) and no doubt the attractive colours in the living animals. Presumably, Pierre André Latreille, who in 1804 named the genus with the Latin for a small pig was channeling the sowbug meme. However, this Spine-horned Little Pigbug should not be confused with another widely distributed sowbug, the Common Woodlouse Oniscus asellus L., 1758, a species that I have yet to see in Alberta.

Common Woodlouse from BC

Say appears to be wrong about the origin of his woodlouse. Today Porcellio spinicornis Say is considered one of about three dozen species of terrestrial isopods that have been introduced into the Americas from the ‘Old World’. This must have happened very early on, but now this species can be found in much of North America including Canada (although not officially in Alberta). Some pest control operators like sowbugs, because fussy homeowners find them distressing and are willing to spend money to have them sprayed into oblivion. I don’t see why. Although they do scurry about and hide under pots and the like, they appear to eat nothing except plant matter that has died and been overgrown with fungi and bacteria. This seems fine if they keep to cities and suburbia and so far, that is what they seem to do.

References

Hopkin SP. 1991. A key to the woodlice of Britain and Ireland. Field Studies Council AIDGAP Guides 204

Jass J & B Klausmeier. 2000. Endemics and immigrants: North American terrestrial isopods (Isopoda, Oniscidea) north of Mexico. Crustaceana 73 (7): 771-799.

Leistikow A & Wägele JW 1999. Checklist of the terrestrial isopods of the new world. (Crustacea, Isopoda, Oniscidea). Revta bras. Zool. 16 (1): 1 - 72,1 999

Lindroth CH. 1957. The Faunal connections between Europe and North America. Biodiversity Heritage Library http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/6759

McQueen DJ. 1976. Porcellio spinicornis Say (Isopoda) demography. II. A comparison between field and laboratory data. Can. J. Zool. 54: 825-842.

McQueen DJ & JS Carnio. 1974. A laboratory study of the effects of some climatic factors on the demography of the terrestrial isopod Porcellio spinicornis Say. Can. J . Zool. 52: 599-611.

Say, T., 1818. An account of the Crustacea of the United States. Journal of the Academy of Natural Science Philadelphia, 1: 235-253, 313-319, 374-401, 423-458.

Schmalfuss H. (2003): World catalog of terrestrial isopods (Isopoda: Oniscidea). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde, Serie A, Nr. 654: 341 pp.

Schmidt C. 2008. Phylogeny of the Terrestrial Isopoda (Oniscidea): a Review. Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny 66(2): 191-226.

Wine, Bacon, and Beetles

2011-10-14T19:11:00.000-06:00

A beetle that appreciates wine - the Picnic Beetle

Autumn has certainly settled in and as the leaves colour and fall, the other garden colours also fade away. Gone are the butterflies, yellowjackets, bumble bees, and flower flies. A few flowers still linger in spots sheltered from the frost, but only honeybees visit them. If you search around, there are still plenty of grey flies and midges. A small swarm of Dixella midges were dancing near the pond on a warm evening just last week. But the drabness of winter is clearly drawing neigh.

Glischrochilus fasciatus (Olivier, 1790)

So a colourful beetle is a welcome visitor, even if it seems intent on drowning in one's wine. Glischrochilus fasciatus (Olivier, 1790) has a number of boring common names based on its spots, but my favourite nom de bug is the Picnic Beetle. A member of the Sap Beetle family (Nitidulidae), well known for their fondness for fermenting plant juices, the Picnic Beetle often lives up to its name and pesters those of us that quaff our fermented drinks outdoors. The adult beetles overwinter, so their autumnal draughts are probably the last fun they'll have until the spring.

Dermestes lardarius - aka Bacon or Larder Beetle

Another, less colourful beetle, has also been around, but is not so welcome. Dermestes lardarius was named by Linnaeus himself in 1758 and now occurs around the world in people's homes. The most common common name seems to be the Larder Beetle, but I prefer the Bacon Beetle. Any beetle that likes bacon must have some redeeming qualities. Like the Picnic Beetle, the Bacon Beetle overwinters as an adult. The larvae prefer high protein foods and commonly dine on meat, pet food, and dead insects. I imagine they miss the good old days when hams and bacons were hung near the fireplace, but they seem to do just fine on what they can find now.

Hyssopus officinalis flowers into October

Bumbling with Bombus: I’m a bad, bad, bee

2011-10-07T17:00:00.000-06:00

Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumblebee Queen

September was mostly a dry and sunny month in Edmonton with the Home Bug Garden dipping to freezing only twiceand no lower than 1.3 C at the downtown airport. So, garden flowers, even themonkshoods that never quite manage to flower before being killed by frost, anda few of the insects that visit them (especially hover flies) have persistedunusually long this autumn. Outside the heat island of the City, though, we hadhard frosts (-4) at the Moose Pasture by mid-September. Frost and dryness putend to most of the flowers and only a few asters were still blooming. Well, wildasters and the coneflower (Echinaceapurpurea) we had planted on the edge of our small garden plot.

A usually too late bloomer Aconitum divergens

We didn’t expect much on our mid-September trip exceptgrasshoppers and dragonflies. So my wife didn’t bring her fancy camera, justthe point-and-shoot Canon Powershot SX20 that she uses for landscape photos.That caught us up short, because our coneflower, was hosting a small swarm ofbumblebees. Mostly these were queens of the Half-black Bumblebee (Bombus (Pyrobombus) vagans Smith,1854) stocking up for the winter hibernation and a couple of drones hanging onfor dear life. But one of the large black and yellow bees looked a bitdifferent – and so it was, an Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumblebee Bombus (Psithyrus) insularis(Smith, 1861).

Moose Pasture in mid-September 2011

When bumblebee queens start their nests in the spring,mostly they just work hard to get their colonies growing. But sometimes a queenwho has lost her nest or failed to start one will enter the colony of anotherand try to kill the resident queen and take over. This is called colonyusurpation or queen supercedure. Presumably environmental factors such asspring weather and the availability of nest sites influence how often thishappens, but usurpation can be common. As many as 20 dead queens have beenfound in a single nest (Kearns & Thomson 2001) indicating fiercecompetition for a site. Often a homeless queen tries to steal the nest ofanother of her species, but other Bombusspecies are also fair game. Some time in the distant past, one group ofbumblebees gave up on raising their own workers and became obligate socialparasites – invading nests, killing queens, and co-opting the resident workersto raise broods of cuckoo queens and drones. Compared to queens of othersubgenera of Bombus, cuckoos in thesubgenus Psithyrus are more heavilyarmoured, have larger mandibles, a longer curved sting, a more elaborate venomapparatus, more ovarioles, and lay smaller eggs (Fischer & Sampson 1992).So, Psithyrus species seem very welladapted to their nefarious activities.

Note yellow hairs on head, black on base of abdomen

Our Bombus (Psithyrus) species has acquired thecommon name of ‘Indescriminate’ and the data that GA Hobbs gathered in the1960s supports the name. Hobbsworked at what is now known as the Lethbridge Research Centre and most of hisdata is from the southern part of the Province. He found that what was thenknown as Psithyrus insularis was successful in usurping thenests of Bombus (Bombias) nevadensis, Bombus (Thoracobombus) fervidus(as B. (Fervidobombus) californicus),Bombus (Subterraneobombus) appositus,Bombus (Bombus) occidentalis and terricola, and many species of Bombus (Pyrobombus). For Pyrobombus,the most diverse and abundant Bombus inthe Edmonton area, Hobbs (1967) found 97/191 (51%) of the nests harboured the social parasite. This seems very high, but is similar to whathas been reported for European bumblebees parasitized by another species of Bombus (Psithyrus) (Erler & Lattorff 2010). If you think bumblebees are good, and you worry about their conservation, then this may be a bad, bad, bee.

Bombus (Psithyrus) insularis - Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bee

References

Craig CH. 1953. Psithyrus insularis (Sm.) in a Nest of Bombus ternarius Say (Hymenoptera :Bombidae). Canadian Entomologist 85: 311-312.

Erler S & Lattorff HMG. 2010.The degree of parasitism of the bumblebee (Bombusterrestris) by cuckoo bumblebees (Bombus(Psithyrus) vestalis). Insectes Sociaux210: 371-377. 30-100%, 33-50%

Fischer RM & Sampson BJ. 1992.Morphological specializations of the bumble bee social parasite Psithyrus ashtoni (Cresson)(Hymenoptera: Apidae). CanadianEntomologist 124: 69-77.

Hobbs GA.1965. Ecology of Species of BombusLatr. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Southern Alberta.II. Subgenus Bombias Robt. Canadian Entomologist 97: 120-128.

Hobbs GA.1966. Ecology of Species of BombusLatr. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Southern Alberta.IV. Subgenus Fervidobombus Skorikov. Canadian Entomologist 98: 33-39.

Hobbs GA.1966. Ecology of Species of BombusLatr. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Southern Alberta.V. Subgenus Subterraneobombus Vogt. Canadian Entomologist 98: 288-294.

Hobbs GA.1967. Ecology of Species of BombusLatr. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Southern Alberta.VI. Subgenus Pyrobombus. Canadian Entomologist 99: 1271-1292.

Hobbs GA.1968. Ecology of Species of BombusLatr. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Southern Alberta.VII. Subgenus Bombus. Canadian Entomologist 100: 156-164.

Kearns CA & Thomson D. 2001.The Natural History of Bumblebees. Universityof Colorado Press, Boulder.

Aculeata Agonistes: The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent

2011-10-02T13:09:00.000-06:00

Western Yellowjacket - note folded wings, yellow eye loop, and feeding at nectary

I know I tend to harp on this, but people seem to like toview the world through simple dichotomies. Good and Bad Bugs is one such model.So, to most, mosquitoes are bad bugs, ladybird beetles good bugs. Or if you areof a more pedantic school of entomology, Hemiptera are good bugs and otherarthropods are not. Yellowjackets, hornets, and wasps probably tend to fallinto most people’s bad bug category because they can sting you and cause painand possibly death, as in this sad story of a man who bumped into a wasp nestwhile taking a hike with his 13-year-old daughter in Queensland.

Wasps in the family Vespidae are those most likely to stingyou, but not all vespid wasps are equally quick to use their venom deliveryapparatus on something as large as a person. For example, the industriousmud-dauber Ancistrocerus waldenii thatI spent some time studying early in the summer never paid much attention to me,even when my point-and-shoot was only a few centimeters above her. You can tellshe is a good vespid wasp by the fact she did not sting me and by the way thefront wings fold lengthwise when held at rest (in other wasp families, thefront wings are typically held flat).

Mud-duber Ancistrocerus waldenii - a good wasp

Other solitary vespids in the HBG go about their lives in an equally oblivious way, doing the things wasps like to do. If I get too close to them, they flee, although sometimes they have too much on their minds to do more than hang around. Mostly, though, we share the yard without a problem.

Ancistrocerus parietum exploring the erotic potentials of dill

On the other hand, worker yellowjackets in the Vespula vulgaris group are bad. Theyinvariably give me a buzz on their way through the yard. The WesternYellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica)at the top is one of this group – the workers are pushy and aggressive. When Iswat at a wasp, I expect it to move on with alacrity – but these wasps respondby buzzing around and getting in my face. This is especially true if I havefood or drink with me – they scavenge as well as hunt.

Male Aerial Yellowjacket nectaring at goldenrod

The taste for colas andhambugers of the vulgaris-groupspecies is not shared by other yellowjackets in my yard –those workers spendmost of their time hunting insects and males malinger on flowers. I guess thatmakes them good, unless I bump into their nest.

More black than yellow - Vespula alascensis male (note 7 abdominal segments)

The vulgaris-groupgets its name from the Common Yellowjacket Vespulavulgaris. This species used to be common here, but then taxonomistsdiscovered that vulgaris wasrestricted to Europe (and areas of the world into which it has been introducedsuch as Australia and New Zealand). Our North American vulgaris-like species is Vespulaalascensis – smaller and darker than the Western Yellowjacket, but alsoannoying. Being newly rediscovered (it was actually described in 1870), V. alascensis lacks a common name(BugGuide gives it none). The ‘More Black than Yellowjacket’ would bedescriptive of its looks and the ‘Lesser Annoying Yellowjacket’ would describeits behaviour well enough.

Hi, I have no common name - Vespula alascensis male

One interesting aspect of the HBG the last couple of warmweeks (now replaced by cold, wet) was the number of male yellowjackets.Although the males can’t sting, and so I guess are good, I still sent about twodozen to science heaven. Almost a third were V. alascensis – although none annoyed me. Actually, they were veryunobtrusive, other than wanting drinks from around the edge of the pond. Theydon’t seem to be interested in nectar, wine, or even barbecues. I guess theymust have gotten fed enough as youngsters in the nest to last out the autumn.

13-segmented antennae identify a male - scape, pedicel, and 11 flagellomeres

Most of the rest of the males were the Western Yellowjacket(Vespula pensylvanica). This was nosurprise – the few annoying yellowjacket workers around this summer were V. pensylvanica. Unlike the workers,these males are entirely innocuous and seem to be mostly interested in landingon lawn or low vegetation and then crawling to the ground. I find thisbehaviour mysterious, but those I followed around did nothing more excitingthan lap up water.

From its yellow eye loop, a Western Yellowjacket (and male)

Two of the males, though, were yet another vulgaris-group species, Vespulagermanica, a recent colonist from Europe. Apparently the common name nowused is German Yellowjacket – which seems unfair to the Germans and a poor descriptorof a more widely distributed European species. Since the German Yellowjacket is expanding itsrange in North America, technically it must be an invasive species; andtherefore, even the males must be bad.

A doubly bad German Yellowjacket - well, at least the eye loop is absent

As far as I can tell, the German Yellowjackets are no worsethat the Western Yellowjacket, but they are hard to tell apart. The best fieldcharacter is the colour around the eyes: the yellow around the eyes of germanica is absent at the top of the eyes, but in pensylvanica it is usually present.Usually, but not always, so like most dichotomies, this is a bit morecomplicated than it should be.

7-spotted Ladybeetle - 6 US states have designated this beetle
their state insect - but it is an invasive species; and therefore, bad.

Aculeata Agonistes: When hornets are not

2011-09-23T20:33:00.000-06:00

Dolichovespula adulterina - a blackjacket and a social parasite

At various times over the last few years, the Home BugGarden has been blessed with the visits of 10 species of social wasps* – allmembers of the vespid subfamily Vespinae. Paper Wasps in the subfamilyPolistinae, such as the Polistesspecies common in much of North America, do not occur in Edmonton. Perhaps theintroduced European Paper Wasp Polistesdominula (Christ, 1791) may be able to survive our winters, but so far ithasn’t shown up and the nearest Polistesspecies is in southern Alberta.

Polistes dominula an introduced and spreading paper wasp

Most years, if not exactly welcome, hornets and theirkin are greeted with some interest by the HBG, at least early in the season. Mostly hornetsgo about their business hunting insects. Some times their prey are pests and sometimes not (e.g. hover flies), but all in all they areas interesting and unassuming as most of the insects in the HBG.

Yellowjacket worker chewing-up insect prey (a planthopper of some kind)

Telling one species of waspfrom the other isn’t easy, except for the Bald-faced Hornet Dolichovespula maculata which is abouttwice the mass of the next largest social vespine. It is also black and white – but soare other species of both Dolichovespula(D. adulterina - see picture at top) and Vespula (V. consobrina) and yellowand black species occur in both genera too.

A Bald-faced Hornet - the largest blackjacket

The easiest way to tell the two genera apart is by closeinspection of the area between the eye and the mandible. Just what one would like to do – stick yournose in the face of a hornet! Dolichovespulahave a relatively large distance between the bottom of the eye and the top of the mandible and Vespula have eyes that almost meet the mandibles. I’m sure one canget pretty good with practice, but for most of the summer being too nosey runs onea strong risk of getting stung.

A Dolichovespula - eye and mandible well separated

As the summer progresses yellowjackets, blackjackets, andhornets become more and more common. Towards the end of the season, theirnumbers seem to explode for a few weeks – and then they are gone. This year,though, their appearance was much delayed and when they finally arrived, onlythree species were present: D. maculata,D. arenaria, and V. pensylvanica.The first and the last of these can be pretty annoying – they will scavenge and so anything you eat or drink is of interest to them – and if you get one annoyed enough, you may encounter thevenom delivery machinery at the end of the female workers.

Vespula pensylvanica Western Yellowjacket worker

At the moment, though, the risk of being stung is prettylow, at least in my backyard. We haven’t had a hard frost yet, so worker waspsare still active, but 95% of the yellowjackets in my backyard for the last weekor so have been males. You can easily tell a male wasp from a female, becausemales have antennae with 13 segments and females have only 12! Also, the maleshave 7 apparent abdominal segments and females only 6. Easy right? If all elsefails, there is a bioassay. If you capture a wasp in your hand and thenexperience a sharp and violent pain (followed by a strong systemic reaction anddeath if you happen to be allergic), then you probably have a worker (the newqueens mysteriously disappear soon after mating). If not, you may have a male.

Male (note 13 segmented antennae, 7 segmented abdomen) Western Yellowjacket

The last time I was stung by a vespid, an Australian paperwas in the genus Ropalidia, Iexperienced a strong local reaction. That may not mean much – in Australia avariety of ants, wasps, and bees stung me – but it may indicate a developingallergy. It is always best to avoid being stung. That is one reason I stompedthe male in the picture below with the exposed claspers. With claspers instead of asting, I was pretty sure I had a male, but calling it a hornet made less sense.

A male - the claspers prove the point

*Home Bug GardenVespine Wasps:

Dolichovespulaadulterina (du Buysson, 1905)

Dolichovespulaarenaria (Fabricius, 1775)

Dolichovespulamaculata (Linnaeus, 1763)

Dolichovespulanorvegicoides (Sladen, 1918)

Vespula atropilosa(Sladen, 1918)

Vespula austriaca(Panzer, 1799)

Vespula consobrina(de Saussure, 1864)

Vespula germanica(Fabricius, 1793)

Vespula pensylvanica(de Saussure, 1857)

Vespula alascensis(Packard, 1870)

How to Know a Fly, Part 1: ‘Thread horns’ of the Nematocera

2011-09-16T18:01:00.000-06:00

Thread horn meets deadly threads: Male Chironomid Midge

Autumn is upon the Home Bug Garden. The days are shortening,the sun noticeably dimmer, the warmth of August gone, and the diversity ofinsect life noticeably reduced. It is time to start girding the mind withmemories to hold together over the long, long, insect-free months until nextspring.

Sylvicola sp. (Anisopodidae) - a Wood Gnat

Well, not completely insect-free. A larder beetle or two andmay be a spider beetle (and certainly house spiders) or a meal moth will pop-upnow and then. And there is always the chance that something new and interestingwill emerge from hibernation to be found batting at a winter window. Also, oncethe potted plants are moved back in doors, the inevitable hidden aphid willbreak dormancy and overrun an herb or flower. The pots too will mete out amiasma of tiny midges into the winter atmosphere – the fluttering of sciaridflies.

Dark-winged Fungus Gnat (Sciaridae)

One way to never finish anything is to be always startingnew projects. The HBG already has several series that are more or less moribund.When was the last Sunday Sawfly? Wednesday Wildflower? Australian of the Week? Well, my excuse is I’m pretty much out of new pictures of identified sawflies to display. Also, Irationalize that the bug season is the time to wallow in the diversity, not toreminisce about flowers or Australia. That's for the interminably long winters. So, in this season of transition, here is a new series – ‘How to Know aFly’. In contrast to the other, open-ended series, I envision this one asdiscrete – probably 5 parts – and I hope to have it finished before Christmas. Absolutely. For sure.

A March Fly (Bibionidae) in September

In ‘How to Know a Fly’, I intend to deal with what I see asone of the major impediments to insect conservation: the difficulty of knowingthe true name of an insect. Although all insects may be equally interesting, ina bug garden some insects should be more equal than others. Or, to paraphraseHamlet, would anyone want a garden grown rank with weeds? Clouds of mosquitoesor swarms of flesh flies emanating from someone’s backyard are unlikely toadvance the cause of insect conservation.

A Crane Fly (Tipulidae) - aka Daddy Longlegs

For example, can you distinguish a Crane Fly from a giantmosquito? An Anopheles mosquito wrigglerfrom that of a harmless Dixellamidge? An Ochlerotatus mosquito tumblerfrom the pupa of a predatory Chaoborusmidge? When I started our pond I knew craneflies from mosquitoes, but not theothers – and mistakenly executed many of the ‘more equal’ flies before decidingthat I should learn the names of the insects that I was killing. I thought Iwould be learning mosquito names, but instead I learned midges.

Psychoda sp. - a Moth Fly (Psychodidae)

And on this point hangs one of the contradictions of insectconservation – to know an insect you often need to kill it and mount it on apin. This isn’t true of birds – there are many well illustrated guides to birdsand a pair of binoculars and some patience is usually all one needs to learn aname. This is also true of a wildflower – picking apart a flower is usuallythe worst one need do (well, sometimes you need the roots). But even withbutterflies, determining the actual species name may involve capturing aspecimen.

March Fly with a name - Penthetria heteroptera (Say, 1823)

Field guides do help and one can be reasonably sure of the identity of at least the family and sometimes the genus of an insect by comparing live bugs or pictures to plates in books or surfing the incomparable BugGuide. But there are orders of magnitude more insect species than birds, most bugs are much smaller than even the smallest bird, and there are many insects more confusingly similar than the worst fall warblers. In most cases, learning the true name of an insect will require a specimen, microscope, and an often intimidating thing called a ‘key’. That is how the March Flies above got their name.

Name that midge

A key, of course, can unlock a door – or a mystery – or point to something significant, as in a ‘key character’. On our path to learn the true names of flies, the first key character is the form of the wings. In spite of the official name for the order of true flies, Diptera (‘two wings’), most dipterons actually have four wings, at least in an evolutionary sense, but the hind wings are modified into a nob like structure called the haltere. Only the front wings look wing-like, and hence, Diptera.

Gall Midge (Cecidomyiidae) showing wings and halteres

Aspen Leaf Galls probably cause by an Harmandiola Gall Midge

In insect identification, keys usually come composed in pairs calledcouplets. People like dichotomies – dividing others into friend or foe, forexample. That is simplistic – most people are neither and one’s enemies’enemies may be temporarily friends – but it makes for simple choices.Identification keys are built of such dichotomous and contrasting sets ofchoices.

A bad fly, but a true fly, but better known as a mosquito.

If I were to write a key to distinguish true flies from other ordersof insects, then the early couplets might run like this (X’s refer to parts ofkey not given, numbers indicate go to that numbered couplet):

1. Wings present ... 2

- Wings absent... X

2. Thorax with two pairs of membranous wings ... XX

- Thorax withone pair of membranous wings ... 3

3. Membranous wings on mesothorax; metathorax with pair ofknob-like structures ... 4

- Membranouswings originate on metathorax; mesothorax with leathery or shell-like processesthat cover the wings at rest (e.g. beetles, grasshoppers) or small knobs (Strepsiptera) ... XXX

4. Mouthparts usually present, often well developed and may form beaks, sponging structures, or an elongate proboscis; tarsi usually with 5segments ... Diptera

- Mouthpartsabsent; tarsi with 1-2 segments ... Hemiptera, Coccoidea (male scale insects)

Our identification hanging by its couplet

Notice that there is only one correct path to the Diptera –at each couplet you must make the correct choice or you will end up in the wildernessof X’s. Also, although less obvious, this key will not help you if your fly hasno wings, if they are either broken off or they never developed. Some parasiticflies in the Family Hippoboscidae, for example, either never develop wings(e.g. sheep keds) or shed there wings once a host has been found. Then again,you must have an adult fly to use this key – and for every fly you find there once was a maggot and a pupa with no wings that cannot be identified here.

Gilled maggot of a Crane Fly floating in the HBG Pond

And what does one do next upon knowing you have a fly? Whythen it is too another key and another key until one either gives up, runs outof keys, or arrives at a species.

Crane Fly with 'thread horn' antennae

I think we’ve gone on about long enough today, but I would like toend with the great dichotomy of the Diptera. Most of the insects we think of asflies belong to the suborder Brachycera – horse flies, deer flies, bottleflies, bot flies, carrion flies, flower flies, bee flies, robber flies, house flies, andthe like. Characteristically, these ‘short horn’ flies have short antennae - usually with 7 or fewer segments and often highly modified.What used to be the other half of the dichotomy, the Nematocera, have longerantennae, typically with 8-14 segments, and these antennae tend to be simple segmented lines (although sometimes highly plumose). We call some of these flies (e.g. crane flies), but more often call them midges, gnats, and mosquitoes. Still they are real flies and usually welcome in the Home Bug Garden (mosquitoes, black flies, and biting midges excepted).

An army of Aphidoletes aphidimyza - a Gall Midge that doesn't gall

As is often the case with dichotomies, the Diptera cannot bedivided so simply. The Nematocera is not a natural group, but more thenot-brachyceran flies. One of my favourite nematocerans is the Aphid Midge Aphidoletes aphidimyza (Rondani, 1847) – a Gall Midge (Cecidomyiidae)that makes no galls, but eats honeydew as an adult and aphids as a maggot. It eats aphids so assiduously that this midge is marketed as a biological control agent for aphids in greenhouses. It slays its way through the aphids that pester my Evans Cherries too.

Aphid Midge maggots consuming Black Cherry Aphids

Not satisfied with being just a great biocontrol agent, the Aphid Midge also exhibits a fascinating behaviour: it thumbs its thread horns at the normal nemesis of flies - the spider in its web. Those midges in the pictures above (and below) have not come to a sticky end (like the unfortunate male chironomid midge at the beginning of this post), but are hanging around in hopes of a good time. For not only does the Aphid Midge dangle safe from predators among the sticky threads, but it conducts its orgies in spider webs. Van Schelt & Mulder (2000) found that when spider webs were available, more female midges were mated and more eggs laid. Pretty interesting for an innocuous little midge.

References

Jeroan van Schelt & Sandra Mulder. 2000. Improvedmethods of testing and release of Aphidoletesaphidimyza (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) for aphid control in glasshouses.European Journal of Entomology 97: 511-515.

Wiegmann BM et al. 2011. Episodic radiations in thefly tree of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the UnitedStates of America, 108 (14), 5690-5.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/10/1012675108

Water, birds, and the comforts thereof

2011-09-03T15:46:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we attended a memorial service for a friend whodied suddenly and I was struck by how strongly water figured in the songs,poems, and images that were used to help us grieve and heal. The most poignantwas of our friend’s relatives in Holland writing her name in the sands of abeach and watching as the waves washed it away. We don’t have a beach, but ourfriend Karin was a great lover of nature and of gardens. So it seemsappropriate to remember her by taking a break from the usual emphasis on detailand contemplate the broader pattern of how water can contribute to backyardbiodiversity.

One of the most diversity-enhancing aspects of the Home BugGarden is the pond. Urban yards are not water-rich habitats but many insectsand other invertebrates spend part or most of their lives in fresh water. Manyothers need an occasional sip to quench their thirst, to help build a nest ofmud or carton, or to keep a nest cool on hot days. Songbirds need insects toeat, water to drink, and – even on the coldest days – seem to relish a bath.

Our pond is small (1x2 m), and not very deep (~0.5 m), butit is a permanent feature and has the bubbler burbling from May into October.The pump and filter keep the water relatively clean, the bubbler aerates and,while not completely masking the city noise, does provide some amelioration.The bubbler also provides a convenient drinking fountain/bath for those soinclined.

We enhanced the appeal of the pond area to birds with theaddition of a low, Japanese-style water basin along side. During wet periods,puddles in the back lane provide an alternative, but a permanent bath makes forregular visitors from the vertebrate world. If you let cats wander your garden,then a low water basin is not a good idea, but we don’t and a tall fence andconsistent response to trespassers makes for a safe avian retreat.

The umbrella of the golden willow and surrounding shrubs, andthe shelter of bog plants and emergent vegetation (mostly sedges and rushes) makethe backyard pond a pleasant way stop for migrating songbirds and a regularhangout for the locals. Without the woody vegetation for cover, perching, anddrying out, we would see far fewer birds and we can only wonder at how such adiversity of migratory species manages to spy out our tiny lot and stop by fora drink and a bath.

We had several years before the pond was operational andeven longer before the vegetation was high enough to provide sufficient cover for comparison.Before then our ‘migrants’ were mostly sandhill cranes, geese, and the like flyinghigh overhead with not even a stray feather making it into the yard. Since thenwe have observed a half dozen species of warblers and an equal number of non-residentsparrow and finch species stopping by for short rests. Swainson’s Thrushes arenow regular spring and fall visitors and unexpected guests keep surprising us –Western Tanager, Townsend’s Solitaire, Varied Thrush, Western Wood Peewee,Yellow-breasted Flycatcher, and even a Wilson’s Snipe.

Some of the migrants may linger for a week or more, buturban yards do not provide adequate habitats for most of these birds to nestand rear a brood. Still, we have a respectable dozen or so local residentsusing the fountain, bath, and pond: American Robins, Chipping Sparrows, andHouse Wrens settle in for the summer; Downy Woodpeckers and White-breastedNuthatches stop-by irregularly; and chickadees (both Black-capped and Boreal),Red-breasted Nuthatches, Blue Jays, Magpies, House Finches, and unfortunately,House Sparrows, are to be found year round.

I don’t suppose our fauna is anything to get a real twitcherexcited, but by providing cover and a consistent supply of water, we haveincreased our own enjoyment of our backyard tremendously. Perhaps we alsocontribute a small bit towards avian conservation. However, as anyone who haswatched a chickadee, robin or blue jay take a bath would know, we clearlycontribute a great deal to our avifauna’s enjoyment of life.

To Karin, who made the lives of all she met so much moreenjoyable, we close with this quote from a song sung in her remembranceyesterday:

“I am flying, flying

Like a bird ‘crossthe sky.

I am flying, passinghigh clouds,

To be with you, to befree.”

From “Sailing”, byGavin Sutherland

Summer Flies & My Favourite Weed

2011-08-31T16:52:00.001-06:00

August is going out on a cold and dreary note. The droppingtemperatures and yellowing leaves remind us that soon the Frost Monster will beslashing at the Home Bug Garden plants and animals. The first to go will be theSouth American Solanaceae: tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, potatoes, andpeppers. Tonight it is supposed to drop to between 5 and 3 C, depending onwhich Edmonton airport you live closest to (HBG is midway between). And I’meyeing all those green tomatoes and yellow peppers and wondering how optimisticI should be.

One plant that won’t pay much attention to the Frost Monsterwill be my favourite weed: the thallus forming liverwort Marchantia polymorpha Linnaeus. Many liverworts look much like themosses with which they used to be grouped, but marchantia looks more like alurid green lichen with tentacles (females) or parasols (males) than yourtypical bryophyte. It does well on wet soil and may annoy greenhouse owners andsome gardeners.

I suppose if I were trying to grow ferns but all I ended upwith was more marchantia, then I might be annoyed too. As it is, I chop it upwhen it is in the way and try to appreciate it when it is growing in some moreappropriate space, like around the base of the bird bath.

Some people think that flies are pesky too, but other than ineffectivelyswatting at an importune muscid or calliphorid we try to get along with thehigher Diptera.

Flies will likely be the first active insects next spring, so I thinkI’ll say goodbye to summer by revisiting some of the smaller and moreinteresting flies of the year.

And lets not forget the bugs that will soon be memories too.

Mugging with Monochamus

2011-08-20T15:31:00.000-06:00

I’ve been religiously reading Compound Eye and trying to improve my photographic technique while sticking with my convenient point-and-shoot camera. I think I’m getting a few pictures that speak more to the strengths of my camera than to my desire to document a species, as with the long-horned beetle above and its impressive antennae. But I had a bit of a letdown this morning when I saw that the Edmonton Journal article on the White-tailed Bumblebee has eschewed my pictures in favour of my wife’s (although still attributing the picture to me). Oh well, my bee pictures were for documentation anyway, but this beetle view was for fun.

One advantage of a point-and-shoot is one-handed snaps as above, a more difficult feat with a heavy SLR. The White-spotted Sawyer Beetle, Monochamus scutellatus (Say, 1824), is probably better known in Alberta as the Tar Sands or Oil Sands Beetle. When a conifer is damaged, a variety of volatile chemicals are released, and sensors in the long antennae allow the female beetles to track down a good tree in which to lay their eggs. The larvae then burrow in the wood for a couple of years. Apparently the tar sands emit similar turpentiny smells and keep the beetles a buzz.

Sawyer beetles are rather large: the White-spotted Sawyer above was about 2.5 cm long with an antennal span of 7-8 cm. I once had a job sawing off all the limbs, one by one, from the ground to the top of live, standing fir trees. I still remember the shock when large sawyer beetles would crash into me while I was dangling 30 or 40 feet above the ground. It did make one appreciate their safety ropes. The beetles may have appreciated the results of our work – a limbless tree that looked more like a telephone pole – but I don’t think the poor poplar branch boring longhorn beetle (Oberea quadricallosa LeConte) above will be able to appreciate much of anything without its antennae. Who knows what disaster befell the beetle, but it may have been ants tending aphids and objecting to its feeding on a poplar leaf. As you may note from the clarity of the picture, this one came from my wife's Nikon SLR.

Bumbling with Bombus: the late lucorum

2011-08-15T19:24:00.003-06:00

A new insect in the Home Bug Garden, unless it is a new mosquito, is always a welcome occurrence. But when it comes in a group that we thought we knew pretty well, it is especially interesting. Last week this largish white-tailed bee arrived - just after I had just told a colleague in Calgary, that we don't have them here in the HBG.

You would think that bumble bees (aka bumblebees) would be fairly well known. They are large, brightly coloured, industrious, more or less likable insects and well known for being good pollinators. Many dozens, perhaps hundreds, of scientific studies have been conducted on North American bumble bees and one would hope that the scientists were sure of their bee species. However, bumble bee colours are not to please us, but to warn potential predators that they taste terrible and have a large sting to boot. It helps to get the message across to birds and other insectivores when bees look more or less alike - hence the convergence in colour patterns that makes, for example the tricoloured bumble bees, so difficult to tell apart. This is officially known as Müllerian Mimicry (as opposed to Batesian Mimcry where tasty, harmless animals tend to look like nastier ones) and it occurs among the white-tailed Bombus (Bombus) species too.

The complex of white-tailed bumble bees has variously been called the terrestris-complex or the lucorum-complex after two well known Eurasian bumble bees. However, in 1990 two Swiss scientists and one from Calgary got together to show that the 'lucorum' in North America had different enzyme loci from European lucorum, but ones identical to the more mysterious Bombus moderatus Cresson, 1863, known from Alaska, the Yukon, the old Northwest Territories, northern British Columbia and down the Rockies to Jasper and Banff (the southernmost record) in Alberta. More recently it has shown up in Calgary and is featured at Robert Bercha's Insects of Alberta. Now this bee seems to have colonized Edmonton.

Thus we seem to have a name for our mystery Bombus - but unfortunately B. moderatus was identical in the enzyme loci to several other named Bombus species including one with an older name Bombus cryptarum (Fabricius, 1775). More recent studies by Andreas Bertsch and his colleagues have shown that Bombus moderatus from Alaska and Alberta and B. cryptarum from Europe have very similar, although not identical, 'barcodes' (a region of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase I). So, eventually what was once known as Bombus lucorum and now probably better called Bombus moderatus, may one day be called Bombus cryptarum.

Update: The BugWhisperer has found Bombus moderatus in his garden in Edmonton. Also, a friend collected several males to the west of Devon last Friday (19 August 2011). That is a probably a good sign, or at least will be if new queens of B. moderatus soon follow. Yesterday I noticed a number of males of what may be Bombus rufocinctus at my fireweed. I guess the bees think summer is coming to an end.

References

Berstch A. 2010. A phylogenetic framework for the bumblebee species of the subgenus Bombus sensu stricto based on mitochondrial DNA markers, with a short description of the neglected taxon B. minshanicola Bischoff, 1936 n. status. Beiträge zur Entomologie 60: 471-487.

Scholl A, Obrecht E & Owen R. 1990. The genetic relationship between Bombus moderatus Cresson and the Bombus lucorum auct. species complex Hymenoptera: Apidae). Can. J. Zool. 68: 2264-2268.

Update: Thanks to Cory Sheffield for pointing out this beautifully written article by Robin Owen at Mount Royal on Bombus moderatus.

Aculeata Agonistes: Yellow-faced Bees (Hylaeus)

2011-08-11T18:20:00.004-06:00

Hylaeus is a large genus (~900 species) of mostly very small bees (5-6 mm long is common) in the family Colletidae. They are worldwide in distribution and especially diverse in temperate to subtropical Australia. Hylaeus also do reasonably well in the temperate to boreal areas of North America (55 species north of Mexico). Tatiana Romankova of the Royal Ontario Museum estimated that at least 13 species of Hylaeus occur in Ontario (Romankova 2007) and 7 of these species may also occur in Alberta. She provides a key to the species in Ontario, but I’m not sure how useful it would be here, since we probably also have species not represented in the East.

Most Hylaeus nest in cavities such as hollow stems, beetle galleries, or nail holes in wood. So, planting shrubs with hollow stems or making drilled-bee homes should help to attract them to your yard. Some species have more specific nesting sites such as empty plant galls or the cavities in volcanic rock (Michener 2007). The latter habit is probably useful in Hawaii where Hylaeus is the only genus of native bees. Sixty different species are known in the Hawaiian Islands today and they appear to have arisen from the successful colonization of the Island of Hawaii by one species (probably from Japan or another part of eastern Asia) about a half million years ago (Magnacca & Danforth 2006).

Hylaeus are very unusual bees. They have few of the branched body hairs that are the definitive character that separates bees from their close relatives the hunting wasps. They also lack the specialized tufts of hairs (scopa) or leg basket (corbicula) that other bees use to collect pollen. In fact, they are so wasp-like that one species has been used to fool entomologists on a Monday Night Mystery at the Myrmecos Blog. Bees are just a branch of the hunting wasp lineage and so the ur-bee must have been rather waspish.

Are Hylaeus, then, among the most primitive bees? Not according to a recent molecular phylogeny of the Colletidae (Almeida & Danforth 2009). Instead, Hylaeus species appear to be relatively recently derived within the Colletidae and their particularly un-bee-like appearance and habits are relatively recent evolutionary innovations. This includes behaviours such as ingesting both pollen and nectar that they carry in their crop and use to provision their nests with the liquid mixture. This is very similar to what Pollen Wasps (relatives of the yellow jackets: Vespidae, Masarinae) do, but both cases seem to be parallel derived behaviours and not vestiges of the proto-bee.

Hylaeus species are known to visit a variety of flowers for nectar, and since the pollen is not easily collected out of the bees, it had been assumed that the bees are pollen generalists as well. However, Virginia Scott (1997) studied three species of Hylaeus in Michigan and found that all were specialized on pollen from members of the rose family (Rosaceae). The hard outer coating of pollen survives digestion and Dr Scott had the fun job of collecting Hylaeus larval fecal pellets, making slide mounts, and identifying the pollen. Much of scientific research consists of equally fun jobs, but I hope Dr Scott developed an appreciation for the wonderful form of pollen grains. In any case, hers is the only good study on the pollen habits of Hylaeus that I could find. At her study site cinquefoils (Potentilla), blackberry and its relatives (Rubus), and meadowsweets (Spiraea) were the preferred foods.

The Home Bug Garden has many Rosaceae, including representatives of all three genera, at least in the old sense of Spiraea which included goatsbeards (Aruncus) and Queen-of-the-prairie (Filipendula). We also have many bushes with hollow stems, holes drilled into logs and boards, and are graced by some of The BugWhisperer’s experimental bee hotels. Perhaps all of these have come together in this rather dreary summer to make the Home Bug Garden a good habitat for Hylaeus.

References:

Almeida EAB & Danforth BN. 2009. Phylogeny of colletid bees (Hymenoptera: Colletidae) inferred from four nuclear genes. Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution 50: 290–309.

Magnacca KN & Danforth BN. 2006. Evolution and biogeography of native Hawaiian Hylaeus bees (Hymenoptera: Colletidae). Cladistics 22: 393–411

Michener CD. 2007. The Bees of the World, 2nd Ed. The John Hopkins University

Press.

Romankova TG. 2007. Bees of the genus Hylaeus of Ontario (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Colletidae). J. ent. Soc. Ont. 138: 137–154.

Scott V. 1997. Pollen selection by three species of Hylaeus in Michgan. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society suppl. (1996): 195-200.

Hornworm or what a hummingbird moth looks like before its metamorphosis

2011-08-07T13:23:00.000-06:00

Back in 2005, the year after the Home Bug Garden got its first major additions of expensive perennials (and the year after most were striped half bare of leaves by the hail from the two '1 in 200 year storms'), our new flowers were visited by several Hummingbird Clearwing Moths (Hemaris thysbe Fabricius, 1775). The moths proved too fast for our cameras, but other photographers at BugGuide have posted several excellent pictures. The day-flying moths look more like giant bumblebees to me than hummingbirds, but they can hover very well and are the right size for hummers.

A few weeks later, we were aghast when we noticed two inch-long green horned-devils stripping our struggling highbush cranberry and nannyberry bushes. Urr, arghh - the first real challenge to our pretense of gardening for bugs. We decided on a compromise in this first skirmish and deported half the caterpillars to outside the yard to fend for themselves and let the other half feed away to pupation. It turns out we need not have worried so much about our highbush cranberries - all but one scraggly survivor have been destroyed by another day-flying moth, Synanthedon fatifera, the viburnum crown borer. The adults appear to be mimicking a spider wasp in this case. The caterpillars bored in the crowns of our highbush cranberries killing a third to a half of the canes each year until I had to grub out what rotten bits of persistent crown were left.

Fortunately, the borers don't seem to be interested in our nannyberry (now nearly 3 m tall), nor did the hummingbird moth. But when a friend on AlbertaBugs pointed out that he had the caterpillars on his viburna, we checked and lo and behold we have them again. This time we will let them eat all they want - there are lots of leaves and only a handful of hornworms - and just be happy they are still around.

As well as welcoming back an interesting bug, this posting was designed to follow-up on what I learned at a post at Alex Wild's new blog at Scientific American, The Compound Eye. Among other things, Alex boldly states that to post an image to its best effect "Every blogger should know their column width, in pixels. " I don't seem to be clever or persistent enough to find this information on my blog, but a little experimenting indicates that a 600 pixel wide image as above is not auto-crunched by Blogger. I highly recommend The Compound Eye to anyone interested in getting the most out of their insect photography.

The Home Bug Garden in July: Rain, Mosquitoes & Bumblebees

2011-08-06T14:41:00.002-06:00

My apologies to any regular readers for the long dearth in postings. This has been a miserably cool and wet summer in the Edmonton region, and along with the drain of a minor illness and the usual overwhelming nature of the field season, energy for any extra musings has been low. There have been lots of insects in the HBG, but mostly millions of mosquitoes (I’ve identified 11 different species so far).

Even with the best intentions, though, and an amazement at how many different kinds have been seeking my blood, it is difficult to summon the energy to write appreciatively about mosquitoes and even more difficult to identify them from a picture. Instead, one must kill them carefully – no swatting or the hairs and scales needed to determine species will be knocked off – and take them to a microscope and an identification tool. If you live in Canada, the Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification has an excellent pictorial key produced by Aynsley Thielman and Fiona Hunter of Brock Univerity in Ontario.

Only female mosquitoes drink our blood and only when they can. Both sexes will feed on nectar and other sources of sugary food such as honeydew or damaged fruit. Cool wet weather also favours aphids, so there is plenty of honeydew around, and discourages harvesting cherries from wet dripping trees. I haven’t actually seen any mosquitoes feeding on the cherries damaged by the house sparrows or blown to the ground by the storms, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

The unending rains and mostly low daytime temperatures may have found favour with the mosquitoes and aphids, but I suspect many of the other insects have been reacting to the La Niña weather more like I do. The number and variety of bees has seemed to be unusually low and less energetic than usual. One bit of good news: the umbrella over the mud dauber nest seems to have been a success. The Ancistrocerus waldeni has covered the entire face of the rock with cells and, at least as of last Tuesday, she could still be seen working away.

Bumblebees, of course, are able to fly and forage under a wider range of weather than most other bees, and the HBG Bombus have been apparent whenever the rain wasn’t actually falling. The diversity is similar to previous years, but the numbers may be lower.

The Yellow-banded Bumblebee (Bombus terricola) was apparent early in the season, but seems rare now. A variety of tricoloured bumblebee queens (Bombus ternarius, huntii, centralis) began showing up not long after that and workers of “The Tricoloured Bumblebee” (B. ternarius) and B. centralis (which seems to have missed out on a common name) are still foraging along with numerous Half-black Bumblebees (Bombus vagans), which show up somewhat later. Finally, a large and mysterious mostly yellow queen began foraging in late July (possibly a Bombus (Bombias) species).

The life of a bumblebee worker is short and sweet. Well, certainly short (2-4 weeks is commonly reported), and I hope the nectar helps to make the constant toil sweet. As well as working themselves to death, bumblebees have numerous parasites, predators, and diseases. Ailing workers are starting to show up in the HBG. There is a tendency to assume that some poison is at work here, but we rarely used chemicals and the City certainly hasn’t been spraying for adult mosquitoes. So, it is more likely a ‘natural’ death that is starting to claim workers.

One common and swift end for bumblebee workers is being bitten in the neck by crab spiders. Misumena vatia is the common one in the HBG. Although I feel protective about my bees, I usually let the spiders go about their business. On Canada Day, though, my wife took a picture of one such spider bee-feast and noticed that the dined-upon bee had a couple of mites hanging out on its shoulder. I immediately dashed out and wrestled the bee away from the spider. The spider was definitely upset, the mites seemingly oblivious, but I was delighted because it gave me an opportunity to use an online key for something other than a mosquito. Barry OConnor and Pavel Klimov at the University of Michigan provide this resource for bee mites of many kinds. The long and the short of it: these two unfortunate victims were Parasitellus talparum (Oudemans, 1913). Originally described from the nest of a mole, these mites are probably predators of other small invertebrates in the bee nests and so probably good for the bees.

For more about bumblebee mites in Alberta:

Richards LA & KW Richards. 1976. Parasitid mites associated with bumblebees in Alberta, Canada (Acarina: Parasitidae; Hymenoptera: Apidae). II. Biology. University of Kansas Science Bulletin. 51(1): 1-18.

Aculeata Agonistes: Soggy Mud Daubers & Muddy Thinking

2011-06-19T13:07:00.001-06:00

I think I watched too many Walt Disney wildlife programs when I was a child, because this wasp looked sad and soggy to me this morning (and yesterday and the day before too). But I know I’m just projecting my feelings onto the mud dauber: there is no data supporting the hypothesis that insects feel emotions like people and cats do.

This particular mud dauber is Ancistrocerus waldenii (Viereck, 1906) and she was thriving when the sun was shinning.

There isn’t any common name associated with the species on BugGuide or at the Identification Atlas of the Vespidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata) of theNortheastern Nearctic Region. Since the species seems to have been named after someone called Walden (or perhaps Walden Pond), I think Walden’s Mud Dauber will have to do.

The generic name seems to be derived from the Greek ancistrum (fish hook) and cerus (an earthen pot). I suppose the former refers to the female’s curved sting and the latter to the mud nest. Walden’s Mud Dauber’ free-standing mud nests, however, are unusual among at least the local Ancistroceri – most nest in hollow twigs and use mud only for the partitions between cells.

Given the last week of steady rain, one can see the advantage of a retreat less likely to dissolve back into the earth from which it sprang. Perhaps the wasp mixes in some hydrophobic material or cement as she works the mud into the scimitar-shaped additions which she stacks into tubular cells. I also wonder if they know bad weather is coming? After making a half dozen tubes perpendicular to the ground, and open to any rain until they were capped, this wasp constructed a tube on top of the others and parallel to the ground.

The last few days, the wasp has been spending most of her time in this tube, glumly watching the rains fall. That’s a shame, because the caterpillars she was hunting included a nasty little vermin that makes a mess of our Ivory Halo Dogwood each year. Here's a paralyzed one that I rescued from a foraging Formica ant - it is dangerous to leave you brood cells open.

A larger caterpillar also taken is probably the Delphinium Leaftier (Polychrysia esmeralda (Oberthür, 1880)).

Interesting that she seems to go after caterpillars that hide themselves in folded bits of their host plants.

It would be a terrible shame, if after all her hard work, this poor mud dauber had to watch her babies wash away in a sea of mud. This may be more Disneyesque thinking, but I prefer to think of this as a proactive measure of ~~classical~~ conservation biological control. Keep your parasites, predators (and pollinators) happy and you will have a thriving Home Bug Garden. I give you the first mud dauber umbrella (patent pending).

Identification Atlas of the Vespidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata) of the Northeastern Nearctic Region By Matthias Buck, Stephen A. Marshall, and David K. B. Cheung

Sunday Sawfly: Inspired by Thrifty Thursday

2011-06-18T10:00:00.000-06:00

One of the benefits of the long, long days around the Summer Solstice at a northern latitude such as Edmonton's is that even when the weather is miserable most of the day, a hour or two of sunshine may peak through the clouds. That may not happen this rainy Saturday, but it did during yesterday's downpours and the cool conditions were a good time to get close to some bugs. Below is the original (reduced in size for posting) image of one such shot and above my best attempt at making it interesting. The sawfly is possibly Pristiphora appendiculata (Hartig)(=rufipes Lepeletier) - the Small Gooseberry Sawfly which my wife caught ovipositing for a previous posting.

I'm not much of a bug photographer - just an upper mid-range point-and-shoot (Lumix DMZ FZ28) documentor of the Home Bug Garden. The good pictures you see here are usually from my wife's Nikon D-70 DSRL - old, but reliable body with an even older lens (60 mm AF MicroNikkor 1:2.8) and SB-21 Speedlight flash. However, one of the web's best photographers of arthropods, Myrmecos, has started a weekly series called Thrifty Thursdays on using under $500 equipment to take interesting photos of insects. This has made me feel that I should be doing a better job and this is my first attempt to deal with the cluttered background problem highlighted in the linked post. Below is what I think is a less successful effort, but for some reason I like the clutter in the upper right - makes the fly seem to be seeking shelter in the pansy from the messiness of the world.

Oh well, it's down to a drizzle for the moment. Time to climb the ladder and clear the gutters of those nasty sticky spruce bud caps.

New to the HBG: The Living & the Dead Psilid

2011-06-12T10:16:00.001-06:00

Another rainy Sunday and another attempt to boost my rate of posting: meet the New to the Home Bug Garden series. Unlike, or rather exactly like, my ‘weekly’ series (Sunday Sawfly, Wednesday Wildflower, Aculeata Agonistes, Bumbling with Bombus, Australian of the Week), New to the HBG will appear only when I have the time, energy, pictures, and story to post. The only real difference is that this series will not be aimed at any particular taxon or cultural view, but at organisms that have recently shown up, been identified, or finally correctly identified.

The first in this series is a mystery fly that first showed up on 6 June 2009. Well, my wife captured quite a nice picture of the fly on that date anyway. The funny looking head and way the wings bent over the abdomen seemed like they were distinctive enough that we should be able to learn its secret name. We were pretty sure it was an acalyptrate Diptera, but there are far too many flies, even acalypterate ones. Our searching of the web and pestering of Dipterists led to no higher level of knowledge. So, one rainy Sunday, the picture was assigned to the Miscellaneous Diptera folder.

And that is where it sat until one sunny afternoon last week when I noticed this strange-looking bent-wing fly perching on the leaves of the Juliet Cherry and Red Currant. And that is when I did what we should have done two years ago – if you want to know the name of an insect, you need to collect a specimen and key it out or find a specialist to do it for you (read the caveat in the sidebar: HBG Names & Claims). Specialists are few and far between, but there is an increasing treasure of entomological resources on the web. First and foremost if you live in North America and have a fly, is the Manual of Nearctic Diptera (MND) – an Agriculture and Agri-food Canada Entomological Monograph that is now freely available as a pdf download from the Entomological Society of Canada website (and as reasonably priced print-on-demand volumes here).

The MND is a tremendous achievement and one wishes that similar volumes were available for each insect order. However, it is highly technical and contains only brief overviews of each family, pictures mostly of bits and pieces, and dichotomous keys to the genus level. To use a dichotomous key, you have to make a series of choices correctly: one mistake and you are buggered. In the case of this fly, I was flummoxed and had to ask for help from our friend Jason. From the pictures, he suggested a likely family: Psilidae (not to be confused with Psyllidae a family of sucking bugs). I had skipped over this couplet in the key because the mystery fly didn’t look like other flies in the families that I knew of, e.g. the Carrot Rust Fly formerly Psila but now Chamaepsila rosae (Fabricius, 1794). Duh! With Jason’s help, the MND, and my dead fly on a pin, I was able to identify the genus: Chyliza Fallén.

With the genus known and BugGuide, I was able to make a guess at the species, but how would I know it wasn’t another species in the genus? Enter the specialist, Matthias Buck – he said. ‘well, you need to check Melander 1920’. Melander’s paper came out in Psyche, the journal of the Cambridge Entomological Club. A few years ago this is where I would have ground to a halt, because tracking down a paper almost 100 years old in an obscure British bug journal would have been more than the effort was worth. Fortunately, the publishers of Psyche have made this journal both Open Access – anyone with an internet connection can download the papers – and have gone to the trouble of scanning in their entire backlog from 1874 to the most recent issue.

So, finally we come to the end of our search, the secrete name: Chyliza leguminicola Melander, 1920. Not only did Melander describe this species, but he included what seems to be all that is known about its biology: “... L. P. Rockwood, who has swept this fly from the lupine, Lupinus polyphyllus Lindl., at Forest Grove, Ore., toward the end of April. He has also found puparia attached to the lower part cf this plant during July, from which adults emerged the following March ...”*. And what should be growing under the cherry and currants – lupines!

Since psilid flies seem to feed on plants as larvae, I suppose our C. legumnicola might count as a pest. But we long ago stopped planting lupines – they come up on their own and seem to be doing fine even with the fly and the far more annoying Giant Lupine Aphid Macrosiphon albifrons Essig, 1911. I think we will welcome our Bent-winged Lupine Fly to the Home Bug Garden and pin no more.

*Melander, AL (1920) Synopsis of the dipterous family Psilidae. Psyche 27 (5): 91-101.

Dueling Fabricii: Two Views on Complex Lifecycles

2011-06-04T16:07:00.002-06:00

It was 2C this wet and gray Saturday morning, and I guess I could have gotten away with not covering the tomatoes, tomatillos, cukes, etc. last night. It will be cold, wet work uncovering them, so I think I'll leave their rugs on a bit longer and enjoy my breakfast of warm coffee and cold radish. If you think that radishes for breakfast is peculiar, well that's what I thought when I first read about them being a common French breakfast item. I was wrong: crunchy, peppery radishes go well with coffee.

Alas, I don’t grow my own radishes anymore: I have to buy them at the grocery store. The reason is the Striped Flea Beetle Phyllotreta striolata (Fabricius, 1803). You can see one of these above discussing the weather with Black Cherry Aphids Myzus cerasi (Fabricius, 1775) above. Both originated in Eurasia, but have colonized much of the rest of the World. Both were named by the great Danish entomologist and student of Linnaeus, Johan ChristianFabricius. The aphid’s name first appeared in his Systema entomologiæ (1775) and the beetle originally in his Systema eleutheratorum (1801) as Crioceris vittata.

Fabricius’ ‘System of the Beetles’ (available at Google Books) used Eleutherata for the order of beetles that we now call Coleoptera. I’m not sure why his named didn’t stick – the rules of nomenclature do not apply above the level of superfamily – but he was unlucky with his Crioceris vittata too – the species name was preoccupied and its replacement has wandered through several genera before settling in Phyllotreta. However, Fabricius was able to propose a replacement name in 1803, and so the correct name for the Striped Flea Beetle is Phyllotreta striolata (Fabricius, 1803) (not 1801, as in some references). (The parentheses around the author’s name indicate that the species originally resided in another genus.)

Thanks to some interesting archeological work excavating a buried privy in Boston, we know that the Striped Flea Beetle has been falling into outhouses in North America at least since 1775 or so (Bain & LeSage 1998). Why are there so many in my backyard? Well, my guess is two-fold: polyphagy and monoculture. The Striped Flea Beetle feeds on a variety of plants in the mustard family (Brassicaceae aka Cruciferae) and so can take advantage of many weedy mustards and the numerous backyard crucifers: radish, turnip, cabbage and similar crops. Also, the Striped Flea Beetle is a major pest in canola in the cooler parts of Alberta (another flea beetle, Phyllotreta cruciferae (Goeze, 1777), is more important further south) (see Dosdall & Mason 2010). Yellow canola fields surround Edmonton in the summer. All of this adds up to a monstrous number of flea beetles.

Adult flea beetles overwinter in the soil and emerge ravenous in the spring just as the first radish seedlings are germinating. The tiny radish seedlings – just a pair of cotyledons – don’t last long. In contrast, a horseradish that came with the HBG produces large leaves quickly from its perennial taproot and can tolerate a massive amount of damage from its host specialist flea beetle. If I can get the radishes past the cotyledon stage, then I have a hope, but I've failed too many times. I’m trialing turnips this year – planted late and so far not showing much of the typical shot-hole damage. Flea beetles have complex metamorphosis: their grubs live in the soil and feed on roots of the same plants during the summer. The grubs are not considered major pests and for crops like radish and turnip that are soon harvested, they would be trivial. So, if you can beat the adults, you can grow radishes. We will see about turnips.

Strangely, the Black Cherry Aphid also likes crucifers. You would think that a cherry aphid would stick to cherries, but newly emerged cherry leaves and buds is only their spring food. Although aphids have gradual metamorphosis – their young look more or less like the adults as you can see from the heading picture – they often have a complex life cycle with various winged and apterous forms on two or more host plants. A small dictionary of jargony names been coined for these forms and hosts.

I’m not a specialist in these bugs, but I’m guessing that the fat black aphids are the fundatrix forms. If so, each developed from a fertilized egg that overwintered on the cherry and are now producing live young parthenogenetically (a long word for without sex). A fundatrix is not going anywhere, nor are her immediate offspring, so they don’t waste any energy producing wings (or males). During the summer, however, winged female aphids develop and disperse away from cherry and on to weedy crucifers or cleavers where they again crank out young without stopping to fool around. In late summer, winged males and females are produced, get it on, and eventually the females leave fertilized eggs on the cherry to spend the winter. This seems to me a complicated way to get from one year to the next, but perhaps all the natural enemies of aphids, the lady bird beetles, lacewings, hoverfly larvae, midge larvae, parasitoid wasps, hunting wasps, gardeners, and assorted diseases, make it worthwhile.

For more information on flea beetles and crucifers see:

Bain, A & LeSage, L (1998) A late seventeenth century occurrence of Phyllotreta striolata (Coleoptera : Chrysomelidae) in North America. Canadian Entomologist 130, 715-719.

Dosdall, Lloyd M. & Mason, Peter G. (2010) Key Pests and Parasitoids of Oilseed Rape or Canola in North America and the Importance of Parasitoids in Integrated Management. pp. 167-213 in Biocontrol-Based Integrated Management of Oilseed Rape Pests.

And for an interesting recent paper on the complex interactions between landscape factors, parasites and predators, ants, and Black Cherry Aphid see:

Stutz, S & Entling, MH (2011) Effects of the landscape context on aphid-ant-predator interactions on cherry trees. Biological Control 57, 37–43.

Return of the Police Car Moth (Wannabes)

2011-05-25T16:35:00.006-06:00

For those who remember last July's post on Fireweed that, among other pollinators, featured the Police Car Moth (Gnophaela vermiculata), I can now say that those flashing black & whites were doing more than just helping Fireweed to have a good time, but also indulging in some procreating of their own. The caterpillars already are fairly large and munch, munch, munching away on the Forget-Me-Nots (Myosotis sylvatica).

Forget-Me-Nots thrive in the HBG (they have naturalized in the yard), but the Siberian Bluebells (Mertensia sibirica) are only expanding gradually. Unfortunately more caterpillars have been showing up on the bluebells. So, we have been indulging in a bit of natural selection for host plant preference.

So far, no sign that the dear (if ephemeral) Siberian Bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost') or inexpensive but persistently attractive Bethlehem Sage (Pulmonaria saccharata ‘Roy Davidson’) have stimulated the caterpillars' tastebuds. But who knows, maybe the mother moths made the choices.

Death of a Mystery Plant

2011-05-23T14:30:00.001-06:00

Saturday 9 June 2007, like many a June weekend in the Home Bug Garden, was a day of planting, transplanting, weeding, and enjoying what sun, flowers, and bugs were in evidence before the usual afternoon clouds, thunder, and rain. Along the well shaded west side of the garage, I found something new and interesting – a tiny seedling with leaves with small, hairlike teeth on their margins. I was very excited because the leaves looked a lot like those of an Epimedium (variously known as Bishop’s Hat, Barrenwort, Fairy Wings, and Horny Goat Weed). In spite of the mostly off-putting common names, barrenworts are graceful plants with attractive foliage and pretty flowers. Moreover, barrenworts are reputed to do well in dry shade – the most difficult spot to fill with plants in any garden. The urge to splurge on epimedia at the local greenhouse was strong, but tempered by the high price, the usual Zone 5 rating (HBG is a Zone 3 garden), and a failed experiment with a West Coast native Redwood Insideout Flower (aka Redwood Ivy) Vancouveria planipetala. Like barrenworts, the insideout flowers belong to the barberry family, Berberidaceae, of which the Home Bug Garden was otherwise bereft.

Well, what luck, both a new family (those bitten by the collector’s urge will understand this) and a possible dry shade tolerant groundcover! So, I immediately transplanted the frail seedling to the dry shade under the Colorado Blue Spruce in the front and have been babying it along ever since. Attempts to identify the mystery seedling were unsuccessful – even the University botanist would not venture a guess – and it looked like we would have to wait until it bloomed to discover its secret name.

The seedling survived the winter of 2008 and by 2009 had formed a woody base and stem. This seemed to rule out barrenwort, because these have wiry stems. So, later in 2009, encouraged by the luck my fellow Edmonton gardener NorthernShade Gardening has had with her epimedia, I dropped a dollop of my disposable income at the local greenhouse and came home with a Epimedium grandiflorum 'Lilafee' and a Epimedium x warleyense 'Ellen Willmott'. Both were rated for Zone 4 by the optimistic greenhouse, but rather than risk them in the dry shade, I put them in my most protected and moist shade bed. Both barrenworts survived the Winter of 2010 and, although the leaves died off this winter, new sprouts are just coming up now. Meanwhile, the mystery plant kept slowing growing and was about half a metre high today with lots of ciliated leaves each with 2-3 sharp thorns at their base.

Then Gardening Zone 3b posted on harbouring criminals. I was too busy enjoying the warm, partly cloudy weekend – perfect for planting out – to read blogs. But, good weather never lasts long in Edmonton, and Victoria Day dawned cool (+7 C), wet, and by noon had dropped to +4 (40 F) in the rain. Rather than dwelling on the chance of the temperature dropping a few degrees more and that damned white stuff returning to bury frozen tomato seedlings, I’ve caught up on my blog roll and have discovered that I have been nurturing a Prohibited Noxious Weed – Common Barberry (Berberis vulgaris). Although the leaves are poisonous, the berries are used to make jam in its native Afro-Eurasian range. Unfortunately for barberry aficionados, birds also like the berries and spread the shrub and barberry is an intermediate host of stem rust of wheat (Puccinia graminis). Alas, into the rain and watch out for the thorns.

A sad end to what had started out as an exciting mystery, but I discovered another criminal lurking in the garden – Bighead Knapweed (Centaurea macrocephala). Also called Giant Knapweed, Armenian Basketflower, and Lemon Fluff Knapweed,

Bighead is an impressive plant growing about 1.5 m (5 feet) tall and producing numerous bee and butterfly friendly yellow flower heads. It is not uncommon in Edmonton gardens, but Bighead may be new to the list. I grew mine from seed (‘Mystery Perennial Packet’) from what one would think was a reliable source.

The original Bighead has now spread to a half dozen or so, some forming decent clumps. So, I can see it has the potential to spread and it probably belongs in the Rogue’s Gallery. Unfortunately, Bighead also has a big root and is a bother to grub out. A transplanting spade works better than a weeder.

A total of 9 species of Centaurea Knapweeds (and Russian Knapweed Rhaponticum repens) are posted as Prohibited Noxious Weeds in Alberta (see the Zone 3b post) and 5 more are listed as Noxious Weeds by the USDA. None of these is Balkan Knapweed (Centaurea atropurpurea), a somewhat creepy plant in bud, but attractive to both people and bees in bloom.

My first Balkan Knapweed came back from a visit to the Devonian Botanical Garden in 2005. It didn’t bloom until the third year, but now there are a dozen or so seedlings around the yard. I think I will err on the side of caution and grub them out too. I suppose this is a bit bigoted of me, but I'd rather not be the source of a new weed, no matter how attractive and bee-friendly.

The difference between Prohibited and every day noxious weeds is that the populations of the former are still small and restricted and there is a chance of preventing them from spreading. To quote the AB Invasive Plant Identification Guide: "Plants in this category are either not currently found in Alberta or are found in few locations such that eradication could be possible. Under the Weed Control Act a person has a responsibility to destroy a prohibited noxious weed." Those Noxious Weeds not prohibited are probably here for good. As with the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale F.H. Wigg. ssp. officinale), some day they may fall off the list and be just another interesting or annoying member of the flora.

Bumbling with Bombus: Queens & Cuckoos

2011-05-15T10:37:00.001-06:00

It seems to have jumped from winter to summer in the Home Bug Garden. We had three straight days of sun and +20 C temperatures in a row – unusual even in the summer. We may get three more, but the winds are so blustery that one has to hunker down to enjoy the sun. That seems to be true of the bees too: strong winds keep them low to the ground, but fortunately at this time of the year that is where most of the flowers are. The queens of the early emerging bumblebees spent the first few warm days search every nook and cranny for nest sites, but now have settled down to serious foraging.

The queens of at least three species of bumble bee are braving the windy HBG at the moment, all members of the subgenus Pyrobombus. We talked about Bombus vagans, one of the black and yellow bumble bees, last year when first working out how to be sure we were looking at the apparently threatened Bombus (Bombus) terricola. They featured in my first Bombus Cartoon. The other Pyrobombus, however, are yellow, orange, and black – and the queens of two of these are both early emerging and very similar in appearance: B. huntii and B. ternarius. I know that workers of both species foraged in the HBG last year – the workers are a bit easier to tell apart – but the only difference I can find between the queens is that in ternarius the black on the thorax extend posteriorly on the scutellum (see Bombus Cartoon Mark II below).

As we all know, I’m a bit camera-challenged and the wind hasn’t helped a bit, but I’ll offer a couple of blurry Bombus ternarius pictures in support of the identification. At least one smaller queen with yellow followed by three abdominal stripes of orange also passed through – most likely Bombus centralis – but the wind carried her away faster than I could start up my point-and-shoot.

Lots of smaller hairy bees have also been out and I believe they belong to the genus Andrena – a complex group with lots of species. Along with the Bombus queens, these bees clearly liked foraging at Coltsfoot (Petasites palmatus) and Siberian Squill (Scilla sibirica 'Spring Beauty'), and the Bombus also went after the Striped-Squill (Puschkinia scilloides 'libanotica') voraciously. Tulips, except Tulipa tarda, seem of little interest to the bees and the large Dutch crocus accounted for all but one or two of the crocus visits that I saw (and the smaller crocus out numbered the Dutch crocus by about 20:1).

So, I guess I’ll just have to consider the hybrid tulips, daffodils, and smaller crocuses for me and the rest for the bees. However, there was one bee at the squill and coltsfoot that I’m not so sure I was happy to see, although it represented a new HBG record – a species of Nomada.

These wasp-like bees are cuckoos – the females enter the nests of other bees, lay an egg, and their grub eats up all the host bee’s provisions (this is called cleptoparasitism – same root as in kleptomania). I suspect it is the Andrena that will be robbed (blurry below, better one here from a previous May).

For Madeleine in May

2011-05-14T09:21:00.001-06:00

My niece Madeleine is attending her commencement exercises this weekend in Virginia and will be awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree. I'd hoped to have some nice pictures from the garden to post in her honour, but although we have jumped from winter right into summer weather over the last two weeks, the plants have been slow catching up and the last few days have been so windy that only blurs and blasted petals can be captured. Instead I'll post some of my favorite pictures that her aunt took on Vancouver Island over the Easter break. I'll start with two British Columbia natives: the fawn lily above (Erythronium revolutum), a native but doing well in Butchart Gardens, and the salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) endemic in a coastal rainforest patch below.

One native in a garden and one in a forest seems too balanced, so here are two English Daisies (Bellis perennis) from Butchart Gardens. In its escaped, naturalized form, English Daisy is often called by the less prosaic 'Lawndaisy', and for those that like their lawns a solid green or their parks to have only pre-European native plants, it is a noxious weed in both North America and Australia. It reverts to a simple white flower head with far fewer ray flowers in the wild and is very common in Victoria, BC. I still remember my disappointment on learning that the pretty white daisy wasn't native, but a weed in Victoria, Australia.

Well Madeleine I hope the thunderstorms hold off until after Commencement is over, that you have a grand day, and that you do well by your BA. And, since no HBG post is complete without a bug, here's a mayfly subimago perched on my finger to wish you luck in your new life.

Evil Invaders of Vancouver Island

2011-05-08T10:41:00.002-06:00

Spring seems to have finally come to Edmonton, or at least all the augers seem to say so: the marsh marigolds leaves popped up along with the first crocus blooms (‘Ruby Giant’ Crocus tommasinianus Herbert on 24 April), the rhubarb punched its way through the snow (26 April), the first bumblebee queen was sighted (29 April), sandhill cranes gruked their way overhead (2 May), the first chionodoxa bloomed (May 3), the last of the snow went (4 May), the coltsfoot flowers opened (4 May), the first tulip bloomed (5 May), and the first Andrena bee descended on the coltsfoot (6 May). Even the first migratory songbird, a Swainson’s Thrush, made its appearance at the bubbler in the back (6 May). And surest sign of all, I’m puttering around in the garden again.

Although the winter was long and harsh, the unusually heavy snow pack gave me some hope that winter mortality would be less than usual. Alas, there is no sign of that and it looks like I may have several open spots to fill where exotic ‘perennials’ have become dead organic matter. One pleasant surprise, however, was the reappearance of one of last year’s experiments – a leafy vegetable that is a perennial in warmer climates, the Turkish Rocket (Bunias orientalis L.), also know by the degustibusnondiputandulatory name Turkish Warty Cabbage. Only one seed in the packet germinated last summer, and the resulting rosette looked sad and shaded under the overgrowing tomato (although this may have allowed it to hide in plain sight from the introduced cabbage white butterflies whose caterpillars ravaged all my other Brassicaceae). The young leaves are very peppery and, other than the coltsfoot stalks (which you can boil like asparagus – but in the HBG, these are for the bees), the only edible item in the Home Bug Garden at this time of year.

Unfortunately, Turkish Warty Cabbage seems to be pretty vigorous and has naturalized (or become a weed, if you prefer) in British Columbia and much of north eastern North America, so it will bear watching. If seedlings start showing up, I may have to have a feast instead of a nibble. Predicting the potential of a plant or animal from an exotic locality to become established in a new land is one of those mysteries that Science seems to have made little progress in unraveling. Some do and some don’t, but those that do and spread rapidly typically have propagules with high vagility, e.g. tasty berries that birds love, fluffy seeds that disperse on the wind, or wings which do the same as fluff for animals. The seeds of Turkish Warty Cabbage are large and lumpy, so I doubt they move far on their own. In contrast, the European Paper Wasp Polistes dominula (Christ, 1791), is far too vagile, appears to be spreading in many parts of North America, and was the most obvious insect in late April gardens on Vancouver Island (bumblebees being second).

Mrs HBG and I took advantage of the late Easter break to visit the mother-in-law on Vancouver Island on the coast of British Columbia. We lucked out with two days of mostly sun to one of rain, so most of the time was spent walking through coastal rainforest or visiting gardens (vs watching slugs), but we devoted one morning to the impressive Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria.

The RBCM has many interesting displays, but the one devoted to invasive species seems more thoughtful than most of its kind. I’m still ambivalent about the false native vs alien dichotomy that I think has poisoned the study of spreading species, but I can largely agree with the first paragraph on this RBCM plaque.

I don’t like several of the implications of the second paragraph – primarily the removal of ‘humans’ from nature and the use of the emotive ‘alien’ – but at least the aboriginal inhabitants of Vancouver Island are inferred to have been capable of introducing species they liked to the Island.

As a practical definition, though, I think the first sentence of paragraph II is okay (using a neutral term such as ‘introduced’), but it is really the introduced species that are able to spread into ‘natural’ habitats that are the problem and these are not the bulk of the species that have been introduced to Vancouver Island over the last 160 years. A good example of this is Butchart Gardens in Victoria – almost entirely given over to ‘alien’ plants, most of which have not moved into the forests and meadows that pre-existed European settlement.

Here’s a final example for consideration, and one that led to some wry feelings in the HBGardener. As we were leaving Butchart Gardens after many hours of wallowing in alien flowers, we noticed something scampering across a rock wall. To our amazement, it was a beautiful lizard! Lizards are as common as birds in Queensland, but Alberta has none but a horny toad (Phrynosoma douglassii brevirostre) that barely manages to scuttle into the southeastern corner of the Province. We were delighted, but at a loss as to the lizard’s identity. Much to our chagrin, the next day at the RBCM we learned that it was the European Wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis Laurenti, 1768): a dozen lizards were released into the wild when a small zoo on the island shut down and now they are scampering around much of Victoria. We were crest-fallen: what we thought was a delightful animal was an evil alien invader.

Wednesday Wildflower: Blazing Star, not Blazingstar

2011-04-15T18:23:00.001-06:00

Now that the partial thaw has been obliterated by the most recent blizzard and all is covered again in white, I think I need another Wednesday Wildflower (no matter that it is Friday) to brighten up the springless reality. A Blazing Star seems like a good counter to the grey and white.

The purist may disagree that Liatris spicata (L.), also known as Dense Blazing Star or Gayfeather, is a wildflower here: its ‘natural’ range only extends across the eastern half of Canada and the United States, but that is close enough for me. The jackrabbit in the picture doesn’t seem to mind either, although I must say that only one or two stalks were snipped, so it probably doesn’t taste very good. I suspect that may be due to residual alkaloids in the stems and leaves. Much of the scientific literature that I found is devoted to bioprospecting members of the genus for novel chemical compounds.

Blazing Star is a composite, so each of the ‘flowers’ is actually a composite head of small florets, in this case only disk florets and none of the ray florets that give daisies or sunflowers their bright ‘petals’. The plants are perennial and can be purchased as ‘bulbs’, actually a corm (but they look like tubers to me). I like the purple ones best, and so do the bumblebees. Several horticultural varieties have been developed for shorter stature and longer bloom times, but a white-flowered form Liatris spicata 'Alba' usually demands a premium. I’m not sure why. My only clump cocked it last summer, but I will miss it only in the way a collector dislikes not having an exemplar.

Blazing Star make nice cut flowers, with the interesting habit of blooming from the top to the bottom of the spike, and they seem to tolerate Zone 3 just fine. If you find the thought of planting an ‘alien’ wildflower offensive, then you might look for one of the two species of Liatris that are ‘native’ to Alberta. Dotted Blazing Star (Liatris punctata Hook.) can be found in dry grasslands and hillsides in the southern third of Alberta especially where there is sandy soil. I suspect that very good drainage would be required to grow this successfully. This may also be true of Meadow (aka Rocky Mountain) Blazing Star (Liatris ligulistylis (A. Nels.) K. Scum.) which inhabits sandy woods in the aspen parklands. I am indebted to my friend Matthias Buck for a picture of Meadow Blazing Star from the Ukalta Dunes north east of Edmonton.

The origin of the generic name Liatris seems to be shrouded in mystery (or just plain obscure), but that of its common name homonym, Mentzelia, is not. The latter was named for one Mentzel, a German botanist working in the 17^th Century. As well as being called Blazingstar all run together, they are called Blazing Star, Evening Star (some are white and open in the evening, suggesting moth pollination), and Sand Lily. Only one species, Mentzelia decapetala, makes it into Alberta naturally at this point in time, and then only into the most southern parts of the Province. Ten-petal Blazing Star is one of those evening lilies and the flowers, at least, are spectacular (the plant is sticky and weedy-looking). I’ve only grown Lindley’s Blazing Star (Mentzelia lindleyi), a delightful yellow annual from California and Arizona, but one that does better in the greenhouse than in the yard. I think Edmonton has been far too cold and wet in recent years for this plant to thrive.

Australian of the Week: Net-casting Spider

2011-04-10T09:03:00.002-06:00

Winter has somewhat relaxed its grip these last two weeks, enough so that at least one blue-bottle fly. probably Protophormia terraenovae Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830, has been on the wing. After work I’ve been sitting in a lawn chair in a spot of sun in a puddle of snowmelt determined to generate the first Vitamin-D of 2011 and the bluebottle stops by to see if I’m winter kill or not. You’d think from the species name, that the fly (aka Northern Blowfly) would be restricted to the New World, but it is holarctic in distribution and relatively well known for its forensic uses and myiasis problems in livestock and wildlife.

The fly is too wary for me to get close enough for a good shot with my point and shoot camera, but is familiar enough to induce daydreams about what might happen to the fly if it were in my former backyard in Brisbane, where a striking diversity of spiders were in residence year-round. One of my favourites was the Net-casting Spider, a species of Deinopis, probably Deinopis subrufa L. Koch, 1879. These are ambush predators that dangle from a scaffold web by their back two pairs of legs while holding a densely woven net in the front two pairs. Any insect that wanders or flies too close is snared and eaten. This behaviour has also earned them the name Retarius Spider from the Roman gladiators who fought with a net, trident, and dagger. Another name is Ogre-faced Spider – because of the very large median eyes that no doubt help coordinate the net-casting. We don’t seem to have a good frontal picture, but Robert Whyte has posted a striking portrait on flicker.

April 5^th marked the first observation of a Milbert’s Tortoiseshell Butterfly (Aglais milberti) in the backyard with its bright colours and intriguing white tips to its antennae. A lone Ring-billed Gull showed up on 31 March and a Robin yesterday (9 April), so in spite of the deep snow pack and cooler than normal temperatures, spring does seem to be in the air. In my records (which only go back to 2005), the Ring-billed Gulls always show up in the last week of March – and since they are large and loud, they are hard to miss. The tortoiseshell sightings are more variable (5-17 April), but these depend on the happy coincidence of a sunny day and time for me to enjoy it. The Robin, and a couple of Honkers that showed up on April Fool’s Day, are both within the two week window in my records, so at least the animals around here think spring is coming at more or less the normal time. Time to set up a couple of blue bird houses at the Moose Pasture and then start shoveling the snow away from the house foundations. The water level is already getting close to the top of the holes in the basement floor.

Orsodacne: A Mysterious Trip through a Coleopterous Quagmire

2011-03-20T14:39:00.006-06:00

Reputedly, the Vernal Equinox is tonight at 23:21 UTC or 11:21 PM Universal Time Coordinated, or Greenwich Mean Time if you aren’t a universalist. I’m an Albertan at the moment, so I take it to be about 3 hours from now at 5:21 PM Mountain Daylight Savings Time on the day after the ‘super’ full moon. Perhaps I’m wrong – only clouds and snow fill the sky at the moment: no sign of spring nor of super moons nor of spring bugs. Alas, without bug blogs I wouldn’t be seeing any bugs at all.

But bug blogs are more than just for bug perving, they also can be educational and in this particular rumination I will be surprised, embarrassed, philosophical, historical, avoiding guillotines, becoming mired in nomenclatorial confusion, and dying around mastodons in my search for the truth. It all began with the latest Inordinate Fondness beetle blog carnival at Wanderin Weeta’s where what should I see but a mystery Home Bug Garden (HBG) beetle! Forget the snow, a Canada Day reminiscence by the BugWhisper himself led to my surprise – and also my embarrassment. My one and only submission to Inordinate Fondness, one bugless and miserable day in February 2010, turns out to be disgraced by a “mystery chrysomelid” that is neither mysterious nor a chrysomelid. What we have is a failure to recognize Orsodacne atra (Aherns, 1810), currently placed in the family Orsodacnidae (Ravenous Leaf Beetles).

Getting a family wrong is always embarrassing, but learning a hypothesis is false is the best way forward in science. I’ve been a scientist for a long time and long ago got used to being wrong and having to pick myself up and start all over again. In this particular case, however, I seem to have slipped on a long and illustrious trail of coleopterous confusion.

To me (and others), Orsodacne has the gestalt of a Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetles), and indeed that is where beetle-lucky Pierre André Latreille gave birth to the genus in 1802. Allegedly, Latreille had good reason to love beetles, since his coleopterophily saved him from the guillotine (see Wikipedia link). Since he also established the family group name Chrysomelidae in 1802, this would seem to be definitive and I should be embarrassed no longer. Thomson in 1859, however, decided a new family, Orsodacnidae, was needed for these peculiar beetles. Since then the splitters and the lumpers have tugged the ravenous leaf beetles back and forth between the families. This may be more than just taxonomic egos, because Orsodacne has all the characteristics of a basal member of the chrysomelid lineage (e.g. see Mann & Crowson 1981 - citation added) and its proper placement is not all that clear.

Confusion does not end there, however. Unfortunately, these beetles tend to be variable in colour pattern. For example, Steve Marshall in his Insects (p. 351) states without compromise: “Orsodacne atra, the only northeastern orsodacnid, has several color forms which have been erroneously treated as different species. At least 11 different species names have been given this species, of which only the oldest (O. atra), is correct. The other names are junior synonyms.”

So, now at least we know the right name for our beetle: Orsodacne atra (Ahrens, 1810)! Or do we – half the references I found use Orsodacne atra (Knoch in Ahrens, 1810). This would seem to imply that someone named Knoch (possibly the German naturalist August Wilhelm Knoch who died in 1818) actually deserves credit for the name and not the German entomologist August Ahrens (1779–1867)? ~~This is getting way beyond my level of nomenclatorial expertise, s~~ [Having acquired a higher level of nomenclatorial knowledge since first posting, I can say (Ahrens, 1810) is wrong, (Knoch, 1810) correct, and (Knoch in Ahrens, 1810) the most useful authority citation.] So I think I’ll just be glad that the genus is clear and stable.

But is it – NO! Apparently the species that Latrielle designated as the type for Orsodacne is not all that clear either. Although he tried to remedy the problem in 1810 by designating Chrysomela cerasi Linnaeus, 1758, as the type species, this is somewhat irregular under the rules of nomenclature. Thus, in 2000 H. Silfverberg felt it necessary to appeal to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (Case 3103) to conserve Latrielle’s designation. Fortunately for us, two years later the ICZN agreed (Opinion 1989).

So, at last we have a more or less stable name – but what does this beetle do? Silfverberg’s (2000) application states “Species of Orsodacne are pests on cultivated plants”. From the name of the type species (cerasi) I think it safe to assume that the adults or larvae or both feed on cherry, but finding information on the feeding of any Orsodacne in the scientific literature seems to be difficult. If they are a pest, then they must be minor ones, because the sad fact is that the more an insect impacts on humans, the more scientists study it.

Can we say anything about O. atra? Well, the HBG beetles were ravenously eating pink panda pollen. Pink panda is a hybrid between a strawberry and a cinquefoil, both members of the Rosaceae. Insects of Alberta reports that adults of this beetle also feed on a member of the Rosaceae, the Provincial Flower the wildrose (usually interpreted as Rosa acicularis), and on the pollen of other woody plants. Barrett & Helenurm (1987) report this beetle common on bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) (below).

That was all I could glean from a fairly extensive search of the primary scientific literature and unfortunately that leaves us in the dark about the larval habits. Insects of Alberta reports “Little is known about the larval stages” and this seems to be true. So, a mystery – but the solution comes from an unexpected source - paleoentomology. Thanks to the Geological Society abstracts of Robert E Nelson and his colleagues that are available on the web we can add the knowledge that adult O. atra used to hang around with mastodons in New York and on the coast of Maine about 11,000 years ago – and also that the larvae feed on willow (Salix spp.). So, with lots of flowers in the Rosaceae (like the white Scotch Rose above) and Cornaceae, and a large and rapidly growing willow, there no real mystery as to why this beetle has taken up residence in the Home Bug Garden. However, I do still wonder why it is called a Ravenous Leaf Beetle and not a Ravenous Flower Beetle?

References:

Anonymous. 2002. Opinion 1989 (Case 3103). Orsodacne Latreille, 1802 (Insecta, Coleoptera): Chrysomela cerasi Linnaeus, 1758 designated as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 59(1): 55.

Barrett S. C. H. & Helenurm K. 1987. The reproductive biology of boreal forest herbs. I. Breeding systems and pollination. Can.J. Bot. 65: 2036-2046.

Mann, J. S. & Crowson, R. A. 1981. The systematic positions of Orsodacne Latr. and Syneta Lac. (Coleoptera Chrysomelidae), in relation to characters of larvae, internal anatomy and tarsal vestiture. Journal of Natural History, 15: 5, 727-749.

Silfverberg, H.2000. Case 3103: Orsodacne Latreille, 1802 (Insecta, Coleoptera): proposed conservation by the designation of Chrysomela cerasi Linnaeus, 1758 as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 57 (2): 94-96.

Australian of the Week: Agarista agricola (Donovan, 1805)

2011-03-01T18:20:00.001-07:00

This Winter is definitely getting to me. Snow yesterday, -31 C this morning (and -39 at Elk Island), -30 and snow tomorrow. Although the Alberta Lepidopterist Guild had an entertaining Feralia Symposium this weekend and Terry Thormin, snug on Vancouver Island, is already posting new insect pictures on the Albertabugs, it looks like it will be many more cold, cold weeks until the first flies of spring. Rather than carp about the cold, though, I’m instituting a new semi-weekly feature in which I get to reminisce about a warmer land: Australian of the Week. Many of these pictures will have been scanned from 35mm film, but that was the technology at the time.

First up is the Joseph’s Coat Moth Agarista agricola (Donovan, 1805), from the biblical story (or the Dolly Parton song if you prefer). This is a large moth – and it flies during the day when its bright colours tell potential predators just how bad it tastes. Most brightly coloured diurnal moths are probably loaded with nasty chemicals (or at least pretending they are) – and they seem to be popular on bug blogs like Beetles in the Bush and Myrmecos Blog this week.

This particular Joseph’s Coat Moth fell victim to Heather’s camera in a vineyard outside Stanthorpe, Queensland. Stanthorpe is in the Granite Belt – Queenslands best wine country. If you really like red wine, then this is faint praise, but only because the competition is the Coonawarra, Yarra Valley, Eden Valley, Western Australia, Mornington Pennisula, and so on. The Granite Belt wine probably has the potential to be as good as that from the Barsossa Valley, usually about the best Australian wine I can afford in Alberta bottle shops. The Joseph’s Coat Moth is native to Queensland, where it feeds on native vines in the grape family (Vitaceae), and now and then, introduced grape vines.

Alberta has its own colourful day-flying moths that are now more or less in the same family with the Joseph’s Coat Moth. Well, who knows, the taxonomy of the Noctuoidea seems to change daily. Currently, the Police Car Moths I posted on last summer and the equally attractive Ctenucha virginica (Esper, 1794) are in the Erebidae (subfamily Arctiinae). The Joseph’s Coat Moth had its own subfamily in The Insects of Australia, Agaristinae, and maybe it still does, but I’m not sure in what family it currently resides. Should I try to find out or open a bottle of Australian wine to toast the new feature? Ah, if only all choices were so easy!

Sunday Psyllids

2011-02-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who offered supportive emails and comments over the last few weeks. They were much appreciated. Even without family tragedies, I find this time of the year, February through March, the most bleak and difficult in Alberta. The winter has dragged on, the holidays are past, and it will still be two or three months until there is more than the faintest signs of life escaping from the icy shell. Sometimes one has to dig deep to find some winter bug interest.

The winter weather here derives mostly from the struggle between cold Arctic air masses moving south and warmer, moist Pacific air masses trying to force their way over the Rockies. Every now and then the Arctic air breaks away and drifts further south, bringing storms and snow to the US, but often letting in enough Pacific air to give us a brief thaw and a view of an overly optimistic fly, spider, or lacewing basking in the faint sun. The few days of warmth are appreciated, but the false springs are soon gone and below zero weather reigns again. Under the snow, however, there is a lot going on, and it is always worthwhile to shovel down and see what is up. On our last snow-delving trip to the Moose Pasture, we found something unexpected - a superfamily of tiny (3 mm) bugs we didn’t know we had – jumping plant lice Psylloidea.

In Australia, I would have called these lerps, or if being more formal, psyllids, but neither is technically correct. A lerp is actually a sugary covering of the larvae of some psylloids and a much appreciated food for some Australian birds, such as the infamous Bell Miner (Manorina melanophrys). You don’t have to go to Australia to see lerps – California is close enough to see the The Redgum Lerp (Glycaspis brimblecombei) devastating introduced gum trees. But fortunately no one has introduced the Bell Miner or it’s similarly aggressive but more flower-loving cousin the Noisy Miner to North America. The latter is slightly larger than a North American Robin, more aggressive than the Mockingbird (but lacks any musical ability), hangs out in gangs, and vigorously beats up and chases away any perceived competitor or threat. But at least they don’t farm psyllids.

'Psyllid' seems to be hanging on as a common name, although the Psyllidae of my youth is now Psylloidea (‘psylloid’ is a bit pedantic) and contains a number of families, depending on the authority. I follow Ian Hodkinson, not just because he did time in Alberta, but because he and J. Bird revised the subfamily Livinae (Aphelaridae) that includes my two snow-bound specimens. These psyllids are not lerpy, instead the larvae form galls on sedges (Carex) and rushes (Juncus). Some Livia species have been collected overwintering on conifers. The two I collected were from the litter of a white spruce under 40 cm of snow. Since psyllid workers don’t seem to have spent much time looking for their bugs under snow, it is possible that, at least in Alberta, this protected winter habitat is the actual overwintering site. Neither psyllid quite fits a described species, but little is known of the biology of psyllids unless they are pests. Seasonal polymorphisms are known in other psyllids and usually related to diapause, so I may have an overwintering morphology of a described species. Galls, polymorphisms, secret diapause sites, I never thought that such tiny bugs would prove such a welcome winter respite!

Thanks to The Atavism in New Zealand for opening my eyes to the new Psylloidea in a November post that prepared me to recognize them (I surely would have ignored them otherwise). While thinking of the southern hemisphere, let me say I’m happy to learn that Bunyip Co and A Snail’s Eye View (and her padymelons) survived Yasi and are back to blogging. I hope that is the last of the giant cyclones they have to experience.

For more on psyllids see:

Hodkinson ID. 2009. Life cycle variation and adaptation in jumping plant lice (Insecta: Hemiptera: Psylloidea): a global synthesis. Journal of Natural History 43: 65–179.

Hodkinson ID & J Bird. 2007.Sedge and rush-feeding psyllids of the subfamily Liviinae (Insecta: Hemiptera: Psylloidea): a review. Joumal of the Linnean Society 128: 1-49.

Some Flowers for Tina

2011-02-05T20:13:00.001-07:00

I started the HomeBugGarden for two reasons: I needed an excuse to ruminate on what I could and could not contribute to invertebrate conservation in a small urban lot and I wanted to showcase some of my wife’s excellent photography. The first thing I learned during this endeavour was that although I had spent 40 years learning and practicing some aspects of the biological sciences, some of my most basic assumptions were not very scientific.

That discovery was interesting, if disconcerting, but since I had decided to give up the profession of a tenured professor of the truth, in favour of one puttering around in a garden, the discovery seemed of but academic (or rather chewing-the-cud) interest.

Discovering that things one always assumed were true were not, however, does tend to make one question other aspects of their lives. I’m not really ready to throw over most of these other convictions, but I am prepared to be neutral about them: maybe they are valid and maybe not. I’m pretty sure that when I die I will not go to heaven and God will not explain to me exactly what happened to the dinosaurs, but I am willing to suspend disbelieve about how successful others may be in their search for the truth.

Perhaps I am merely maturing as a scientist – learning what questions can be addressed by the scientific method and which ones cannot. Perhaps.

In any case, life marches on, relentlessly. I suppose I know this in the abstract sense, and more immediately in the recent deaths of several of my wife’s relatives. For the last 40 years or so, however, I have tried to keep a very broad buffer between me and my genetic family (the Pacific Ocean worked well).

I come from a fairly dysfunctional family – and I think my brothers and sisters would mostly agree with this assessment – but not totally dysfunctional. Minor civil wars aside, my brothers and sisters have kept on mostly civil terms. We all dispersed from our natal home, but all the others have been drawn more or less back. Creepy, as if invisible spider web pulled us all back home, but I have resisted the pull. No kudos to me; though, rejection is always easier than accommodation, and I am the distant one.

I thought that one day, perhaps, I might go back and get to re-know my family. There’s some saying somewhere about paths and good intentions, and I’m sure I’m stumbling down several of them at the moment, but in this case the good intentions never happened. Now it is too late, at least for my closest sister.

A few months ago, my sister Tina was diagnosed with a cancer. Her emails were invariably cheerful and upbeat and the treatments seemed to offer hope. Then, suddenly last weekend, she was hospitalized with breathing problems. Here last emails told us not to worry, but on Friday she died.

That was very sudden, and all good intentions to the contrary, I will never get to show Tina the Home Bug Garden. I think she would have liked it. Although not an insectophile, she was interested and always sending me pictures of things she or her daughter Tessa had found in the backyard, in the driveway, in the bath tub, in the basement ...

Even if Tina would have just tolerated the bugs, I’m sure she would have like the flowers. So, here is my way of saying goodbye to my sister – a feast of flowers that I never got the chance to show her.

Merry Christmas from the Home Bug Garden

2010-12-24T21:03:00.001-07:00

The Dragonfly Woman has a nice post on what insects you might see on a white Christmas. The only one of those true insects that we have recorded in the Home Bug Garden, a winter stonefly in the family Taeniopterygidae, is from the day after the last frost on 5 May 2005. Although the Last Spring Frost has since moved closer and closer to the end of May (with a light frost on 1 June of this year) along with the snow, we like to think that we will some day see early springs and winter snowflies without snow again. Meanwhile, we really should start looking for ‘snow fleas’ (aka springtails, Collembola). With the snowpacks we have been getting, it is highly likely that lots of tiny arthropods are going about their business under the snow where temperatures may be hovering around freezing and that some of these will follow the tiny channels to the surface where they can offer us a bit of diversion over the long, long winter.

Meanwhile, on reviewing the HBG portfolio, it looks like the beetles are the bugs with the most Christmas colour, so here follows a small sampling of festive red, white, and green from over the years. We’d also like to wish all of our fellow bug bloggers, those obsessed few who have challenged the stereotype of blogs as cesspools of political invective and made each morning’s readings an uplifting experience, a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Among that long list, we’d especially like to thank Ted MacRae at Beetles in the Bush – our first visit each morning; The Bug Whisperer – our local hero, the multi-talented Adrian Thysse; the anonymous, always interesting, and often annoying Bug Girl’s Blog; and finally, the master of bug blogging, the one and only Myrmecos (aka Alex Wild). To each and all bug bloggers a joyous and interesting bug-filled New Year.