Dog Days Spider Fest #6

The 5-year old neighbor boy brings in the trash bins every Thursday after the trash guys empty them. Like a lot of kids his age, he's interested in big trucks and small bugs. Due to his short stature he has a different angle of view to his surroundings: he showed me some things under the rim of the green waste bin, and wanted to know what they were. There are a mess of them (seven in one cluster, two in another). They look like burs, are all tangled in sticky strong web, and a few had tiny holes in them. Well, I said, they sure look like spider egg sacs. But, which kind of spider?

A brief search for "spiky spider egg sac" revealed that this type of sac is diagnostic for the brown widow spider, Latrodectus geometricus, a spider of medical importance closely related to the also reclusive, also venomous Black Widow. Yikes. So of course after finding that out, I had a look for the mother spider and sure enough she was there right under the rim of the trash bin about three inches from where one (such as a certain 5-year old boy) would put one's hand to move the bin. I didn't think prodding the spider out of her lair was necessarily in my best interest, so I settled for this kind of natural, obscured, out of focus shot; here is a better look. There is some color variability in these spiders and it looks like the one on my trash bin is on the darker side of brown. Anyway, we removed the spider from the bin in the interest of safety, and repeated to the neighbor boy that any spiders can be dangerous and to never touch or annoy them. Another neighbor was chatting out in the street remarked he has lots of those in his yard; so, we mentioned again that the Brown Widow bite is painful and will require medical attention.

Many of the egg sacs had exit holes, which are made by the young spiders when they are ready to go out into the world. 9 egg sacs x oh, say 100 or so eggs each = one heck of a lot of brown widow spiders. Apparently this is typical production for a mother brown widow, so you have to wonder: Where have they all creeped off to?

Dog Days Spider Fest #5

It takes green lynx spiders the better part of 11 months to grow to maturity from eggs. The females lay eggs in September. So, I know it's the Dog Days of summer when I see these hunting spiders--probably my favorite spiders--stalking around the bush-tops in either their spectacular late youth or just acheived adulthood. Here's one of this year's few peucetia viridans hanging out on the top of an artemisia, which is flowering nicely this summer.

Dog Days Spider Fest #4

I think I am an accommodating host to the insects that live in my garden; I grow a big variety of plants for them to eat; I delay trimming until it seems they have reproduced or moved on; I don't get bummed out if my flowers have a few holes in them. But, I know it's the dog days of summer when the plants are starting to look so tattered, I just have to cut down on the amount of chewing going on. So I decided to do a daily sweep of my Uncarina roeoesliana, whose beautiful downy oak-leaf shaped leaves are looking more like swiss cheese. I picked one medium-sized caterpillar off of the underside of a leaf, and tossed it into a nearby watering can on impulse. Surprise: the caterpillar got caught, suspended in the unseen web of this pholcus phalangiodes. The daddy longlegs spider quickly wrapped its victim in silk, and soon carried the package off into the darker hidden recesses of its watering can world, where it presumably enjoyed its meal in cool quiet solitude.

Dog Days Spider Fest #3/Juan's Aeonium #4

The ancients knew it was the dog days when the dog star, Sirius, rose at the same time as the sun. I guess a long time ago this was from July 3 through August 11, and supposedly the star's heat and some mystical power made life hot, humid and miserable for humans in the northern hemisphere. It's still hot in July, but according to info in the old farmer's almanac the risings no longer coincide at those dates due to precession of the earth's axis changing the relative position of the star. Nonetheless, tradition and the general nature of things continue on. July 3, 2007 was a very hot day here in Tustin, a dog hot day, and this spider (could be a ghost spider, anyphaena) was caught basking in the shade of Juan's aeonium.

Dog Days Spider Fest #2

I know it's deep into the dog days of summer when I've stopped counting the number of bug bites on my ankles and arms, because there are so many of them. I'm one of those people whose body chemistry is a magnet for bloodsuckers of all sorts. So I appreciate help in reducing the number of potential biters from any quarter. This is a huge (about 3/4") Phidippus audax female found lounging on the trunk of the prostanthera tree. These Bold Jumping Spiders are usually lively, actively hunting prey and defending themselves from marauding photographers. This one just sidled slowly around the trunk as I approached, and by her girth not only looks to have had her share of prey already, but may be ready to lay eggs.

Dog Days Spider Fest #1

I know it's the Dog Days when bits of fly carcass begin to pile up under the electric fan that runs non-stop from May through October in the window of my poorly insulated, flat roofed kitchen. So I'm happy to celebrate the fly-eating spiders of summer. This one is a male Pantropical jumper, Plexippus paykulli, and was discovered scampering across the stove top on a recent humid morning faintly reminiscent of somewhere tropical. He's a striking spider with high-contrast stripes, large size, and amazingly quick and feisty movements. I captured him in a Trader Joe's chocolate-covered espresso bean container for observation.

Hey Babe; What's your sign?

This large leaf hopper is probably homalodisca vitripennis, the glassy-winged sharpshooter, although it could be the smoke tree sharpshooter, homalodisca lacerta. The basic difference is the white markings on the head are dots on h. vitripennis, and on h. lacerta they are wavy blobs or lines. I dunno; those white marks on this guy's head do look more like dots than blobs. Both species tap into the xylem of the plant for nutrients; the glassy-winged spreads a super-bad bacterial disease to grapes, citrus and oleanders. In this case, the insect is feeding on a stalk of broom corn (actually sorghum); the pressure of the plant sap is such that the insect's digestive system can't process it fast enough so it eliminates droplets (known politely as "honeydew") to make room for more. What a lush!

Bad luck among the parasitised

Parasitoids are small or tiny insects, often wasps, which lay an egg or eggs on or in another insect so their developing offspring can use the body of the living host as food and shelter. The process kills the host when the parasitoid leaves the body of its host. This result, unhappy as it is for the host insect and as much as it reminds the human observer of the most unpleasant parts of the Alien films, is an important component of the control of pest insect populations.

I found this parasitised bug (some species of mirid bug) hanging from an ageratum plant in the early morning dripping body fluid from its ruptured abdomen, and still alive. This is the second one of these I've seen, but this unfortunate victim had two unwelcome passengers instead of just one. As the day progresses, the abdominal cavity dries up and shrinks, and the bug dies.

The last picture is a mirid bug in its normal state.

This site lists and pictures some parasitoids; peristenus digoneutis uses mirids as hosts and could be the suspect in this case.

Assuming you are not a pest in need of control, I hope your Friday the 13th is refeshingly free of parasites, parasitoids, leeches, hangers-on, bloodsuckers and moochers.

No Show

For the past several years our ligustrum japonicum hedge has sustained disfiguringly leaf-notching infestations of strawberry root weevil, Otiorhynchus cribricollis. This summer, our hedge is gloriously intact, as the little pesky beetles have not shown their faces nor their appetites, and seem to have died out or moved on (not likely since they don't fly). We are having an exceptionally dry year here in southern California; we don't irrigate the ligustrum so maybe the dry soil has inhibited the growth of the grubs; another factor could be the week of sub-freezing weather we had in winter. Can't really say I miss these guys . . .

Only 112 days until Halloween

I guess I will be needing some fresh pumpkins.

Systems Are Go

I guess if you are going to eat 50 or 60 aphids in a day, you had better move really fast. So this ladybug larva caught my eye by staying still. Turns out, it was molting. As I watched, it completed its molt successfully as its old exoskeleton dropped away. Notice how deep the furrows are in its new bigger "skin". Next, the larva will puff itself up to expand the exoskeleton before it hardens. Then, it will accelerate to feeding-speed to find and consume enough aphids to fill up all that empty space.

Weirdly, that appears to be a molt from a smaller (earlier stage) ladybug larva there in front of the larva.

Untitled Syrphids, #s 1 and 2

As soon as the sun climbs 1/2 way up the sky most summer days, the syrphid flies are a frenetic, difficult- to-photograph swarm above whatever flowers they find attractive at the time: alyssum, ageratum, coreopsis, basil, coneflowers, daisies, etc. But in the crepuscular hours when the sun is low and the air is cool, the syrphids slow way down and it's possible to photograph them if you see them out in the open.

#1 was found at around 8 in the morning, just before everyone leaves for work and as the fly was beginning to work the ageratum for nectar.

I noticed #2 perched at a 45 degree angle to the substrate (a ratibida disk/cone/thing) at dusk-ish, 7:15 pm or so. I've seen syrphids maintain a similar posture on twigs or flower stems overnight, but this one was still awake and moved from one disk flower to another, sipping nectar.

Home Sweet Alyssum

Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) seems to be hospitable to a large variety of creatures. This afternoon I took a five minute survey of who was home in the alyssum patch.

Pictured: several to many green stink bugs, a colorfully marked plume moth, a green and red mirid bug nymph and an ichneumon wasp.
























Not pictured: swarms of syrphid flies representing several species,
some lygus bugs,

a tiny bright red bug nymph (could be almost anything!),
several black braconid wasps,
a green bottle fly,
some argentine ants,
lots and lots of minute pirate bugs,
and a quick brown jumping spider.
In the cooler moist environment under the alyssum canopy I found a thriving colony of Armadillidium vulgare.

Alyssum: It's easy to grow; plant some or just don't pull it out when it comes up as a volunteer.

The Wicked Wasp of the West

When I started reading the novel Wicked, I knew I probably wouldn't like it much, but I thought I should expand my literary repertoire beyond science, current events and science fiction. I didn't like the book, but anyway, this wasp (polistes exclamans) reminded me of the main character Elphaba who is, or seems to be, or is interpreted as, or fashions herself as, or whose alter-ego is the wicked witch of the west of the Oz stories. Never having been praised or complimented for her looks or personality growing up, she has become introverted. Here she is, minding her business of searching for prey for her brood in a systematic and intelligent way. She's paused, considering which direction off this Jerusalem sage (phlomis fruticosa) flower will yield the most caterpillars. Meanwhile, people gasp in terror thinking she will sting them. Misunderstood, she sports a scowling face and warning coloration to reinforce her fearsome reputation.

Ent-thopomorphism aside, these wasps have never stung us, I see them as beautiful, they do us a service in killing some pest insect species, and I like this photo because it looks like summer to me.

Looper or semi-looper, a variation on a theme

Compare this looper caterpillar with the geometer in the previous post. This looper, or semi-looper as some sources call them, has three pairs of abdominal legs while the geometers have two. This arrangement results in an inching movement style, "looping", very similar to the geometers but I suppose to some eyes it's not as extreme--"semi-looping" because of the additional pair of legs. This photo shows off the leg arrangement in the looper class caterpillar pretty well. These loopers are in the family of owlet moths, Noctuidae. Not all noctuids are loopers, as many of them have have 5 pairs of abdominal legs which is the caterpillar norm. That results in a smoother undulating movement for those "normal" caterpillars.

This looper is feeding on my Uncarina roeoesliana, a member of the sesame family. I am looking forward to this interesting plant growing to its full height of 7 feet, and producing its hooked or barbed fruits designed to latch on to passing animals' fur. For now the flowers are quite nice even if the foliage has an odd oil-like odor.

Measuring the Ratibida

I was reading the public notices in the newspaper recently and noticed the name of one of the moms from the gang at my daughter's elementary school years ago. She was opening a garden shop, so of course I made a point to go check it out. And what do you know? She had in stock one of my favorite but harder to find plants: Ratibida columnifera, a coneflower with flowers resembling cute little mexican hats. Just a day or two after I planted them in the yard I noticed a crop of tiny looper caterpillars grazing on the cone-shaped receptacles full of disk flowers. Many smallish, greyish or brownish adult moths fly out from under the garden foliage whenever I walk by, and they wasted no time taking advantage of the fresh resource I brought to them.

The caterpillars pictured here are in the Geometrid family, named for the caterpillars' mode of locomotion: Geo (earth) + metron (measure). These are the so-called inchworms. Lacking all but two pairs of abdominal prolegs, a geometer caterpillar moves by releasing the front six true legs, stretching the body forward and grasping the substrate, then releasing the back legs and moving the back end up to meet the front with the body looped in between the sets of legs. There are over 1400 North American species in the family; these are likely to be in the genus Eupithecia, affectionately known as "pugs".

So, I let the spider out of the jar

I felt sorry for the spider in the jar, and so left the jar in the landscape with the lid off. She hung around inside the jar on top of the egg sac for the first day; by the next day she was long gone.

A month passed and the spiders hatched. You can see a tiny slit in the egg sac where they are gradually finding their way out.