Thanks giving

It's still early but barely early enough to be getting an early start as the exodus has begun, families in vehicles skipping school and feeding the freeway roar on the way to points beyond here more interesting Palm Springs Las Vegas San Francisco or more significant Stagecoach Nevada to spend Thanksgiving. A little later today people, myself included will scurry around getting that last minute provision. Then things will quiet down as those folks who have stayed home in OC for the holiday contemplate . . . whether or not to add booze to the cranberry sauce this year.

It's the busiest travel day of the year and I have this to be thankful for: I'm going nowhere. I'll be staying home, aside from a hunting foray for that gravy coloring or maybe wandering over to the farmers' market to get a pesticide free pumpkin from the pumpkin and melon man. I'm thankful I have a home to stay at, given the expensive real estate market we have here. I'm thankful the home I have is a funky old thing not ashamed to be surrounded by bug and gnome infested gardens.

This time of year especially I'm thankful for salvias. There's nine species in bloom right now at home, including the extra spectacular salvia madrensis. It's towering eight feet overhead dripping sun-yellow blossoms. I do like yellow flowers on a late-November day.

I'm also glad the myrtus communis has fruits on it this time of year. They lend a harvest-y touch to the garden. Feed the birds. And the berries contrast nicely with bright green bugs that happen to be standing on them when I walk by with the camera.



When I was a kid my parents gave me the example of a love for gardening, and I thank them for setting me on a path to happiness. Now my mom gives me weird and wonderful things to put in the garden, like this giant spinning lighted yellow flower that this particular spider likes to hang out in.



But mostly I'm grateful for the bugs. They are an exuberant expression of life's will to live; an unrepressed cornucopia of genetic variation on display daily just outside my door. How poor would this planet be without, for example, the buzz of late November honeybees mellowing out the freeway's drone on the busiest travel day of the year?

Not Indian Summer 3

This rosebud is the result of a newer idea in rose pruning. Instead of waiting until January, this Easy Livin' rose was pruned back in early September. This regime arose from sheer necessity, since almost no one can stand looking at pathetic late summer rose bushes any longer than necessary.

The katydid is the result of other katydids (Scudderia furcata) doing what katydids will do to promote the cause of more katydids.

Just another scene from our California Late Summer of Fun.

Not Indian Summer 2

Spring means cute baby animals. Spring Unsprung? Cute baby bugs.





This is the only grasshopper nymph I've seen for many weeks unlike their close relatives the katydids which are nymphing out all over.











Caterpillar assuming the larval position and the color yellow on salvia madrensis.









This leafhopper nymph has a posterior only a mother or a bug nut could love.

Katydid explosion

On a recent sunny day in beautiful OC, I heard a loud muffly greenish sound coming from the garden behind my office. With the camera, a .07 mechanical pencil and some duct tape in hand for protection, I found nothing less than a katydid explosion going on. All stages of katydid (scudderia furcata)--adult female and male, several stages of nymphs and eggs--were present on the same plant. In the two weeks since then, a katydid baby boom has been going on, with clusters of newly hatched nymphs popping up all over. There's egg laying evidence on lemon grass and juncus; and the young nymphs are all found on other plants close to and above these and other ornamental grasses. In the case of the lemon grass, the eggs are found along the edges of the grass blades, as several slightly pointed ovals in a row. On the juncus, there are 1-2" areas chewed out along the rush blades.

Scudderia furcata's egg laying is said to be damaging to agricultural pests, particularly citrus. My experience suggests that in an orchard situation, it might be underlying grasses that support the egg laying with the nymphs climbing up into other food plants to feed after hatching. Or maybe I'm just not seeing the egg laying on the non-grassy plants where the hatchlings are abounding.

This is my first year taking detailed observations so I'm not sure if this population spike for this katydid is typical for November. We've had 1/2 to 1" of rain in October and a trace fell on 11/10. The past week's average minimum nighttime temperature has been about 50 degrees F, with a low of 47. The daytime average was 70 with a high of 80. We're expecting warm, dry weather for a bit but cooler nights. How long will these katydids keep popping, and if they do is this a sign of abnormally rainy dry cold foggy windy earthquakey smoggy warm end-of-times winter weather coming? And if so, will my camera, mechanical pencil, and duct tape protect me from it?

Not Indian Summer

Some people say we have no seasons here in southern California, but I think we just need to dream up some catchy names for the variations on a theme we call weather here. For instance, we're basking in mid-autumn warm glowy days and mild nights which uninspired people might call just an extension of the endless summer. Or, they might call it Indian summer. According to my sources, Indian summer is a period of warm, dry, calm weather in autumn . . . following a hard frost. Since we haven't had a hard frost here for, oh, several years now, the variation we are now in can't be called Indian summer. And while no one seems to know for sure where the term comes from, Indian summer likely has some racist root as in "Indian giver". So what do we call this period of lovely weather that started with a couple of hopeful rainstorms, and continues with warm days and just slightly cool nights, and varying but never annoying levels of humidity. Sounds like . . . spring. Aphids have appeared on plants that were stimulated out of their summer doldrum to grow by the rain and slightly lower average daily temps.





Since the temperatures will be getting progressively colder, this spring in autumn---boomerang spring? too australian--will slow as it moves toward winter, opposite to the accelerating plant and insect growth that occurs in spring proper (Feb--Apr). Retrograde Spring? Spring Unsprung?




Anyway, here's a fresh bunch of aphids on salvia clevelandii being preyed upon by a green lynx spiderling hatched this summer.

2 UFoIs (Unidentified Flies of Interest)

This is a small fly I've seen hanging out on tagetes flowers; specifically tagetes lemonii and tagetes lucida. It perches or walks around on the flower buds, sometimes twisting its wings forward in what I figure is a mating display (haven't seen 'em mating, though). The wing pattern puts it in the "picture window fly" group (Tephritidae); based on some checking around the web, I think it's either genus euaresta or neotephritis. Both of these groups lay eggs in the developing seeds of plants in the composite family. Euaresta bella looks a lot like my fly but supposedly does not occur in California. Euaresta stelligera is found here but breeds exclusively on ambrosia (ragweed). 12/2009: But most likely it is Trupanea nigricornis, based on info found at Arthropods of OC, et al.



It's tempting to assume this is a blow fly, maybe black blow fly phormia regina except in the blow flies there is a much wider separation between the eyes. It would be nicer if this weren't a blow fly.

Treehoppers Like Tomatoes, but Whither in Winter?

These are keelbacked treehoppers, antianthe expansa. Like many of their homopteran kin (aphids, scale, whitefly) both the adults and nymphs of this species are found feeding together on the same food plant. Unlike other homopterans, the nymphs do not resemble the adults. The adult is camoflaged, looking very much like a thorn or even a young leaf. The nymphs contrast with their surroundings in shape and color. The spines serve as some protection, but what is the adaptive purpose of different morphs in the life stages? Insects with complete metamorphosis have different body forms in their developmental stages but they also have different lifestyles and food sources in each stage which their form complements and enables. This would seem to be part of an adaptive strategy to avoid being your dad and mom's own direct competition for food and shelter. Lots of homopterans including these treehoppers are tended and protected by ants; perhaps that protection has freed the nymphs to express their nymphness to the fullest.

Anyway, the first time I became aware of these bugs was when they erupted on a cherry tomato plant I had growing in a hanging basket. As is the case with other host-specific plant feeders, I had to wonder how they were able to zero in on my one tenuous tomato plant, there being (or having been) no discernable tomato-ness nearby for months and months.

A great little book I have, A Guide to Observing Insect Lives by Donald Stokes describes the egg laying and over-wintering behaviors of two other treehopper species, and also suggests there is a generalized theme applicable to all treehoppers. The eggs of the year's last generation are laid in slits in the bark of a host tree and overwinter until hatching in spring. In the case of the two-spotted treehoppers, the nymphs begin feeding on the tenderest shoots of the host tree until they become winged adults able to fly off in search of more tender host plants. In the case of the buffalo treehoppers, the nymphs drop off the tree after hatching and begin feeding on tender plants growing below. In both species, after several generations feeding on the tender host plants, adults return to the host trees in autumn to lay eggs. And so on.

I couldn't find any mention anywhere of the egg-laying routine of the keelbacked treehopper; but seeing as it's called a treehopper, can we assume it resembles that described above and includes a tree or tree-like appurtenance? So, in the case of the tomato-loving keelbacks, our summer plantings of tomatoes, and peppers and eggplants are the tender summer host plants the newly mobile adults are seeking in late spring. They also feed on various other plants in the tomato family (solanacea) which includes the cestrum I found them on this summer. Cestrum newelii is a tender evergreen viney shrub which could also be an ideal winter host--in our mild southern California climate it grows in spurts throughout the year but has woody stems where eggs could be laid. Note to self: Other woody solanums to check for treehopper eggs this winter in the time between writing the annual newsletter and hanging the holiday lights: potato vine (solanum jasminoides), nightshades (s. seaforthianum and wendlandii), cup of gold vine (solandra maxima), angel's trumpet (brugmansia), and even tree tobacco (nicotiana glauca).

As for treehopper control, it looks like spiders will take their share of those the ants and spines don't save. Your typical blast of water or handpicking works well. Not sure how long antianthe expansa has been here in California; maybe its parasitoid nemesis, a chalcidoid wasp by the name of anphoidea latipennis is already here or on its way north across the border.

Thanks to Peter Bryant's site for the fabulous images of treehopper nymphs and adults. No images or info on eggs could be found . . . stay tuned.

The Abominable Killer 'pillar

This was weird. And I'm sure there is a natural explanation for it: I just don't know what it is yet.

There was a green lynx spider with her egg sac that I had been monitoring to see how long it takes the eggs to hatch. About 5 weeks had passed, and the mother was wandering away from the egg sac; maybe the eggs weren't viable. I noticed a purdy little caterpillar nearby on the same African basil plant innocently munching on flowers, or so it seemed.

A few days later, I found the same sweet caterpillar chewing a hole into the spider's egg sac. Why, I'm thinking, would a self-respecting herbivorous caterpillar type be chewing on spider silk? You can see the hole here with the spider eggs kind of spilling out, while the caterpillar is lolling off to the side a little bit later that same day. I noticed the caterpillar had black tarry-looking goo coming out where normally nice dry green packets of droppings would be. (More information than you needed?)



The next day I caught the caterpillar red-mandibled going in. Sorry this shot is so fuzzy, but frankly I was appalled and couldn't concentrate on my exposure or focus lock.



You know the sick knot you get in your stomach during the scene from Monty Python & the Holy Grail where King Arthur and his knights approach the Cave of Caerbannog, and what appears to be a fluffy white bunny is revealed to be a fearsome bloodthirsty monster as it rips out their throats? CATERPILLARS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO EAT MEAT OR MEAT PRODUCTS OR animal flesh of any kind. Here is the repulsive little abomination curled up inside the egg sac a little later the same day, seemingly resting cozily.



I can't say for sure the caterpillar ate the spider eggs; it was really hard to see what was going on in there. But here is the egg sac, the caterpillar's gone, and there are no eggs left inside.

During this process the mother spider paid no attention to her eggs or the interloper, although she was quite close by catching honeybees. Don't know what happened to the caterpillar, but I do know I watch my back when I get near that African basil ( trying not to imagine slasher moth flying up from the shrubbery cutting slits in eyeballs then sipping them dry with its deadly proboscis).

If a caterpillar eats leaves from a genetically engineered plant, and the caterpillar becomes a butterfly that feeds on nectar from genetically enhanced flowers, which then mates with another butterfly that fed on some other altered flowers and had been a caterpillar that ate fly-eating-fish-gene-spliced veggies, what is the chance of producing caterpillar offspring that munch spider eggs?