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.

  

Acompocoris alpinus

 

Trying to avoid the flooding on a recent field outing I stayed local and decided to beat a few conifers near my home. This produced a good range of beetles, especially ladybirds (why did we ever think Rhyzobius chrysomeloides was rare?), and bugs. The bugs included a few shieldbugs but I focussed on my favourite, the Anthocorids. On getting home and drying out I sorted the catch and was pleased to find what I immediately recognized as an Acompocoris. 

There were no VC55 records for this genus, but with only two species on the UK Checklist, how hard could it be? (UPDATE: Previous records have subsequently come to light) 

The male paramere is fairly distinctive, but typically for an Anthocorid, this was a female. However, Kirby's Anthocorid key is reasonably straightforward, based on the ratio of the relative lengths of the embolium and the wing membrane:

In Acompocoris alpinus the length of the membrane posterior to the embolium is at least two-thirds the length of embolium, while in Acompocoris pygmaeus the length of membrane posterior to tip of embolium is less than two-thirds the length of embolium. That makes this A. alpinus, which fits with the overall habitus and the locale (A. alpinus is found on a range of conifers while A. pygmaeus is said to be associated with Scots Pine). 

Jim Flanagan was kind enough to confirm my I.D., so we now have one VC55 record for the genus. Now to find some more (preferably males)! Both species feed on aphids so the next few months is a good time to look for them. 

 

Microterys

There are three species of Microterys, parasitic Encyrtid wasps, in the UK. They are tiny which accounts for them usually being overlooked. They parasitise scale insects and have been widely used as biocontrol agents. The males are difficult to identify but the females, although similar, can be identified with a microscope. I recently found large numbers of Microterys seyon overwintering in Ivy. Although tiny (around 2mm), they are distinctive in appearance and stand out in the beating try. Even in the cold they have a tendency to high speed vertical takeoff, so you'll need to be nimble to catch them. 

• Microterys nietneri and Microterys seyon are similar in appearance with strongly patterned wings and black and white antennae. The middle tibia of Microterys seyon is covered in silky hairs which are not present in M. nietneri. 
• Microterys tricoloricornis is larger (nearly twice the size, around 4mm) and slightly darker than the other two species. 

Microterys seyon middle tibia: 

See: Painter, D. (2020). Two parasitoid wasp species, Microterys tricoloricornis and Microterys nietneri (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea, Encyrtidae), new to Britain. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History, 33, 1-16. Available here.

 

Entomology Journal - January 2024

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January has been a quiet month entomologically. The weather suggested staying indoors and reading. I have cleared and submitted all my 2023 records. 

Cryptic Confusion
I get a lot of Rhyzobius litura ("Meadow Ladybird") in vacuum samples and a fair number of Rhyzobius chrysomeloides ("Epaulet Ladybird") from beating evergreens. As with so many species, "typical" specimens are easy to recognize, but many are poorly marked and in my experience the dorsal pigmentation patterns of the two species overlap. Apart from habitat (terrestrial versus arboreal) I had been relying on the shape of the prosternal keel to separate them, but I recently learned that this is unreliable. Andrew Jewels has an excellent web page on these species and suggests using pronotum shape as well as pigmentation to identify them. Thank you Andrew! See: https://www.andrewjewels.com/pointed-v-round

Warning: Not Arthropod-related, but seasonal: Killing with kindness: should we be feeding birds?
Some eye-opening facts: Providing wildlife with food, water, shelter and manufactured nesting sites is multi-billion-dollar industry - follow the money; over 17 million UK households spend a combined £250 million on more than 150,000 tonnes of bird food annually, sufficient to feed three times the entire breeding populations of the ten commonest feeder-using bird species year-round if they consumed nothing else; there is an average of 100 bird feeders per square kilometre equating to one feeder per nine feeder-using birds nationally.
Killing with kindness: Does widespread generalised provisioning of wildlife help or hinder biodiversity conservation efforts? (2021) Biological Conservation, 261, 109295: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/628250/1/Wildlife_provisioning_BiolCon_R2_tracked_acl.pdf

Reading Matter

The weather has encouraged me to do a lot of reading this month. Roy, H. & Brown, P. (2018) Field guide to the ladybirds of Great Britain and Ireland, has been very useful and I recommend it, even though I have not done as much ladybird-biothering as I would have like to this month.
I finally got around to reading Kim Stanley Robinson (2020) The ministry for the future. Science fiction is not everyone's taste but Kim Stanley Robinson is arguably not a sci-fi writer, having a track record in cli-fi. I'm growing increasingly irritable about the lack of action on the climate crisis and KSR's call to (radical) action has made me think. Recommended. 

My Journal, January 2024

01.i.2024

A welcome sunny morning to start the year. Went to look for Leiobunum sp. A - unsuccessfully. Not surprising as it is late in the year and after the recent weather. One to return to in the autumn.

02.i.2024

Latest month was the wettest ever December in Leicestershire and today Storm Henk is dropping more rain. River levels along the Soar corridor at record highs. Both of my ponds have overflowed and the garden is flooded across the entire width. In 35 years I have never seen this before. It will take some years to understand the impact it two wet winters on insect populations. At lunchtime a disconsolate looking fox turned up and splashed around in the puddles before eventually managed to get over the slimy fence, an obstacle they normally clear at a single leap.

03.i.2024

My first talk of the year (on bugs) to Leicester Lit & Phil. Good audience and very enjoyable.

04.i.2034

The garden flood has abated but the ground is saturated. In the afternoon a Leicestershire & Rutland Entomological Society Committee meeting - planning for the future.

05.i.2024

Walked round Knighton Park to see the filled flood basins. I'm always sad that these could not be permanent wetland basins rather than football pitches. Lots of springtails and hats off to the aeronauts! It stops raining for 5 minutes and Erigone are everywhere trying to balloon. Mostly E. atra with the odd E. dentipalpis.

06.i.2024

Worked on a few samples that were sent to me. Good to be active.

07.i.2024

Walked to Ingarsby. The lane is in a terrible state with water and traffic damage. A male Bullfinch sunlit against a dark sky. A variety of Arthropods in the Ivy, but giving a feeling of scarcity rather than abundance.

08.i.2024

The Met office Published rainfall figures for last year. 2023 was 11% wetter than average for the UK, but not in the top ten wettest on record. However, October-December was more than 50% wetter than the average in Leicestershire. Does this justify me writing about the weather *again*?

10.i.2024

Things still very slow entomologically. Two Wooly Jumpers (Pseudeuophrys lanigera) on the bedroom ceiling.

12.i.2024

Treated myself to a copy of Helen Roy's Field Guide to Ladybirds of Britain & Ireland. I can justify this by regarding them as honourary Hemiptera rather than Coleoptera!

13.i.2024

A nice sunny walk at Ulverscroft. Entomology was a bit sparse but plenty of Gorse Shieldbugs. Ladybirds limited to 7 Spot and Orange. Tephritis bardanae in the Gorse was a new species for me. Should I become a dipterist? Nah!

15.i.2024

Spent a very cold day revisiting Croft spiders from June. One of the pleasures of winter is preserving summer in 70% alcohol. CEH published December river flow surveys, Soar at 210% of 1991-2000 average. There will be major impacts on insects but what will they be? Inconsistency for year to year is a major issue.

16.i.2024

Revisited spider specimens from Rocky Plantation in May. At the time I wasn't over impressed with the total, but in the depths of January they look much better.

18.i.2024

Still frozen solid outside so I revisited spiders from the ancient Oaks in Bradgate Park last May.

20.i.2024

Neriene montana in the kitchen first thing. Always good to get the first spider of the day under your belt before breakfast. Finally a slight thaw so time for tree planting. Several years ago we planted a mixed native hedge which is slowly establishing, surviving droughts, record heatwaves and flooding. All except the Alder Buckthorn, which grew backwards and finally died (soil not acid enough?). The other problem was a Goat Willow which turned out not to be - very strappy leaves. So Alder Buckthorn has been replaced by a new Goat Willow from a different supplier. Fingers crossed.

21.i.1024

Another named storm, so I sorted out the bug samples from the Allerton Project Rothamstead trap. Mostly Red-legged Shieldbugs.

26.i.2024

A week of meetings. Finally a dry day with no named storm so up the ladder to clear out the nestboxes. Pleased to find the Great Tit nest I feared failed had in fact fledged. Not sure what they lined it with, coarse wool-like stuff with long fibres. No sheep around here! Nest was entomologically disappointing, one Lace Weaver, Amaurobis similis, was all.

27.i.2024

An unproductive walk around Martinshaw. Admired. The new lake (blocked culvert). Skylark nearly drowned out by the motorway.

28.i.2024

Worked on samples from Wardley Wood last May. The 2023 backlog is nearly gone, which poses a problem for February.

29.i.2024

All 2024 records processed and submitted. Just managed to squeeze past 100 spider species for the year. What am I going to do now?

31.i.2024

Accepted my first talk booking for 2025! Also poked around in the churchyard Ivy, finding the expected cryptic ladybirds and lots of Microterys seyon, a stunning but tiny parasitic wasp.