What the well-dressed entomologist is wearing this season

I dropped and broke my ancient over the counter magnifying glasses, and even SuperGlue couldn't rescue them, so this cheapo eBay visor is on trial. Definite Blade Runner vibe. 

 

Hawthorns Ahoy!

The Hawthorns in Leicestershire are just at the bud burst stage, and frankly looking a bit sparse still. Nevertheless, beating the emerging foliage is a good source for some interesting insects. 

First is the charming little Lacebug Physatocheila dumetorum. 

This favours Hawthorn but I have previously taken it from lichen-covered Larch, although the overwintering Larch specimen was very tatty. The Hawthorn this week was alive with these bugs, but the species is seriously under recorded, mostly because of the small size (2-3mm) I suspect. 

If you spend some time on the Hawthorns, you'll also come across the Hawthorn Leaf Beetle, Lochmaea crataegi - an attractive bonus species! 

 

Entomology Journal - March 2024

March brought a few days when the birdsong and the warmth of the sun on my back felt like spring. Unfortunately, it also brought, in the words of Gilbert White "vast rain". 

 

Solace from Gilbert White

March 9th 1775: Sad season for the sowing of spring-corn. Just such weather this time twelvemonths. 

March 11th 1775: Vast rain. This rain must occasion great floods. The trufle-hunter came this morning, & took a few trufles: he complains that those fungi never abound in wet winters, & springs. 

March 29th 1775: Ground covered with snow. 

Stuck inside on many days when I would have liked to be out, I have taken solace from Gilbert White's diaries. While current climate change is absolutely unprecedented, I have been enjoying a "traditional" English spring, where the blossom and frogspawn appear on time, not weirdly early as they have in the subtropical, worryingly dry springs we have had in recent years. What will the summer bring? 

There Is No Planet B

This was recommended to me in a discussion during a car share (I'd like to pretend I am that virtuous but for practical reasons I don't car share as much as I should). The first four chapters are life changing, or should be. I'm still digesting all the implications from this. Unfortunately this is a book of two halves; the second half wanders off into economics, ethics and politics and doesn't really contribute much as far as I was concerned. Still a must-read for those first four chapters.
Berners-Lee, M. (2021). There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make Or Break Years-Updated Edition. Cambridge University Press.

My Journal, March 2024

01.iii.2024

Meteorological spring? Looked out of the window (wearing two fleeces) at the hail I think I'll wait for equinoctial spring. This comes on the day the Met Office announced February 2024 as the wettest on record. Things can only get wetter?

Quite a lot of the day spent discussing LNRS species lists. I wonder how LRNS will be regarded in 100 years time...

02.iii.2024

March weather continues to be meh, so more hibernation over the microscope, punctuated by LNRS pondering.

03.iii.2024

Now that "spring" is here, it's good to welcome the return of winter, with significant frost for two nights now. Sunny and dry. Viburnum Cushion Scale larvae - Lichtensia viburni - very abundant on Ivy.

04.iii.2024

Another good frost. After the thaw, a chilly visit to Shady Lane to tickle the conifers, serenaded by flocks of Goldcrests. Lots of ladybirds and some very nice leafhoppers, the highlight being Viridicerus ustulatus, the first record for VC55.

05.iii.2024

Today we ran a live NatureSpot Zoom session, the first time since the Recorder's Meeting last year. Judging by the email feedback it was popular. Felt a bit like being back in lockdown - am I getting sentimental? :-)

07.iii.2024

An Anthocoris afternoon, sorting the butleri from the nemoralis.

08.iii.2024

Spent the morning tackling the overgrown section of hedge before the birds start nesting. Ivy and Dogrose has great wildlife value but it's a potent combination when it comes to pruning. Found one old nest (Blackbird I think), Common Plume and Nigma walckeneri. In the afternoon, dentist. I preferred tackling the Dogrose.

09.iii.2024

A muddy slog up Bardon Hill to try out my new beating umbrella. The yield was underwhelming after overnight rain, with the exception of a single Tephritis matricariae, beaten from conifers (the third record for VC55, my first).

Returning home, things got better. On 26th January 2022 I was refurbishing a pond in my garden when I found a single female spider which, after investigation, turned out to be Megalepthyphantes sp. near collinus. Quite a mouthful (because it still lacks a formal description and naming), so Megalegs for short. This record was a big range expansion for this new spider. And ... that was it. I have not found any more specimens, and neither has anyone else in VC55. Until, that is, opening my dustbin I found another female on the inside of the lid. To find one spider may be regarded as fortunate; to find two looks like there is a colony in my garden. The bin was crammed with hedge prunings from the previous day, which is where the spider must have come from. I look forward to future sightings.

11.iii.2024

Wet. Microscope. Anthocoris.

12.iii.2024

Wet. Microscope. Anthocoris. First frogspawn in the garden for years, since Ranavirus wiped my garden population out. Will they survive the newt attack?

14.iii.2024

Finished the last of the Anthocoris archive samples with a whole load of A. confusus. Great to be able to work through plenty of specimens and build confidence.

16.iii.2024

Took advantage of the sunny start to go up Billa Barra and beat the pines and Gorse. Lots of bird song. Not too much found except for thrips in the Gorse. So many thrips! When I opened my glasses case it was full of them. They found body cavities I didn't know I had, but the ears were the worse.

17.iii.2024

After an atrocious start to the day the afternoon felt the most springlike yet, with many insects sunning themselves and the first garden Brimstone.

Sorting through the samples from yesterday I found three more Acampociris alpinus. So far I have found this wherever I have looked on Scots Pine. It would be so easy to attribute this flush of records to climate change but the truth is that the season is taxonism - you can bet those pines have been gone over for beetles and moths, but no-one cared much about bugs.

19.iii.2024

Attended the first 2024 field meeting of the Leicestershire & Rutland Hemiptera Society at Moira Furnace. A few bugs found, the highlight of which was Physatocheila dumetorum on lichen-covered Larch, followed by a meeting of the Publications Committee and the Anthocoridae Subcommittee. Felt very spring-like.

20.iii.2024

To celebrate the vernal equinox the garden Robin started belting it out in pitch dark at 4.35am. Hormones are running high.

23.iii.2024

For some time I have been working on an aquatic macro photography setup. My first two efforts crashed and burned, or to be more accurate, leaked. The third attempt is functional but not perfect. Fished a Large Red Damselfly nymph out of one of my ponds to test it. Now to find some aquatic bugs! More details here: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Duckweed

26.iii.2024

Out early to Billesdon in the sunshine. Beyond the ravaged hedges struggling to green up, a Skylark sang. First pond dipping session of the year. Aquatic Homoptera a bit limited but I was able to refresh my memory of a few species.

 

30.iii.2024

A sunny but muddy trip to Croft Pasture. I have never seen the Soar as high and it has made new braided channels across the meadow. Worked unsuccessfully for half an hour without finding any aquatic bugs, but eventually found out where they were all hiding in a sheltered bay by the railway bridge.

Walking back across the road bridges there was a good range of insects sunbathing on the verge. Spring at last? 

 

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Duckweed

This season I planned to work out an aquatic macro photography setup to take more naturalistic habitus photos of aquatic bugs. My first two efforts crashed and burned, or to be more accurate, leaked. The third attempt is functional but not perfect. The setup consists, simply, of a small transparent food storage box:

My first trial was with a Large Red Damselfly nymph, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, which I fished out of one of my ponds as a test subject. It behaved nicely and I got some reasonable photos, although the quality is not outstanding:

I then moved on to the bugs I planned to photograph, which is where things fell apart. I did get a photo of the rear end of Notonecta viridis, but this shows up the defects in the setup: 

Because the subject is close to (touching) the front of the tank, you can see the distortion from the plastic walls in this macro shot, even though the box looks quite clear when I hold it up to the light. This also results in loss of image quality from subjects in the middle of the tank, even though I am not focussed on the front. But then it got worse. I ran into a major problem trying to photograph Corixids. I discovered that  Corixids will only pause having rammed themselves into plants or gaps, making it impossible to get clear shots. In a bare container, they just continue to swim manically. So it's back to the old setup, simply photographing Corixids from above in a shallow white ceramic dish of water:

I'll hang on to my cheap plastic setup which will get used occasionally for co-operative subjects. 

 

 

The Return of Megalegs

 

On 26th January 2022 I was refurbishing a pond in my Leicester garden when I found a single female spider which, after investigation, turned out to be Megalepthyphantes sp. near collinus. Quite a mouthful that (because it still lacks a formal description and naming), so Megalegs for short. This record was a big range expansion for this new spider. And ... that was it. I have not found any more specimens, and neither has anyone else in VC55. Until, that is, Saturday 9th March 2024, when, opening my dustbin I found another female on the inside of the lid. To find one spider may be regarded as fortunate; to find two looks like there is a colony in my garden. The bin was crammed with hedge prunings from the previous day, which is where the spider must have come from. I look forward to future sightings. 

Entomology Journal - February 2024

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Although February's weather continued to be challenging, the month turned out to be unexpectedly productive, including the first record of a new genus for VC55. 

 

Beetles and Barnacles

I spent a lot of February furtling around in Ivy, so for a change I decided to go and bother some local conifers. This turned out to be surprisingly productive, turning up lots of Ladybirds and Bugs, but also a few Beetles. I managed to identify the quite distinctive Cartodere bifasciata without too much trouble, but this 2mm beetle was another story. The Facebook Beetles of Britain and Ireland group was able to confirm that it is Cryptophagus, but Clive Washington warned me that there was trouble ahead. After looking at the key, I decided to give up fairly quickly. It is comforting to know that Darwin felt challenged in much the same way about Barnacles as I do about Beetles (albeit he was far more competent). This has been well and entertainingly documented by Rebecca Stott (Darwin and the Barnacle. (2004) New York: Farber & Farber) - recommended reading. Good to know that Darwin had similar problems with microscope dissections (specimens pinged across the room) as I do (although bugs not barnacles in my case). 

My Journal, February 2024

01.ii.2024 

Back to the churchyard for a few more Microterys seryon, then spent a while taking photos of the hairs on the leg of a 2mm wasp. Entomology! 

02.ii.2024 

Hedge pruning on a warm and sunny afternoon. The Pulmonaria is out and the Hairy-footed Flower Bees can't be far behind. I always think of Maggie Frankum when the Pulmonaria flowers. 

03.ii.2024 

A short trip to Billesdon on a warm morning. Sadly the tidy brigade blitzkrieg has reduced the wildlife value of the site. Sifted a range of things from moss. 

05.ii.2024 

Finished the samples from Billesdon. A surprising range of arthropods hunkered down in the moss. 

06.ii.2024 

A brief, very breezy and quite unproductive visit to Lucas's Marsh before the rain. 

07.ii.2024 

Working on some samples that were sent to me when the thing I hate happened. An interesting bug I didn't recognise pinged off the stage and dematerialized. Why does it only happen with the good ones? 

09.ii.2024 

Unremitting rain. In the ongoing battle of water table versus lawn water table comes out on top. The ephemeral stream that runs through the posh houses is up for the first time this winter. 

12.ii.2024 

Biodiversity Net Gain is here. I wish I could be positive about this but I'm not. Possible gains 30 years in the future but no hope of it being monitored or enforced. We can't even look after existing SSSIs. On the plus side, a territorial Wren singing in the garden. Sorry spiders! 

13.ii.2024 

Out early(ish) this morning for some local Ivy-bothering. Didn't quite beat the rain but was surrounded by enough birdsong to make it feel like spring. 

15.ii.2024 

15C and it feels like spring. Lots of birdsong and a productive session beating conifers. Brimstone Butterflies on the wing all over the County. Some local conifers proved to be very interesting, and I found a single Acompocoris alpinus - the first VC55 record for this genus. Very pleased! 

16.ii.2024 

Buoyed with enthusiasm by yesterday's weather I ran the moth trap for the first time this year. Sadly, it was chillier (6C) and windier than I had hoped and the moths stayed away.  A few years ago I would have expected a few moths at this time of year, but moths in my suburban garden have massively declined. The Met office published data showing that the average UK winter has become around 1C warmer and 15% wetter over the past century. Six of the 10 warmest winters on record were in the 21st century, and four of these also rank in the top 10 wettest years on record.

19.ii.2024 

A short trip to the local park to beat conifers was very successful. I hadn't remembered there were as many Scots Pines there. These proved to be very productive, yielding 10 species of ladybird: 7 Spot Ladybird, 10-spot Ladybird, 18 Spot Ladybird, Cream-streaked Ladybird, Epaulet Ladybird, Eyed Ladybird, Harlequin Ladybird, Larch Ladybird, Pine Ladybird, Scymnus suturalis. Unexpectedly, this is turning into the Year of the Ladybird. In addition to this I also found another female Acompocoris alpinus. A very good outing. 

21.ii.2024 

Worked on springtails I was given from pitfall traps. Was reminded what a taxonomic mess the genus Isotomurus is! 

22.ii.2024 

Another miserable day so more pickled pitfall springtails. Coal Tits are competing with the Great Tits for one of the garden nest boxes. 

23.ii.2024 

Working through some 2023 Anthocoridae specimens I was given. They're a challenge but I do feel confident with this group now. 

24.ii.2024 

Spent the morning messing about with a Harlequin Ladybird infected with Hesperomyces harmoniae I found in the bedroom. Very enjoyable! Also agreed to do my first talk on ladybirds and lead a ladybird walk. Ladybirds ladybirds ladybirds! 

In the afternoon I took advantage of the sunshine for a quick trip to the Botanical Garden where I found some nice leafhoppers overwintering on conifers, Metidiocerus rutilans and Balclutha punctata. 

26.ii.2024 

Visited a private Charnwood rewilding project to do some sampling. Nice day but cold. A good range of invertebrates via the vacuum sampler. 

27.ii.2024 

Charnwood invertebrate sorting. Cold, but the Marsh Marigolds in our bog are out. 

28.ii.2024 

Meeting at County Hall discussing Local Nature Recovery Strategy. In the afternoon I huddled over a nice warm microscope looking at spiders from Monday's site visit. 

29.ii.2024 

Happy Leap Day! I celebrated by staying out of the rain. February seems determined to finish as the wettest on record (close now). Sweet Violets are out on the remnant verge by the posh houses. 

 

Harlequin Rot

Yesterday in my bedroom I found a Harlequin Ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, so I took a few record photos and noticed tufts of yellow Laboulbenia-type fungus growing on it. Dredging my memory, I recalled something about a fungus on Harlequin Ladybirds so I took a closer look. Our County Recorder kindly informed me that the fungi on Coccinellidae are Hesperomyces harmoniae, which is actually a species complex, each clade seemingly host-species specific. The fungus on Harmonia axyridis is Hesperomyces harmoniae (Haelewaters, D. (2019). Hesperomyces “harmoniae” nom. prov.(Laboulbeniales), an ectoparasitic fungus specific to Harmonia axyridis. IOBC-WPRS Bull, 145, 53-55)

I took a few of the yellow thalli examined them under the microscope:

Laboulbeniales form individual thalli but lack vegetative hyphae. The haustorium penetrates the tissues of the host so that they can reach to the body cavity and draw nutrients from the haemolymph. Hesperomyces fungi are only transferred when ladybirds are in close contact with each other, during overwintering or mating. Infected Ladybirds do not die but may have a shorter lifespan or a reduced ability to produce as many eggs as normal. 

 

If you can't stand the heat ... you're in trouble

It feels a little odd thinking about extreme heatwaves when excessive rainfall is grabbing immediate attention, but we need to. The effects of drought and heatwave on certain taxa such as Craneflies and Hoverflies is well known, but a recent paper looks at the impact of extreme heatwaves on butterflies. It's now clear that we will overshoot a 1.5C temperature rise, and probably 2C too, so what can we do to mitigate the most damaging effects of extreme heat before our grandchildren can start to think about reversing the devastating decline of insects? The proposed solutions in the paper are artificial slopes (butterfly banks) and more scrub. 

Heatwave predicts a shady future for insects: impacts of an extreme weather event on a chalk grassland in Bedfordshire, UK. (2024) Journal of Insect Conservation, 1-11. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10841-024-00556-5

 

A Loveliness of Ladybirds

 

10 species - all from one Scots Pine: 

7 Spot Ladybird, 10 Spot Ladybird, 18 Spot Ladybird, Cream-streaked Ladybird, Epaulet Ladybird, Eyed Ladybird, Harlequin Ladybird, Larch Ladybird, Pine Ladybird, Scymnus suturalis.