Category: insects and other arthropods

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 25, 2020 • 7:45 am

Tony Eales, a Research Officer from Queensland,  writes in with some lovely arthropod photos. His notes are indented.

So it’s winter in the southern hemisphere, and insects and other arthropods are more difficult to find. However when that happens I turn to the leaf litter. I collect a bag of litter from a likely looking spot and then sort through handful by handful on a white bucket lid, looking for movement. The bucket lid helps me see the tiny things crawling around but also has another effect. With a little manipulation of black/white levels on photoshop and some erasing I can isolate the subject in the photo against a white background. This effect can really help bring out the details of these tiny ground-dwelling creatures. Here’s a sample of some of the things that I’ve pulled out of the litter.

Having said all that the first subject is one from the trees rather than the ground. It’s a small male orb-weaving spider Araneus arenaceus the Sandy Orb-weaver. When disturbed, it heads to a twig and hunches up into this shape and becomes basically invisible, looking like any other small protrusion.

Commonly in the rainforest leaf litter I find harvestmen, arachnids in the Order Opiliones. The commonest are these peculiar creatures in the genus Bogania. I can’t find much information about them but I find the huge articulated spiked jaws fascinating. I’d love to observe them catching prey.

The thing about looking at the small stuff is that you’re going to be finding the unstudied stuff fairly regularly. This photo is of a spider in the cobweb spider family Theridiidae. Consulting with the experts on the spiders of my state, we can get it down to the subfamily Hadrotarsinae, but that’s as far as anyone can get. Despite many surveys of the leaf litter in my part of the world, some groups are just not known. I love the long setae on the back.

Next is an insect I’ve shown before. It’s a Trilobite Roach genus Laxta. This one is a nymph although females remain wingless like this but are much darker with thicker exoskeletons.

This is a tiny ant from a genus restricted to the Indo-Australian region. There are only nine described species and they live in small colonies of around 100 ants, foraging in the leaf litter. I think I’ve keyed this one out to Mayriella abstinens, but it’s definitely Mayriella sp. as identified by the deep antennal scrobes (grooves) in the head.

The rainforest leaf litter contains many tiny land snails, most often in the Family Charopidae. There are numerous species with very similar form and thus it is difficult to even get to genus with most that I find. This one, Nautiliropa omicron, however, is quite distinctive with a bi-concave nautiloid shell, delicate ridges and zig-zag patterning.

I’m not sure why this tortoise leaf-beetle was in the leaf litter, as I normally find them in the bushes on live leaves. It’s definitely in the genus Paropsisterna related to P. decolorata, but there’s a problem for researchers describing these beetles, as they have distinctive colours and golden iridescences until they’re dead, and then they lose their colour. It makes it very difficult to compare with the holotypes, many of which were sent to Europe and researchers here aren’t sure if a particular beetle already has a name or not.

Last, some more from my favourite order, spiders. This hairy one is a crab spider. An undescribed member of genus Sidymella. They appear to be fairly common in the leaf litter which is quite unusual for crab spiders. I can’t think of another one that lives on the ground.

Next, I am told by someone more capable in spider ID than I, is genus Spermophora…maybe. It’s a cute little jack-o-lantern-faced cellar spider, Family Pholcidae. I was trying to get to the bottom of what species it is and the key paper on Australian Pholcids has this to say “Spermophora is probably the most chaotic genus within pholcids”, plus it lists only two species in that genus—both far in the tropical north. So who knows. Cute, though.

Last is a jumping spider in the small genus Tara. It’s one of two types I always find in the rainforest leaf litter. Not very colourful for a jumping spider but with those big forward facing eyes they are the most appealing of all spiders.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 29, 2020 • 7:45 am

Tony Eales from Brisbane has sent us a collection of mixed arthropod photos. His notes are indented:

I just thought I’d throw together some oddballs for fun.

First, a tiny little mite known as a whirly-gig mite family Anystidae. These guys are so small and fast that I rarely attempt to photograph them even if I see one. However this one stopped for half a second and I just managed to get the focus.

Next, a particularly pretty planarian worm called Australopacifica regina, found in the local subtropical rainforest under a log.

This is one of the cup moth or slug moth caterpillars. Calcarifera ordinata. The stings are said to be particularly fierce. Happily so far I remain un-stung, touch wood (actually don’t touch anything in the bush, it probably stings or bites, just take photos).

Next a few spiders. First, an undescribed member of the genus Celaenia. This genus generally imitate bird droppings though this one not so much. Still, it l doesn’t look very appetising.

Second an ant-mimicking jumping spider. Not as convincinga  close-up as the more well-known Myrmarachne species, but from above at a glance, it’s still very ant-like. This one is genus Ligonipes sp: .‘white brows’. A very common but as yet undescribed species.

The last spider is an Oonopid aka goblin spider. Maybe, genus Grymeus. I’ll know more later as there’s a person at the Qld Museum currently working on the family and I’m sending the specimen in to go into the collection. For fun I’ve added a picture of the spider in the test tube. See if you can spot it.

I picked up something fairly rare the other day, a species of lace bug, Tingidae. To me it looked like the fairly common pest known as the Azalea Lace Bug Stephanitis pyrioides but the experts said “Oh no, The shape of the hemelytron is distinctly different. This is an Australian endemic, Lepturga magnifica. In any case, it’s an interesting looking bug.

Weevils are so diverse and there are some extreme variations on the weevil bauplan. This is one of the odder ones Rhadinosomus lacordaireei or Thin Strawberry Weevil.

Last but not least, a weird offshoot of in the lacewing Order Neuroptera, a Beaded Lacewing in the family Berothidae. These are unusual within the Neuropterans for having particularly hairy wings. The one pictured is  Stenobiella sp. The larvae of these lacewings live in termite mounds, apparently unmolested, snacking on a passing termite when hungry. Wired did an article on how the larvae have been observed to paralyse the hapless termite with termite-stunning farts

 

Readers’ wildlife photos

April 17, 2020 • 7:45 am

Mark Sturtevant sent some nice insect and arachnid photos, including SEX, and I’ve indented his captions and IDs:

The narrative and pictures in this one (from 2018) are a bit different, since the pictures of the caterpillar are ‘interrupted’ with pictures of Arachnid sex.

In the first picture is a delicately lovely female Eastern forktail damselfly (Ischnura verticalis). I find this species to be exceptionally difficult to photograph since they are very shy, but also too small for the usual method of using a zoom lens. But this one allowed me get close with the 100mm macro.

Next is a velvet ant (Timulla vagans). These are actually wingless wasps that parasitize a range of insects, depending on the species. This is one of the rare occasions where one of these insects was sitting still. They don’t often do that.

The tiny moth shown in the next picture is the Ailanthus webworm moth (Atteva aurea). The larvae are commonly found on an invasive tree called “tree of heaven” (Ailanthus altissima), and there might be an interesting story here. The details are not clear, but the moth used to be restricted to Florida and points south, where the larvae fed on various trees. But beginning in 1700s, the tree of heaven was introduced to North America as an ornamental tree. It was soon discovered that the tree itself is highly aggressive and it is now considered a pest. Anyway, the moth has expanded its range northward, and in its expanded range its main host is tree of heaven. Here, the moth is even given its own species name (A. aurea), classifying it as separate from the southern group (A. floridiana),  although of course that does not necessarily mean it is a different species in the biological sense.

Next is a well known kind of arachnid commonly known as a harvestman or daddy-long-legs. This handsome male (Leiobunum vittatum) sports long and artfully shaped pedipalps, and the reason for them emerges in the story that follows.

I often write about the Magic Field, but in fact this field is but a small part of a very large and very old park. In the main area of the park are enormous trees and ancient-looking but massive picnic shelters. A large stone and timber bridge crosses the river (it is the widely known Flint River) that bisects the park, and just over the bridge is a peaceful glen. Not even a quarter acre in size, this glen has given me more special finds than any other area save for the Magic Field.

I was just entering the glen late in the summer when I noticed a strange symmetrical shape sitting under a leaf of a red-bud tree next to the river. Closer inspection revealed a very good find, which was one of the larger species of slug caterpillars as shown in first pictures. This is the spiny oak slug caterpillar (Euclea delphinii). Slug caterpillars do not have well defined legs, so they crawl slowly with peristaltic waves under the body. This species has poisonous spines, and the bright colors are nature’s way of saying Do Not Touch.

I had plucked off the leaf that it was on to take pictures of the caterpillar, but the lighting was not optimal in the full sun. There was a large log in the shade which was perfect for sitting, but at the moment a harvestman was trundling across the log and so I waited for it to make its way across. But then a second, leaner-looking harvestman rushed out and tackled the first one!  !!???  They rolled around briefly in a blur of tangled legs before settling out, facing each other in a close embrace. This was an attempt at mating! I have never seen the entire process in these arthropods, so the caterpillar was put down in order to take pictures of their liaison.

As shown in the next several pictures, the male (on the right) protrudes something weird. I suppose there is sperm transfer going on somehow. Note too the elongate pedipalps of the male that were mentioned above. They are being used here to enwrap the female in a specific way. The red thingy on the females bum is a parasitic mite.

For these hi mag pictures, a Raynox 150 diopter lens was attached to the macro lens to boost magnification. Readers might be interested to know that this diopter lens is a flexible but also inexpensive way to convert a regular camera into one that can take closeup pictures. This is how this rewarding hobby can start.

After several minutes, the pair went their separate ways and I could claim the log for more caterpillar pictures, as shown below. The slug caterpillar was of course returned to its tree when I finished with it.

Excavating an army ant nest (and finding the queen)

April 15, 2020 • 2:45 pm

Matthew called my attention to this tweet about the excavation of a driver-ant (army ant) colony, and I’ve put the video at the bottom.

Dorylus molestus is an African army ant, some of whose drones are the largest ants in the world, not to mention the huge queen, who appears at 2:52 in the video below.  Some Wikipedia notes:

Some Dorylus molestus queen are the largest known extant ants. Queens typically grow to 5.2 centimetres (2.0 in) but can reach 8 centimetres (3.1 in).

Its size of Molestus queens allows it to hold the world record in egg laying. Workers (sterile females in the presence of the only living queen) range from .3–1.1 centimetres (0.12–0.43 in). Huge and specialised soldier morphs (permanent sterile females) provide protection during migration raids.

Here are the YouTube notes on the excavation, and they’re biologically quite informative.

Join us on a hunt for the elusive army ant queen (Dorylus molestus) at Mount Kenya. Army ant queens are the biggest ants on the planet and highly unusual looking. First, their gasters [JAC: abdomens] are massively enlarged to accommodate the huge ovaries. Second, unlike the queens of most other ants, they are permanently wingless, reflecting the fact that army ant queens never leave the colony, and colonies reproduce by fission. This video provides background footage for my upcoming book “Army Ants: Nature’s Ultimate Social Hunters“, which will be released by Harvard University Press later this year [JAC: in October]

I’m a bit pissed off that they dug up such an extensive colony and removed the colony’s heartbeat and sole source of propagation: the queen. Perhaps there was a research objective to this, but it would have to justify destroying a colony.

Or perhaps they put the queen back.

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 13, 2020 • 7:45 am

Don’t forget to send in your wildlife photos (if you did already, I almost certainly have them in the queue). Today’s batch comes from Tony Eales in Australia, who sent a diverse batch of insects, spiders, plants, fungi, and reptiles. Tony’s notes and IDs are indented. This was sent February 17.

We’ve had buckets of rain that has finally got the fires completely under control albeit with a fair amount of flooding. This weekend was the first one dry enough to really get out with the camera and see how things are. In the open eucalyptus forests, there is a lot of late flowering now that the rains have come. I found this native Spade Flower which is in the violet family, Afrohybanthus stellarioides.

Up in the local rainforest there were signs of life everywhere. Particularly striking were the fruiting bodies of a Honeycomb Coral Slime Mould, Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa.

The nice thing about doing macrophotography in the rainforest in Australia is that you can often be the first person to get a live photograph of a species.

This one was a tiny fungus weevil, Eupanteos sp. I was informed by an expert on iNaturalist that this is an endemic genus with five known species in Australia (two undescribed), and while it most resembled E. bifasciatus, the taxonomic description for that species has a white stripe both above and below the dark band; so perhaps it’s something else.

A small Lauxaniid fly, these flies are small and often mistaken for fruit flies. The one in the photo is Poecilohetaerus pinnatus. While I can find live photos of other Poecilohetaerus species, I believe this is the first online of P. pinnatus.

I have sent a picture of this species of Rhotana, a small Derbid planthopper from the rainforest, before. But now I have better equipment and have got a clearer image. This species is hypothesized to have a portrait of a jumping spider on its wing. This is something we see a lot as shown in this cool paper, “Do jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) draw their own portraits?” by David E. Hill, Abhijith A. P. C.  and João P. Burini.

Because of the recent rain there were lots of these Dripping Bonnets, I think they are Southern Dripping Bonnets, Roridomyces austrororidus which I have photographed in Tasmania; but they may be a different sub-tropical species.

The find of the day was a ground dwelling Funnelweb Hadronyche sp. probably either H. infensa or H. valida. Apparently only an expert can tell them apart, and that is with a dead male specimen in hand. Females of the two species are indistinguishable. I guess DNA would work too. I managed to annoy it sufficiently to get the classic threat pose with the drop of deadly venom on its fangs. Find-a-spider website has some very good notes on funnelwebs.  “Funnel-webs rarely climb and so will usually be found at floor level in a part of the house where the humidity is high. When provoked, both sexes rear up (though they do not jump) and drops of venom appear on the ends of their fangs. This tendency to void venom is an important identifying feature of funnel-web spiders.”

Lastly, we had a visitor in the backyard chicken run. A coastal Carpet Python, Morelia spilota ssp. mcdowelli. It hung in the lower branches of a bush in prestrike mode, perfectly motionless for several hours. I’m hoping it got one of the rats or feral doves that come for the chicken feed. It was a young-looking snake that didn’t look like it could swallow our chickens, but I didn’t risk it and let them run in the yard while the snake was there.

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 4, 2019 • 7:30 am

Today we have some lovely dragonfly photos by Mark Sturtevant, whose notes and IDs are indented (the links are also his):

This will be the first of many occasional posts about the dragonflies that I had photographed over the previous summer. I enjoy looking for all insects when out with the camera, but it must be admitted that I am always ‘thinking about dragons’. There is just something about them.

First up are Halloween pennants (Celithemis eponina), beginning with a female, and then some interesting perspectives of a young male who was struggling to hold on during a breezy day. Like many dragonflies, males start out with colors that are similar to females, but they then change as they age. This one will become increasingly red over time.


After an immature dragonfly emerges from the water, they will spend many hours as “tenerals”, which means that they are not yet hardened up enough for sustained flight. They are then very easy to approach and photograph. The next two pictures are of a female teneral banded pennant (Celithemis fasciata). I especially like how the light plays with their sparkly new wings at this time. Clicking to embiggen these pictures is recommended.

During the early summer the most common dragonfly around here is simply called the dot-tailed whiteface (Leucorrhinia intacta). There are certain fields where these are simply everywhere, and they are both useful and annoying. They are useful when their flight triggers another dragonfly to reveal itself since they often fly at each other. But in their numbers they will also trigger a dragonfly to fly from its perch while I am already stalking it. Anyway, here is a pair that is in the ‘wheel’ mating position.

One species that has been rather frustrating for me is the black saddlebags (Tramea lacerata), shown in the next picture. These are reasonably common, but they are a species that flies for very extended periods, and when they do land they usually perch rather high. One can see in the link that other people experience the same issue with them. Hard to get a top view of these things! Different species of dragonflies will be quite different in their flight behavior and in their habits of perching.

The next dragonfly is a member of a group called the baskettails. This male is probably the common baskettail (Epitheca cynosura), but there are a couple other very similar species in my area.

The last pictures are now one of my favorite species of dragonflies, and to think that a year ago I scarcely knew they existed. One day I spotted a large and strange dragonfly hanging in a tree. I assumed it was a 12-spotted skimmer, which is a super common species, but it was the size of a darner and what was going on with its abdomen? Only later from the pictures did I realize this was an entirely new species!

This is the prince baskettail (Epitheca princeps), the largest of our baskettail dragonflies. I later learned that they often perch with their abdomen curled up like this, and they are also considered very difficult to photograph since they spend most of the day in sustained flights well above the trees. In later weeks I discovered they were surprisingly common, and could often be seen in large swarms far over head. I need to look up more often!

On one occasion I was watching one such high-flying group. They were dog-fighting each other and also feeding on the wing, when I noted that they would sometimes swoop down low to my level. So I got my butterfly net and pretty soon I caught one! Now what? I improvised a perch for a staged shot, and used some ice to briefly chill down its thorax. I then posed it for the last picture. It turns out that this is a pretty common practice among those who photograph dragonflies. After a couple minutes it recovered and zoomed away.

I have now seen probably hundreds of prince baskettails, now that I know something of their ways. It lifts my non-existent spirit to watch them as they cart-wheel away the long summer days, nimbly flying over the trees. Above it all, and (nearly) unattainable.

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 18, 2019 • 8:00 am

We have some photos and a story from reader Olen Rambow. His text is indented:

Attached are some wildlife photos taken in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. I believe the butterfly is a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), and the moth is a Royal Walnut Moth (Citheronia regalis). I was not able to identify the millipede. (I think it’s a millipede, rather than a centipede, as it appears to have about twice as many legs as body segments.)
I discovered that the millipedes above are not only aposematically colored, as they contain cyanide that makes then poisonous, but are also part of a Müllerian mimicry complex in which different species mimic each other’s color and pattern.
There’s a funny story behind the moth: We found it on our cabin doorstep in the morning and later saw that it was still there when we returned from a hike in the afternoon. I touched it with my finger, and it fell over onto its side, its legs twitching feebly. I assumed it was dying, and I took it inside, not wanting such a beautiful specimen to get stepped on or eaten by ants. My five-year-old son and I named it Charlie. For the rest of the day, Charlie lay on top of the chest of drawers, presumably dying in peace. Then at about 10 p.m., as we were drifting off to sleep, we heard a rather dramatic fluttering and thumping from Charlie’s side of the room. I turned on the light over the bed, and Charlie promptly flew straight into it, apparently in good health. My wife screamed, while my son jumped up and down yelling, “Charlie’s alive! Charlie’s alive!” I put him outside, and he flew off into the night. The next morning, he had returned to roost on our doorframe again. I guess the lesson I learned is that moths can sleep surprisingly soundly during the day.
I think the moth should have been named “Lazarus” rather than Charlie. Do you recognize the species? We saw this the other day: