And the bees are back too

Bombus rufocinctus Queen at Elephant Ears

This last week has seen bumble bees (preferred to 'bumblebees' by some) on the wing in central Alberta. All flying at the moment are fall-mated queens newly emerged from hibernation and intending to found new colonies. This one is a queen of a red morph of Bombus rufocinctus nectaring at the flowers of an Elephant Ear (Bergenia cordifolia).

T2-3-4 red-orange = Red-banded Bumble Bee (B. rufocinctus)

One of the more variable and confusing of the local species, the Red-banded Bumble Bee has numerous colour morphs. Like many insects with a noxious taste (and bad taste rather than the ability to sting is thought to be more important), bumble bees that tend to look like each other are more likely to be left alone to go about the business of raising a family. This is called Müllerian mimicry. Unfortunately, bees that all want to look alike leave many a bee-afficionado scratching their head when trying to put a name on them.

Bombus moderatus Queen wishing I would go away

Names are important, especially scientific names, if we want to keep track of species. Ten years ago when the Home Bug Garden was starting to take form, we had regular visits from the Yellow-banded Bumble Bee Bombus (Bombus) terrricola. Since then that species has become very rare, perhaps gone (I think I saw a queen at the Royal Alberta Museum last week). But a new Bombus (Bombus) has come along, Bombus moderatus (aka cryptarum). I suppose that is a good thing, a White-tailed Bumble Bee (or Cryptic Bumble Bee if you prefer obscure common names) is an interesting addition to the pollinator fauna, but what's up with the Yellow-banded? 

Andrena milwaukeensis Graenicher, 1903, tanking-up at Coltsfoot. Seemingly too small and obscure for a common name, would we miss it if one spring it didn't show up?

Of course, bees too shuffle off their mortal coils - should that give us pause? Does it make sense to get all flustered about the decline of a bug, even one with a generally nice reputation and useful lifestyle like a bee? Sure plants need pollinators, but aren't there plenty of them out there? Well, seeming not so much as there used to be in places like the United Kingdom and North America. 

A fat cat secure in its knowledge that food will always miraculously appear

If a bee disappears will we miss its buzz? Not unless we can put a name on the buzzer. For most bees that is not such an easy thing, but hope is on the horizon, at least for bumble bees. A new citizen science project for North Americans is about to take wing: Bumble Bee Watch (http://bumblebeewatch.org/) and a new field guide will soon be out:
Williams, P., L. Richardson, R.Thorp & S.R. Colla. (To be released spring 2013) A Field Guide to the Bumblebees of North America. Princeton University Press.

From sun to rain in 13 hrs: So long sunny weekend

Now, if the weather would only cooperate. It isn't only cats and people that enjoy sunny weekends. This is a critical time for the spring bees - all are starting their nests and need some sun and warmth to fly and to encourage the flowers to bloom. Alas, this is Alberta.

The Bugs are Back

Banasa dimidiata (Say, 1823) reflecting on spring in Edmonton

I'm not sure what Carl Stål was thinking of when he coined the stink bug genus Banasa in 1860. In those days, scientific names often had a classical inference and there once was a classical Banasa. The Roman Emperor Augustus founded a colony in northern Africa for veterans of the Battle of Actium called Colonia Iulia Valentia Banasa ( 'The Colony Julia Valentia of Banasa'). Although long a ruin, Banasa is fairly well known for its relics, and perhaps its bugs. The word also occurs in a Rajasthani folk Song (Raste - Raste Chalti Banasa) that adorns YouTube with brightly dressed songsters. Alas, Google Translator seems ignorant of Rajasthani, so the meaning of that banasa also remains a colourful mystery.

Banasa dimidiata looking very ruddy on a cold spring morning, and not much like its emended name

Perhaps Professor Stål was not as dour as his official portrait appears and had a fondness for colourful folk songs from warmer parts of the world. On the other hand, Anasa Amyot & Serville, 1843, perhaps best known for the Squash Bug Anasa tristis (De Geer 1773), seems to have been coined in a similar vein . Perhaps the good professor was being economical in an alphabetical way, but Google could find no 'Canasa' or 'Danasa' to support that hypothesis.

A more typical colour morph of Banasa dimidiata

Thomas Say's choice of a species name for our bug is also a bit mysterious. The spelling, as printed, was 'dimiata', a word with no obvious meaning. In general, the original spelling published is the name you are stuck with, but some people like to correct what they see as the mistakes of others. The great American coleopterist John Lawrence LeConte made such an emendation in 1859 when he published the complete writings of Thomas Say. Presumably LeConte thought Say meant 'dimidiatus', a word meaning 'halved', as many forms of this stink bug are half one colour and half another, especially on the pronotum. Well, perhaps, but I think I will go with 'prevailing use' as opposed to original spelling in this case as Richard Hoffman (2005) suggests. This multi-coloured bug is confusing enough without quibbling about its name.

References

Richard L. Hoffman. 2005. The Virginia Species of Banasa, Three Decades Later (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae). Banisteria 25: 41-44.

Katherine Kamminga, D. Ames Herbert, Jr., Sean Malone, Thomas P. Kuhar (all Virginia Tech) & Jeremy Greene (Clemson University). Field Guide to Stink Bugs of Agricultural Importance in the Upper Southern Region and Mid-Atlantic States. http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/444/444-356/444-356_pdf.pdf

LeConte, J. L. 1859. The Complete Writings of Thomas Say on the Entomology of North America. Two volumes Bailliere Brothers, New York 412 and 814 pp. 

D. B. Thomas & T. R. Yonke. 1981. A Review of the Nearctic Species of the Genus Banasa Stål (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 54: 233-248.



This spring's first tulip

April is the cruelest month

Ruby Giant - not suppressed by the absence of spring

I think TS Eliot would have felt his Wasteland vindicated in an Edmonton spring. Some years the end of April has been a colourful time in the Home Bug Garden and one filled with the promise of blossoms and bees to come. Or at least that's how my mixed memories and desires would have it. Not this year, though, nor most of the last few. The coltsfoot and marsh marigolds are still under the ice. The tulips and squill barely protrude from the still frozen ground, even in the sunniest beds. No dull roots are stirring that I can see.

Hens-and-chicks - one of the few evergreenly optimistic signs

Winter has hung on stubbornly the last few years, as if the climate is getting colder instead of warmer. Yet, Mourning Cloaks and Milbert's Tortoiseshell butterflies have been on wing in the River Valley and the ice and snow is gradually receding to the shaded sides of hills and houses. Surely soon spring will come.

Pussy-toes - more or less evergreen and entirely native

Home Bug Garden: Austral Version

Toothed White Banded Moth

There is a land far, far away, where the summers are as long as an Alberta winter and the winters as mild as an Alberta summer. Once, long ago, I inhabited such a dreamland. I was content with the land, if not the job, but the Home Bug Gardener's other half was content with neither and longed for the cold, dark whiteness of the North. White is a funny shade: it reflects all light and so seems to dominate the mind. For example, the large Toothed White Banded Moth Donuca orbigera (Guenée, 1852) above is more brown than white, but is not known as the 'brown-banded white moth'. It is related to the Alberta Underwing Moths (Noctuidae: Catocalinae) and the Fruit-piercing Moths that are such pests here. Larval hosts for the caterpillars of this moth are apparently unknown, but may possibly be trees in the genus Acacia.

Glasswing or Little Greasy Butterfly

Sometimes white can fade away to nothing but a smear (or a mess, as in the Alberta thaw) as with the Glasswing or Little Greasy Acraea andromacha (Fabricius, 1775). For some reason, the scales are shed from the front wings of this Nymphalidae butterfly (related to the Monarch, Painted Ladies, Satyrs - but in a different subfamily - Acraeinae). Caterpillars feed on the leaves of Passionfruit vines (Passiflora) and Spade Flower (Hybanthus spp.). Believe it or not, Spade Flowers were once put in the genus Viola and are still retained in the Violet family.

A Spade Flower, possibly Hybanthus enneaspermus 

Not all Queensland butterflies are white or greasy (although some Papilionidae also have transparent front wings). Most are quite spectacular, for example the Common Eggfly  Hypolimnas bolina (Linnaeus, 1758).

Male Eggfly showing eggs in wings

This is another Nymphalidae and in the nominate subfamily. It is a large butterfly and the males patrol territories about 30m long on gravel roads and trails in the hereabouts (near Miva, Queensland). The upper surfaces are brilliantly iridescent purple in the sun.

A female Eggfly, Sunshine Coast Hinterlands version

In contrast, the female is spectacular too, but looks nothing like the male. Here in the Sunshine Coast Hinterlands, she may be trying to look like a cross between a Lesser Wanderer and an Orchard Swallowtail. I don't know, but the female morph varies geographically and tends to look like distasteful crows (Euploea - another genus of Nymphalidae).

Love Flower  Pseuderanthemum variabile

In Queensland, the Eggflies use a plant with a vaguely violet-like flower as their primary host - the Love Flower Pseuderanthemum variabile. Although these plants look a bit like violets and grow on the forest floor, they actually belong to the family Acanthaceae. You can watch the females seemingly ovipositing in the ground near the plants. Or, perhaps, they are just practicing. In Australia, one must always test one's assumptions.

A Dainty, Dingy or Small Citrus Swallowtail

For example, consider the butterfly family Papilionidae, better known as Swallowtails. Above is a female of Papilio anactus Macleay, 1826. This butterfly goes by a number of nome de plumes, but I prefer 'Dainty'. But 'swallowtail' wherefore art thou? Clearly this 'swallowtail' is laying eggs on the orange tree out back, but swallowtail seems to be stretching a point. In Australia, it is always a good idea to leave your preconceptions behind, if visiting from a more northern locale.