Stapelia: A New Hope

The battle against the flies continues, the long-anticipated bloom of the carrion plant or starfish flower as it is sometimes called (Stapelia sp.) has begun and as we hoped and even dared to expect, flies are being tricked by the odoriferous flowers. Their scent (or shall I say stench?) while not overpowering or nausea-inducing is definitely unpleasant: musky, slightly sweet, bacteria-laced like a semi-fresh rotting carcass or way-past-expiration-date beef with a touch of essence of maggot. In fact the flowers' odor is very similar to the Rescue brand fly bait used in the traps I recently bought to help bring down the flying pest population. Rescue deflects inquiries into the composition of their bait but suggests that lots of science was involved in its development. Without question, the smell of two-week old Rescue bait full of dead flies when you dump it is far, far worse than the stapelia.

Anyway, the stapelia odor is an effective lure for gravid female flies. They lay their eggs on the flowers tightly packed around the corona and reproductive parts, even before the monstrous buds have fully opened. I think the appearance and/or smell of the fly eggs attracts even more flies since as time goes by an increasing number of flies are visiting or just hanging around near the flowers. Of the visitors, the most prevalent species is the ubiquitous but always unwelcome green bottle fly. There have also been a few flesh flies, and several other unidentified species.

As I watched the flies swarm around the plant at midday it was tempting to consider spraying them with insecticide. But I haven't found a product that actually kills flies satisfyingly on contact and I'd rather not use broad-spectrum insecticides in the garden. So instead I set up another Rescue fly trap nearby, and it will be interesting to see how the bait derived from science measures up head to head with the flower scent derived from eons of coevolution.

Little more than a day after the eggs are laid the maggots hatch but there is nothing for them to feed on. Many of them dry up inside the flowers. A few seem to live longer (maybe they have eaten their dead siblings?) and squirm their ways out to the tips of the stapelia hairs and drop off the flower altogether. I was way ahead of them and had placed a clean plastic tray underneath to catch and contain them as they dropped. There, having no shelter, no moisture, and no food, they have dried up like the others instead of possibly finding some rotten something to eat in the ground and growing successfully into more flies.

If not for the stapelia, those hundreds of fly eggs would have been laid on a suitable substance, hatched and grown into more flies. Stapelia is readily grown from cuttings you may get from a friend, neighbor, colleague or (as in my case) a dear nephew, and so could be an inexpensive and non-toxic tool to help cut down on the reproductive success of pest flies. Consideration needs to be given to the dropping maggot problem, though, for aesthetic if not practical reasons. Not everyone (or hardly anyone) is as tolerant as my family when it comes to insect experiments and observations that involve maggots. Maybe there is a substance that could be sprayed into the flowers to kill or even glue in place the maggots as they hatch so that one need never deal with dead, dying or any sort of maggots at all.

Meanwhile at least one funnel web spider has set up shop in the stapelia to cash in on the fly bonanza. An unlucky fly got caught on a strand of very strong web belonging to another unseen spider of a different species. When disturbed by me poking around the flower it was on it flew off trying to break free of its tether, only to collapse in suspended exhaustion with its labium extended presenting a grotesque but fascinating image.

And a note on the flesh flies: From what I have read, flesh fly eggs hatch inside the oviduct of the female fly, then the maggots are larviposited onto the host or substrate. I suppose I am disappointed I haven't seen that process yet.

It's easy to hate flies, but they are tenacious and interesting creatures. Maybe I could get a job at Rescue doing Science Stuff. For the time being, the last warm days are fast approaching, the flies sense it and will continue to be relentless in their quest to reproduce. We have tools at our disposal: stinky traps, stinky flowers, hungry spiders, sanitation and finally a fly swatter. Yes, I am happy to report my mom found some late season offerings at the 99 Cent Store; first quality day-glo orange made in China, 2 for 99.

The Reports of my Demise

I found this forewing of a giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphantes) among some garden litter, an apparent bird victim. While this individual has met its end, the overall population of this species is thriving in southern California as reported in the LA Times on 9/20, and confirmed by my own observation. These restless butterflies rarely stop long enough for me to grab my camera, and so while I have seen loads of them overflying the garden this year I haven't gotten any photos of them. I hold out hope they will grace my rue plants and/or my little kumquat tree with eggs next spring.

Broom Corn and Autumn Joy

There are a fair number (not an explosion, more of a soft pop) of young katydids out now in various stages of development. We've had an unusually hot and humid summer, which has tuned itself down just now (over the past week) into a pleasant (mid 70s, sunshiny) autumn. Two years ago in November there was a large number of young nymphs present. Last year, not many at all showed up through the summer and fall. In early 2006 I removed an overgrown clump of lemon grass which the katydids favored for egg laying as well as feeding. In summer 2006 I released chinese mantids into the environment. Hard to say how much these two events effected the katydid population; with superficial unsubstantiated evidence of population fluctuation in hand it would be simple to conclude the events drastically impacted katydid numbers in the short term; but making that assertion would just be wrong.

These hatched eggs are on broom corn, from seeds I bought from Native Seeds/Search in Tucson. They sell seeds of crops traditionally grown by native people of the southwest. The seeds I planted years ago have formed clumps that come back year after year, produce lots of decorative seed heads, and provide habitat for various creatures including katydids. The seed heads work pretty well for sweeping, too. I haven't tried the beer making; yet.

Apparently, a few of the young katydids hopped off the sorghum onto a nearby sedum 'Autumn Joy' that was just coming into bloom. Since katydid nymphs eat flowers, this was a fortuitous landing into a bed of burgeoning food. It also made for a pretty picture.

Fuzzy chocolate

This bee fly (hemipenthes sinuosa) stopped by to sip some nectar from a salvia flower. I'm not too familiar with the life history of these; something tells me the adults feed on nectar. Some sketchy references out there suggest the larvae are parasitic, maybe on the larvae of solitary bees; maybe not. Another mystery of the small and many-legged goes unsolved, but I was pleased to make the acquaintance of this cute little thing in fuzzy chocolate brown.

Equinox

The abacus clicks;
day into night equals one
halfway through the fall.

Shadow Fly

Long-legged fly caught resting on a broom corn leaf. Kind of reminds me of a fly in amber somehow.

Cool. Wow. Whoa.

Most days here in Tustin are pretty good; we just take them as they come and lay them to rest when they're over. But some days are extra good. All things considered, today was super:

Cool. It rained today. For people in a region that has received less than 1/7th the normal rainfall in the past year, that little drizzle was very welcome, and it feels like more is on the way.

Wow. Two insect-related news articles in one day. This morning's LA Times ran a story about butterflies; specifically Giant Swallowtail (papilio cresphontes). It explains how the numbers of these, North America's largest butterfly, have increased in southern CA in recent years to the point of being nearly commonplace. AND the day's OC Register featured (on the front page!) a story about how this summer's heat and humidity has fueled a population boom of certain pesky insect species which need no introduction here; suffice it to say they FLY. The article had photos including some beneficial species, and at least didn't advocate wholesale pesticide fogging of one's yard.





Whoa. In an affront to all that is wholesome and good in the flowering plant world, today the stapelia bloomed. What a monster. Point to point, this star-shaped thing measures over 12 inches; that's nearly 100 square inches of carrion-scented plant flesh. The scent attracts flies, the flies pollinate the flowers; the flowers set seeds; the stapelia line carries on; all is well with the world.

Lynx Spider Cozy

First green lynx (peucetia viridans) egg sac of the season, and it's a nice one. I love the way this spider mother has curled the solanum pyracanthum leaf over to form a little womb-like space like a 60's hanging egg chair for herself and her young 'uns, offering further proof that art (or even craft) does not imitate life: life is art, but you've got to be crafty to live it.

The nest is surrounded by spines on the leaves and stems, as if to ward off potential botherers-of-the-nest, while the porcupine tomato plant draws in a good assortment of stink bug nymphs, young juicy grasshoppers, flies and other tasty tidbits for the spider to eat.

btw: this is the spider who later was given the nickname Sputnik. In this photo, it looks like she has five legs. She gradually moved the egg sack from what seemed here to be such a cozy spot to a more exposed position higher up on a nearby salvia. Note to self: Never suppose to read a spider's mind.

New Mexico #5

Datura was growing around the lodgings where we stayed in Abiquiu, obviously planted there as ornamentals by the owner. As we sat outside and ate, we pursued a lively discussion of whether the plant is native to the area, its deleterious effects upon the fools who fool around with it, whether those very large things that flew by our heads and onto the huge flowers were bats or moths or Pegasi, how far the moon had traveled to the left of Arcturis and Jupiter since the previous evening, and why is it that you can see so many satellites moving quickly across the night sky when we thought the most useful satellites would be geosyncronous. Oh there's a meteorite! Later on the next morning, the bees had taken over for the moths (not bats) visiting the datura blossoms. This bee would go down into the flower's tube, come back out, stand on the lip of the trumpet under the stamens and do a weird buzzing, gyrating dance kind of thing, then fly off.

Eggses

We decided early on this summer to rip out the ridiculous lawn in the parkway strip along where we park the cars, and planted it to whatever leftover seeds we found lying around the place and some orphans and leftovers from the arboretum end-of-season plant sale. It looks something like a meadow, I suppose. There is lots of this plant, whatever it is, and among its tiny upside down flowers I found this clutch of eggs. The bugs seem to prefer the meadow, with its diversity of plants and offerings of food and shelter, quite a bit over the relative desert of the lawn.

New Mexico #4

Over a million years ago a volcano in central New Mexico erupted with a force said to be 600 times that of the recent Mt. Saint Helens event. Ash fall from this cataclysm formed the 1000 foot thick Pajarito Plateau, compressed into a soft stone called tuff. As time passed, what we today call Frijoles Creek cut a canyon out of the soft plateau. People seemed to like the place and by about 1100 AD, deciding to settle down there, they began carving shelters into the soft canyon sides and building structures out of blocks cut from tuff. These people stayed for awhile, but after they left other settlers arrived and liked it too. Late in the nineteenth century a guy named Bandelier "discovered" the ruins of the old pueblos and cliff dwellings, and soon the place was a national monument. On a sunny day in August 2007 we visited the monument and liked the place pretty well, too. On our hike we came across this Eleodes beetle walking down the tuff wall of the Long House. Although these beetles have probably been inhabiting this area for all of this time and more, (except maybe during the volcanic explosion) I'm not sure anyone really knows where they are going and what they are seeking as they pursue their wanderings.

Mantis musings

Early this summer I saw a few young mantids. So I'm thinking, OK, it would be logical that these young ones are the offspring of some of the Tenodera aridifolia sinensis that hatched all over the kitchen table and up the walls in June 2006. However, these 2007 editions were distinctly striped and mottled dark and light brown and even yellow/gold, not looking a whole lot like those dull green Chinese mantid nymphs which are so last year. A strangely elusive lot for such fierce predators, I hadn't seen exoskeleton or antennae of any sort of mantid until recently when I saw this near-adult on the buddleia. These buddleia were planted in June, and just possibly the mantid came free with the plants and is not one of the dark/light brown even yellow/gold mottled/striped ones of May. I swear, I'm gonna start tagging this critters with little teensy implants and clear up all these fuzzy ID questions. Maybe, though, this is California mantis, Stagmomantis californica. and it is one of the little ones that occurred more or less naturally in the yard, all grown up. Sadly I can't find any photos of S. californica nymphs to compare. Hmmm.

New Mexico #3

US Highway 180 runs from the south rim of the Grand Canyon east to Hudson Oaks, Texas. Just about in the middle of this span is White's City, home of White's City Resort and Water Park. The resort consists of a couple of motels, including the Best Western Closest to the Caverns, some water slides, the Velvet Garter Steakhouse and Saloon (which sadly was closed by the time we got there) and Jack's. With our stay at the Best Western, we got free breakfast at Jack's. One cool thing about Jack's is whatever your choice of breakfast (eggs, pancakes, cold cereal, or english muffin) it comes with 2 strips of bacon.

The other cool thing was the bugs. Several species of grasshopper greeted us as we walked through the parking lot, but I especially liked the one on the front door. The mating beetles on the wall just under the porch light were also a very nice touch. I found this injured mantis in the parking lot at the motel after breakfast with bacon; I picked it up and let it go on a nearby cypress. It expressed what seemed like gratitude by grabbing onto the branch and pulling its battered body into the cool green of the tree.

Rhetorical Question Answered

In July 24 2007's post I posed the question: Where have they (the offspring of the brown widow spider on my green waste bin) creeped off to? I suppose my rhetoric was: obviously they have gone off into other parts of the yard and beware ye unwary gardeners. It is nice to have one's empty words confirmed by concrete evidence once in awhile. Here is one of those offspring setting up housekeeping on the backside of the fence where the trash cans are stored.

New Mexico #2

The friendly folks at bugguide.net have helped identify this as a lichen moth, probably lycomorpha fulgens. It and more of its kind were foraging at midday among the wildflowers in the Chama River Canyon. The wings of this moth, which is apparently diurnal and whose larvae feed on lichen, were just about the same color as the sandstone cliffs towering overhead. Never a dull moment when you vacation with the bugs.

Not-Fit-For-A-Dog Day

The dog says it's hot. We agree, and add that it is darned humid. The flies have decided this is it, this is their moment. Autumn is coming, they must breed. And while they are at it, annoy.

So we left the sweltering house and yard to the flies for the moment, and went on a quest for fly abatement products. I found it hard to believe all four nice, cool air-conditioned stores we tried were out of the tried and true fly-swatters, but there ya go. At OSH, the last place we looked, there was an assortment of other products to choose from that supposedly lure flies to a sticky, icky or otherwise unnatural death. We decided to skip the electric zapper and the ultra-sonic flying saucer-ish thing for the moment, but did pick up some other items I was almost certain would not work.

This first one is a doozy. The day-glo 3-D portals are designed to be irresistible to flies. According to the manufacturer, this product "attracts and traps flying insects, including flies. Special patent pending Silvalure System™ of 3D designs and colors increases the chances of trapping flies." NOT; those flies you see on it are fake, shills meant either to trick the real thing into landing on the sticky surface or to trick the purchaser into thinking the damned thing works. The Indoor Fly Trap has not caught anything at all, not even a moth or a gnat. It does look really cool in the photo, though.

We also tried a long, white sticky tape that was supposed to be ultra convenient because when the tape (white is super-attractive to flies!!) gets full of flies you just cut it off and unreel another length of fly-catching surface. Instead, the tape unreeled itself in the very slight breeze, got stuck to my husband's patio computer monitor, annoying him immensely. It got sticky stuff all over my hands when I bunched it up and threw it away. This happened before I took a photo.

Then there are the traditional fly ribbons, which "have always been effective at catching flies. If you keep saying that over and over and over, it will be so. NOT; so far exactly 2 houseflies have been captured by the four fly ribbons festooned about the yard and patio, as well as several glassywinged sharpshooters, a cobweb spider and random other innocent flyers-by.

We tried a fly trap, where you mix up a nasty looking concoction designed to attract flies inside a plastic jar with four holes in the screw-on lid. Unlike the others, this does seem to draw the flies in and about two dozen of them have met their doom inside the jar. 24 flies, estimated 1/2 of which are female times 150 eggs per clutch = reduction of future fly population by 1800. Yay.

There are plenty of other products on the Victor website we haven't tried yet. Since it's too hot to do much else, why not obsess about flies? Of course the very best anti-fly product is prevention; do not allow them to breed. We oopsed by forgetting to put out two green waste cans full of grass clippings for the trash guys. A few days went by without picking up after the dog. Who knows what the neighbors have neglected to do? Anyway, the weather will soon cool off (won't it?) and the flies will abate as the temperature drops.

New Month/New Mexico, #1

The state insect of New Mexico is one of the many species of tarantula hawk. These are wasps in the genera Pepsis and Hemipepsis. The female will hunt a spider, often a large hairy spider (hence the common name), drag its paralyzed body to an underground cell or leave the spider in its own nest, then lay a single egg on it. The spider serves as food for the larval wasp until its emergence as a nectar-feeding adult. I was recently in New Mexico and had the thrill of seeing many species of tarantula hawk, often feeding at the same flowering shrub.

We were driving back to the highway after viewing the Three Rivers Petroglyphs, and I noticed these roadside milkweeds covered with large black blobs. Of course we stopped, and discovered these wasps, as well as numerous other pollen- and nectar-feeding species in a cloud around the flower clusters. The wasp in this photo I believe is a hemipepsis and not the state insect (which is Pepsis formosa). One difference between these genera is the strong bluish irridescense of Pepsis, which is lacking in this specimen. If what is true about Pepsis antennae applies to this species, this one is a male since the antennae are straight; the females' antennae are curled.