Milkweed Community #2

I noticed this large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) on top of a milkweed plant about two weeks ago. This is an adult female and so far she is the only one of her species in my milkweed patch. Probably she is overwintering, as there has been no sign of a mate or any egg laying, and it's getting a bit cold. These bugs feed on milkweed seeds and are toxic to those who might eat them, thus the bold warning coloration. This species is new to my milkweed this year, and it seems that the quantity of milkweed plants I have now has crossed a threshold of attractiveness to insects seeking a reliable source of asclepias. But what is that threshold and how do the bugs determine it has been crossed?

Milkweed Community #1

The Asclepias curassavica I planted years ago has come of age; it has established itself on the estate; it is on the verge of becoming what some might call a pest but I like to think of as self-sustaining. As the milkweed patch has grown, a community of insects has dug in and calls my milkweed patch home.

The thick gooey alkaloid latex of milkweeds gives the gardener an itchy rash, but its purpose is to discourage animals from feeding on the plants. But not all insects are deterred; some are dependent on milkweed as their only food; some include milkweed in their preferred food plants; some tolerate the milkweed latex; some prey upon those feeding on the milkweed; some feed on nectar and pollen; and some just happen by, using the plants as a resting place.

Bright yellow oleander aphids, Aphis nerii, spend their lives feeding on oleander or milkweed , reproducing parthenogenically (that is, without benefit or need of sex), and occasionally flying off (winged individuals morph when the colony is overcrowded or the substrate is no longer sustaining). The aphid colonies start small, with just one or two and grow from there. In previous years these colonies would start up in early spring, with a second wave in early summer and the numbers of aphids soon controlled by predators and parasites. This autumn a few colonies started in the usual way, but since then have grown and spread explosively. Even ordinary people walking by my garden notice the aphids and cross the street to avoid them, sometimes grabbing a child by the forearm and jerking him or her out of harm's way. Grown men's jaws have dropped at the grotesque quantity of aphids waggling their bodies along the stems of the otherwise passably attractive milkweed plants.

You can see some of the aphids have been parasitized by braconid wasps. Each lifeless mummy is the exoskeleton of an aphid that has been consumed from the inside by a wasp larva. The wasp breaks free of the mummy when it morphs into an adult.

Commedia dell'parkway

If the world is a stage, or at least a conglomeration of stages great and small, then we must each take up our script and play it as best we can, or get into the method and become our character or at the very least improvise. The play goes on and we can't let our fellow creatures/players down. Murgantia histrionica, commonly billed as the harlequin bug, seems destined by its nomenclature to fulfill its role as a brightly colored stink bug with gusto.

The stage was set in mid-summer when our parkway was seeded with sweet alyssum, Lobularia maritima, a member of the mustard family. Plants in the mustard clan, also called crucifers due to their cross-shaped flowers, are the favored food of harlequin bugs and sweet alyssum is no exception. As soon as the alyssum began to grow, the troupe of bugs showed up and started unpacking their stuff. A female harlequin arrived right on cue to lay eggs: two neat rows of six barrel-shaped eggs in each (precisely as described in the stage directions) on the nearby Sweet Annie in a nifty bit of improvisation. The artemisia stem with the bug eggs waved in the breeze until they hatched and the little ones dropped off into the now thick bed of alyssum food below. The bug nymphs sucked the sap of the plants, living a life of gluttony and occasional molting unseen among the overgrown and seedy alyssum. But in autumn a sudden storm chopped the alyssum plants off at the ground, tossed them onto the sidewalk and then into the green waste bin. Some bugs were lost in this disaster but most survived by performing their well-known stop and drop stunt, in which the bugs let go their plant at the first touch of the pruners and drop motionless to the ground. The storm passed and the displaced bugs climbed another nearby artemisia to molt in shades of bright orange, mate, lay eggs (this time the rows are a bit skewed but still in the requisite 2x6) and possibly have a look around as the next crop of alyssum sprouts below and the ink dries on next season's scripts of My Life as a Pentatomid Bug.

Harlequin bugs take their common name from their gaudy coloring's resemblance to the Harlequin character's patchwork outfit and red-black motif. Acting credits aside, the bold coloring serves as a warning to predators and protection to the bugs. As they feed on crucifers the bugs sequester glucosinolates (Mustard oil for example) from the sap which when concentrated render the bugs bad tasting or toxic. M. histrionica (love that specific name!) is said to over-winter in the adult stage but I will be watching to see if these conform. Our southern California winters are so mild (last February notwithstanding) bugs and other creatures are tempted to act in ways more native to springtime. While directed by nature to feed upon crucifers, harlequins will improvise if necessary; although I believe the bugs are using the artemisia mainly as shelter not food, as they have begun to migrate back into the alyssum to feed.

Give 'em an Inch

A few foggy days, a couple of cool nights and what do I get: slug trails all over the salvia. I guess it's kind of pretty, in a mucus-y way.

Fall is prime planting season in southern California and is also when slugs and snails start becoming active and breeding and getting into trouble. Slugs are the one critter I always take the effort to control because they can and will devastate new plantings overnight if you let their population build up. It looks like I need to get busy and clean up under my pots and rocks, stir the mulch, and spend a few mornings hand picking slugs to maintain my position of authority in the garden.

Funky Little Dance of Frustration

I noticed a mantis waving her forelegs back and forth and side to side across this small galvanized watering can that hangs as a decorative thing on the north side fence of my place. I mean, she was doing this for the longest time, jerking her legs around I guess trying to gain a hold on the surface. She could have easily gone around--there are vines and strings and fence boards and all kinds of stuff lots easier to grab onto. But instead she persisted in this annoying funky dance that made me reconsider my opinion of these mantises as graceful, perhaps even thoughtful, masters of their environment. Sheesh, get a grip, I found myself thinking. Then I noticed her right eye appeared to be damaged. Maybe her vision was impaired and caused her ungraceful and unproductive movements. Anyway, she eventually got out of her funk and found an easier way to go around the metal can.

One and a half eyes
can easily lead six legs
with a little luck

Stagmomantis: An Appreciation

Not until this year have I had many mantids residing in my garden. Here is a female Stagmomantis californica passing through on her way to another part of the melaleuca tree.

Fuller ROUS beetles

Some Fuller rose beetles showed up on the feathery cassia looking very much like rodents of unusual size. Why in the name of analogous morphology should Pantomorus crevinus, a flightless beetle that reproduces parthogenically and sometimes turns the foliage of our shrubbery into a tattered mess but usually is not much of a bother, have a face like Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, a 140 pound semi-aquatic rodent sometimes referred to as Master of the Grasses and apparently cherished by minor zookeepers worldwide?

I Like Plants With Interesting Seed Heads

This stink bug is perched atop the seed head of Catananche caerulea, a pleasant plant with purpley-blue flowers as seen in the first photo in this post.

Where Flies and Flowers Meet

The syrphid fly Copestylum mexicana, Mexican cactus fly, lays its eggs in rotting cactus, often Opuntia, where the larvae grow and develop in the moist and warm environment. The adults feed on nectar. Somewhere near here there must be a rotting cactus plant where these flies hatched, fed, grew up and emerged as adult flies hungry for nectar. They showed up promptly as the Mexican marigold (Tagetes lemmonii) bloomed in my yard. These flies are wary of people with cameras but still spent considerable time nectaring while I took these photos.

Attracted to the same plant are Eristalinus taeniops (another large syrphid fly) in a similarly uncanny way. The larvae of that species is said to live in stagnant water, a commodity none too common in the state of drought in Southern California. The unlikelihood of nearby breeding sites added to the relative rarity of this fly and their appearance coinciding with the sudden recent bloom of the marigold all suggest that this plant is highly attractive to these flies. E. taeniops is from Africa and was very recently recorded in California as noted at Natural History of Orange County.

Tagetes lemmonii, the friendly neighborhood nectar bar for friendly neighborhood flies, flies just passing through, and flies of unusual origins.

Two flies walk into a bar. The first one says, "Ouch. I never thought they could lower the bar that far." The second one replies, "Why are we walking; we're flies!"

Sputnik Update: #2

So as I suspected Sputnik did produce egg sac #2. Meanwhile her first batch of spiderlings are still gradually widening the distance between themselves and their nest.

When Lawns Go Bad

I think I mentioned already that I got tired of the obligatory strip of lawn in the no-man's landscape known as the parkway strip in front of our house, and replaced it with a garden this summer. We just undercut the existing sod (which had been a perennial rye/fescue mix when it was laid down a few years ago), removed it, threw down some random seeds that were lying around and some topper. I added a few container plants, and quite a few volunteers came up too, including some of the perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) that sprouted, and is now flowering. Mixed in with the flowers and perennials, it looks as good as some pricey ornamental grasses. Here is an assassin bug nymph (Zelus sp.) grokking the goodness that is a ryegrass flower spike.

Mexican Marigold

By the time November rolls around, marigolds are nowhere to be found in nurseries, having given way weeks ago to the cool season annual color. But I can always count on tagetes lemmonii to bloom for Day of the Dead and guide whatever souls might be hanging around. Mexican marigold, or copper canyon marigold, is a satisfying perennial that will bloom profusely for you twice a year if you go ahead and cut it way back after bloom. It doesn't need much water or fuss, just tolerance for its powerfully fragranced foliage.

As soon as the buds begin to swell the picture window flies (Trupanea sp) arrive to oviposit.










I noticed this eristalinus taeniops, a hover fly whose larvae grow in stagnant water (feeding on what, I wonder; and where is there stagnant water around here in the middle of a drought?) just a few days after the flowers opened. They are said to be attracted to flat white or yellow flowers: I concur. This is my first sighting of this species, so I must conclude that flat yellow flowers attract these guys like an arboretum sale attracts gardeners.

Esqueleto

Like Nacho Libre's sidekick, I like to say "I believe in science."

But on November 1, sandwiched as it is between All Hallow's Eve and All Soul's Day it's easy to wonder if hanging a skeleton in the rue will increase it's power to ward off the evil spirits of cats; and, can peppers on a string cast off the evil eye from my house, and does a grasshopper on the ristra bring especially good luck or just chewed up chilis? (Or does it need to be a cricket?) And with the tagetes lemmonii in full odoriferous bloom, it's tempting to wonder whether marigolds really do guide the souls of the dead back home on such a day.