Evil Invaders of Vancouver Island

 Spring seems to have finally come to Edmonton, or at least all the augers seem to say so: the marsh marigolds leaves popped up along with the first crocus blooms (‘Ruby Giant’ Crocus tommasinianus Herbert on 24 April), the rhubarb punched its way through the snow (26 April), the first bumblebee queen was sighted (29 April), sandhill cranes gruked their way overhead (2 May), the first chionodoxa bloomed (May 3), the last of the snow went (4 May), the coltsfoot flowers opened (4 May), the first tulip bloomed (5 May), and the first Andrena bee descended on the coltsfoot (6 May). Even the first migratory songbird, a Swainson’s Thrush, made its appearance at the bubbler in the back (6 May). And surest sign of all, I’m puttering around in the garden again.

 Although the winter was long and harsh, the unusually heavy snow pack gave me some hope that winter mortality would be less than usual. Alas, there is no sign of that and it looks like I may have several open spots to fill where exotic ‘perennials’ have become dead organic matter. One pleasant surprise, however, was the reappearance of one of last year’s experiments – a leafy vegetable that is a perennial in warmer climates, the Turkish Rocket (Bunias orientalis L.), also know by the degustibusnondiputandulatory name Turkish Warty Cabbage. Only one seed in the packet germinated last summer, and the resulting rosette looked sad and shaded under the overgrowing tomato (although this may have allowed it to hide in plain sight from the introduced cabbage white butterflies whose caterpillars ravaged all my other Brassicaceae). The young leaves are very peppery and, other than the coltsfoot stalks (which you can boil like asparagus – but in the HBG, these are for the bees), the only edible item in the Home Bug Garden at this time of year.

 Unfortunately, Turkish Warty Cabbage seems to be pretty vigorous and has naturalized (or become a weed, if you prefer) in British Columbia and much of north eastern North America, so it will bear watching. If seedlings start showing up, I may have to have a feast instead of a nibble. Predicting the potential of a plant or animal from an exotic locality to become established in a new land is one of those mysteries that Science seems to have made little progress in unraveling. Some do and some don’t, but those that do and spread rapidly typically have propagules with high vagility, e.g. tasty berries that birds love, fluffy seeds that disperse on the wind, or wings which do the same as fluff for animals. The seeds of Turkish Warty Cabbage are large and lumpy, so I doubt they move far on their own. In contrast, the European Paper Wasp Polistes dominula (Christ, 1791), is far too vagile, appears to be spreading in many parts of North America, and was the most obvious insect in late April gardens on Vancouver Island (bumblebees being second).

 Mrs HBG and I took advantage of the late Easter break to visit the mother-in-law on Vancouver Island on the coast of British Columbia. We lucked out with two days of mostly sun to one of rain, so most of the time was spent walking through coastal rainforest or visiting gardens (vs watching slugs), but we devoted one morning to the impressive Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. 

 The RBCM has many interesting displays, but the one devoted to invasive species seems more thoughtful than most of its kind. I’m still ambivalent about the false native vs alien dichotomy that I think has poisoned the study of spreading species, but I can largely agree with the first paragraph on this RBCM plaque.

 I don’t like several of the implications of the second paragraph – primarily the removal of ‘humans’ from nature and the use of the emotive ‘alien’ – but at least the aboriginal inhabitants of Vancouver Island are inferred to have been capable of introducing species they liked to the Island. 

 As a practical definition, though, I think the first sentence of paragraph II is okay (using a neutral term such as ‘introduced’), but it is really the introduced species that are able to spread into ‘natural’ habitats that are the problem and these are not the bulk of the species that have been introduced to Vancouver Island over the last 160 years. A good example of this is Butchart Gardens in Victoria – almost entirely given over to ‘alien’ plants, most of which have not moved into the forests and meadows that pre-existed European settlement.

 Here’s a final example for consideration, and one that led to some wry feelings in the HBGardener. As we were leaving Butchart Gardens after many hours of wallowing in alien flowers, we noticed something scampering across a rock wall. To our amazement, it was a beautiful lizard! Lizards are as common as birds in Queensland, but Alberta has none but a horny toad (Phrynosoma douglassii brevirostre) that barely manages to scuttle into the southeastern corner of the Province. We were delighted, but at a loss as to the lizard’s identity. Much to our chagrin, the next day at the RBCM we learned that it was the European Wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis Laurenti, 1768): a dozen lizards were released into the wild when a small zoo on the island shut down and now they are scampering around much of Victoria. We were crest-fallen: what we thought was a delightful animal was an evil alien invader. 

Wednesday Wildflower: Blazing Star, not Blazingstar

 Now that the partial thaw has been obliterated by the most recent blizzard and all is covered again in white, I think I need another Wednesday Wildflower (no matter that it is Friday) to brighten up the springless reality. A Blazing Star seems like a good counter to the grey and white.

 The purist may disagree that Liatris spicata (L.), also known as Dense Blazing Star or Gayfeather, is a wildflower here: its ‘natural’ range only extends across the eastern half of Canada and the United States, but that is close enough for me. The jackrabbit in the picture doesn’t seem to mind either, although I must say that only one or two stalks were snipped, so it probably doesn’t taste very good. I suspect that may be due to residual alkaloids in the stems and leaves. Much of the scientific literature that I found is devoted to bioprospecting members of the genus for novel chemical compounds.

 Blazing Star is a composite, so each of the ‘flowers’ is actually a composite head of small florets, in this case only disk florets and none of the ray florets that give daisies or sunflowers their bright ‘petals’. The plants are perennial and can be purchased as ‘bulbs’, actually a corm (but they look like tubers to me). I like the purple ones best, and so do the bumblebees. Several horticultural varieties have been developed for shorter stature and longer bloom times, but a white-flowered form Liatris spicata 'Alba' usually demands a premium. I’m not sure why. My only clump cocked it last summer, but I will miss it only in the way a collector dislikes not having an exemplar.

 Blazing Star make nice cut flowers, with the interesting habit of blooming from the top to the bottom of the spike, and they seem to tolerate Zone 3 just fine. If you find the thought of planting an ‘alien’ wildflower offensive, then you might look for one of the two species of Liatris that are ‘native’ to Alberta. Dotted Blazing Star (Liatris punctata Hook.) can be found in dry grasslands and hillsides in the southern third of Alberta especially where there is sandy soil. I suspect that very good drainage would be required to grow this successfully. This may also be true of Meadow (aka Rocky Mountain) Blazing Star (Liatris ligulistylis (A. Nels.) K. Scum.) which inhabits sandy woods in the aspen parklands. I am indebted to my friend Matthias Buck for a picture of Meadow Blazing Star from the Ukalta Dunes north east of Edmonton.

 The origin of the generic name Liatris seems to be shrouded in mystery (or just plain obscure), but that of its common name homonym, Mentzelia, is not. The latter was named for one Mentzel, a German botanist working in the 17^th Century. As well as being called Blazingstar all run together, they are called Blazing Star, Evening Star (some are white and open in the evening, suggesting moth pollination), and Sand Lily. Only one species, Mentzelia decapetala, makes it into Alberta naturally at this point in time, and then only into the most southern parts of the Province. Ten-petal Blazing Star is one of those evening lilies and the flowers, at least, are spectacular (the plant is sticky and weedy-looking). I’ve only grown Lindley’s Blazing Star (Mentzelia lindleyi), a delightful yellow annual from California and Arizona, but one that does better in the greenhouse than in the yard. I think Edmonton has been far too cold and wet in recent years for this plant to thrive.

Australian of the Week: Net-casting Spider

 Winter has somewhat relaxed its grip these last two weeks, enough so that at least one blue-bottle fly. probably Protophormia terraenovae Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830, has been on the wing. After work I’ve been sitting in a lawn chair in a spot of sun in a puddle of snowmelt determined to generate the first Vitamin-D of 2011 and the bluebottle stops by to see if I’m winter kill or not. You’d think from the species name, that the fly (aka Northern Blowfly) would be restricted to the New World, but it is holarctic in distribution and relatively well known for its forensic uses and myiasis problems in livestock and wildlife.

 The fly is too wary for me to get close enough for a good shot with my point and shoot camera, but is familiar enough to induce daydreams about what might happen to the fly if it were in my former backyard in Brisbane, where a striking diversity of spiders were in residence year-round. One of my favourites was the Net-casting Spider, a species of Deinopis, probably Deinopis subrufa L. Koch, 1879. These are ambush predators that dangle from a scaffold web by their back two pairs of legs while holding a densely woven net in the front two pairs. Any insect that wanders or flies too close is snared and eaten. This behaviour has also earned them the name Retarius Spider from the Roman gladiators who fought with a net, trident, and dagger. Another name is Ogre-faced Spider – because of the very large median eyes that no doubt help coordinate the net-casting. We don’t seem to have a good frontal picture, but Robert Whyte has posted a striking portrait on flicker.

  April 5^th marked the first observation of a Milbert’s Tortoiseshell Butterfly (Aglais milberti) in the backyard with its bright colours and intriguing white tips to its antennae. A lone Ring-billed Gull showed up on 31 March and a Robin yesterday (9 April), so in spite of the deep snow pack and cooler than normal temperatures, spring does seem to be in the air. In my records (which only go back to 2005), the Ring-billed Gulls always show up in the last week of March – and since they are large and loud, they are hard to miss. The tortoiseshell sightings are more variable (5-17 April), but these depend on the happy coincidence of a sunny day and time for me to enjoy it. The Robin, and a couple of Honkers that showed up on April Fool’s Day, are both within the two week window in my records, so at least the animals around here think spring is coming at more or less the normal time. Time to set up a couple of blue bird houses at the Moose Pasture and then start shoveling the snow away from the house foundations. The water level is already getting close to the top of the holes in the basement floor.

Orsodacne: A Mysterious Trip through a Coleopterous Quagmire

Reputedly, the Vernal Equinox is tonight at 23:21 UTC or 11:21 PM Universal Time Coordinated, or Greenwich Mean Time if you aren’t a universalist. I’m an Albertan at the moment, so I take it to be about 3 hours from now at 5:21 PM Mountain Daylight Savings Time on the day after the ‘super’ full moon. Perhaps I’m wrong – only clouds and snow fill the sky at the moment: no sign of spring nor of super moons nor of spring bugs. Alas, without bug blogs I wouldn’t be seeing any bugs at all.

But bug blogs are more than just for bug perving, they also can be educational and in this particular rumination I will be surprised, embarrassed, philosophical, historical, avoiding guillotines, becoming mired in nomenclatorial confusion, and dying around mastodons in my search for the truth. It all began with the latest Inordinate Fondness beetle blog carnival at Wanderin Weeta’s where what should I see but a mystery Home Bug Garden (HBG) beetle! Forget the snow, a Canada Day reminiscence by the BugWhisper himself led to my surprise – and also my embarrassment. My one and only submission to Inordinate Fondness, one bugless and miserable day in February 2010, turns out to be disgraced by a “mystery chrysomelid” that is neither mysterious nor a chrysomelid. What we have is a failure to recognize Orsodacne atra (Aherns, 1810), currently placed in the family Orsodacnidae (Ravenous Leaf Beetles).

 

Getting a family wrong is always embarrassing, but learning a hypothesis is false is the best way forward in science. I’ve been a scientist for a long time and long ago got used to being wrong and having to pick myself up and start all over again. In this particular case, however, I seem to have slipped on a long and illustrious trail of coleopterous confusion.

To me (and others), Orsodacne has the gestalt of a Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetles), and indeed that is where beetle-lucky Pierre André Latreille gave birth to the genus in 1802. Allegedly, Latreille had good reason to love beetles, since his coleopterophily saved him from the guillotine (see Wikipedia link). Since he also established the family group name Chrysomelidae in 1802, this would seem to be definitive and I should be embarrassed no longer. Thomson in 1859, however, decided a new family, Orsodacnidae, was needed for these peculiar beetles. Since then the splitters and the lumpers have tugged the ravenous leaf beetles back and forth between the families. This may be more than just taxonomic egos, because Orsodacne has all the characteristics of a basal member of the chrysomelid lineage (e.g. see Mann & Crowson 1981 - citation added) and its proper placement is not all that clear.

Confusion does not end there, however. Unfortunately, these beetles tend to be variable in colour pattern. For example, Steve Marshall in his Insects (p. 351) states without compromise: “Orsodacne atra, the only northeastern orsodacnid, has several color forms which have been erroneously treated as different species. At least 11 different species names have been given this species, of which only the oldest (O. atra), is correct. The other names are junior synonyms.”

So, now at least we know the right name for our beetle: Orsodacne atra (Ahrens, 1810)! Or do we – half the references I found use Orsodacne atra (Knoch in Ahrens, 1810). This would seem to imply that someone named Knoch (possibly the German naturalist August Wilhelm Knoch who died in 1818) actually deserves credit for the name and not the German entomologist August Ahrens (1779–1867)?  This is getting way beyond my level of nomenclatorial expertise, s [Having acquired a higher level of nomenclatorial knowledge since first posting, I can say (Ahrens, 1810) is wrong, (Knoch, 1810) correct, and (Knoch in Ahrens, 1810) the most useful authority citation.] So I think I’ll just be glad that the genus is clear and stable.

But is it – NO! Apparently the species that Latrielle designated as the type for Orsodacne is not all that clear either. Although he tried to remedy the problem in 1810 by designating Chrysomela cerasi Linnaeus, 1758, as the type species, this is somewhat irregular under the rules of nomenclature. Thus, in 2000 H. Silfverberg felt it necessary to appeal to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (Case 3103) to conserve Latrielle’s designation. Fortunately for us, two years later the ICZN agreed (Opinion 1989).

 So, at last we have a more or less stable name – but what does this beetle do? Silfverberg’s (2000) application states “Species of Orsodacne are pests on cultivated plants”. From the name of the type species (cerasi) I think it safe to assume that the adults or larvae or both feed on cherry, but finding information on the feeding of any Orsodacne in the scientific literature seems to be difficult. If they are a pest, then they must be minor ones, because the sad fact is that the more an insect impacts on humans, the more scientists study it.

 Can we say anything about O. atra? Well, the HBG beetles were ravenously eating pink panda pollen. Pink panda is a hybrid between a strawberry and a cinquefoil, both members of the Rosaceae. Insects of Alberta reports that adults of this beetle also feed on a member of the Rosaceae, the Provincial Flower the wildrose (usually interpreted as Rosa acicularis), and on the pollen of other woody plants. Barrett & Helenurm (1987) report this beetle common on bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) (below).

 That was all I could glean from a fairly extensive search of the primary scientific literature and unfortunately that leaves us in the dark about the larval habits. Insects of Alberta reports “Little is known about the larval stages” and this seems to be true. So, a mystery – but the solution comes from an unexpected source - paleoentomology. Thanks to the Geological Society abstracts of Robert E Nelson and his colleagues that are available on the web we can add the knowledge that adult O. atra used to hang around with mastodons in New York and on the coast of Maine about 11,000 years ago – and also that the larvae feed on willow (Salix spp.). So, with lots of flowers in the Rosaceae (like the white Scotch Rose above) and Cornaceae, and a large and rapidly growing willow, there no real mystery as to why this beetle has taken up residence in the Home Bug Garden. However, I do still wonder why it is called a Ravenous Leaf Beetle and not a Ravenous Flower Beetle?

 

References:

Anonymous. 2002. Opinion 1989 (Case 3103). Orsodacne Latreille, 1802 (Insecta, Coleoptera): Chrysomela cerasi Linnaeus, 1758 designated as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 59(1): 55.

Barrett S. C. H. & Helenurm K. 1987. The reproductive biology of boreal forest herbs. I. Breeding systems and pollination. Can.J. Bot. 65: 2036-2046.

Mann, J. S. & Crowson, R. A. 1981. The systematic positions of Orsodacne Latr. and Syneta Lac. (Coleoptera Chrysomelidae), in relation to characters of larvae, internal anatomy and tarsal vestiture. Journal of Natural History, 15: 5, 727-749.

Silfverberg, H.2000. Case 3103: Orsodacne Latreille, 1802 (Insecta, Coleoptera): proposed conservation by the designation of Chrysomela cerasi Linnaeus, 1758 as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 57 (2): 94-96.

Australian of the Week: Agarista agricola (Donovan, 1805)

This Winter is definitely getting to me. Snow yesterday, -31 C this morning (and -39 at Elk Island), -30 and snow tomorrow. Although the Alberta Lepidopterist Guild had an entertaining Feralia Symposium this weekend and Terry Thormin, snug on Vancouver Island, is already posting new insect pictures on the Albertabugs, it looks like it will be many more cold, cold weeks until the first flies of spring. Rather than carp about the cold, though, I’m instituting a new semi-weekly feature in which I get to reminisce about a warmer land: Australian of the Week. Many of these pictures will have been scanned from 35mm film, but that was the technology at the time.

First up is the Joseph’s Coat Moth Agarista agricola (Donovan, 1805), from the biblical story (or the Dolly Parton song if you prefer). This is a large moth – and it flies during the day when its bright colours tell potential predators just how bad it tastes. Most brightly coloured diurnal moths are probably loaded with nasty chemicals (or at least pretending they are) – and they seem to be popular on bug blogs like Beetles in the Bush and Myrmecos Blog this week.

This particular Joseph’s Coat Moth fell victim to Heather’s camera in a vineyard outside Stanthorpe, Queensland. Stanthorpe is in the Granite Belt – Queenslands best wine country. If you really like red wine, then this is faint praise, but only because the competition is the Coonawarra, Yarra Valley, Eden Valley, Western Australia, Mornington Pennisula, and so on. The Granite Belt wine probably has the potential to be as good as that from the Barsossa Valley, usually about the best Australian wine I can afford in Alberta bottle shops. The Joseph’s Coat Moth is native to Queensland, where it feeds on native vines in the grape family (Vitaceae), and now and then, introduced grape vines.

Alberta has its own colourful day-flying moths that are now more or less in the same family with the Joseph’s Coat Moth. Well, who knows, the taxonomy of the Noctuoidea seems to change daily. Currently, the Police Car Moths I posted on last summer and the equally attractive Ctenucha virginica (Esper, 1794) are in the Erebidae (subfamily Arctiinae). The Joseph’s Coat Moth had its own subfamily in The Insects of Australia, Agaristinae, and maybe it still does, but I’m not sure in what family it currently resides. Should I try to find out or open a bottle of Australian wine to toast the new feature? Ah, if only all choices were so easy!

Sunday Psyllids

 Thanks to everyone who offered supportive emails and comments over the last few weeks. They were much appreciated. Even without family tragedies, I find this time of the year, February through March, the most bleak and difficult in Alberta. The winter has dragged on, the holidays are past, and it will still be two or three months until there is more than the faintest signs of life escaping from the icy shell. Sometimes one has to dig deep to find some winter bug interest.

 The winter weather here derives mostly from the struggle between cold Arctic air masses moving south and warmer, moist Pacific air masses trying to force their way over the Rockies. Every now and then the Arctic air breaks away and drifts further south, bringing storms and snow to the US, but often letting in enough Pacific air to give us a brief thaw and a view of an overly optimistic fly, spider, or lacewing basking in the faint sun. The few days of warmth are appreciated, but the false springs are soon gone and below zero weather reigns again. Under the snow, however, there is a lot going on, and it is always worthwhile to shovel down and see what is up. On our last snow-delving trip to the Moose Pasture, we found something unexpected - a superfamily of tiny (3 mm) bugs we didn’t know we had – jumping plant lice Psylloidea.

 In Australia, I would have called these lerps, or if being more formal, psyllids, but neither is technically correct. A lerp is actually a sugary covering of the larvae of some psylloids and a much appreciated food for some Australian birds, such as the infamous Bell Miner (Manorina melanophrys). You don’t have to go to Australia to see lerps – California is close enough to see the The Redgum Lerp (Glycaspis brimblecombei) devastating introduced gum trees. But fortunately no one has introduced the Bell Miner or it’s similarly aggressive but more flower-loving cousin the Noisy Miner to North America. The latter is slightly larger than a North American Robin, more aggressive than the Mockingbird (but lacks any musical ability), hangs out in gangs, and vigorously beats up and chases away any perceived competitor or threat. But at least they don’t farm psyllids.

'Psyllid' seems to be hanging on as a common name, although the Psyllidae of my youth is now Psylloidea (‘psylloid’ is a bit pedantic) and contains a number of families, depending on the authority. I follow Ian Hodkinson, not just because he did time in Alberta, but because he and J. Bird revised the subfamily Livinae (Aphelaridae) that includes my two snow-bound specimens. These psyllids are not lerpy, instead the larvae form galls on sedges (Carex) and rushes (Juncus). Some Livia species have been collected overwintering on conifers. The two I collected were from the litter of a white spruce under 40 cm of snow. Since psyllid workers don’t seem to have spent much time looking for their bugs under snow, it is possible that, at least in Alberta, this protected winter habitat is the actual overwintering site. Neither psyllid quite fits a described species, but little is known of the biology of psyllids unless they are pests. Seasonal polymorphisms are known in other psyllids and usually related to diapause, so I may have an overwintering morphology of a described species. Galls, polymorphisms, secret diapause sites, I never thought that such tiny bugs would prove such a welcome winter respite!

Thanks to The Atavism in New Zealand for opening my eyes to the new Psylloidea in a November post that prepared me to recognize them (I surely would have ignored them otherwise). While thinking of the southern hemisphere, let me say I’m happy to learn that Bunyip Co and A Snail’s Eye View (and her padymelons) survived Yasi and are back to blogging. I hope that is the last of the giant cyclones they have to experience.

For more on psyllids see:

Hodkinson ID. 2009. Life cycle variation and adaptation in jumping plant lice (Insecta: Hemiptera: Psylloidea): a global synthesis. Journal of Natural History 43: 65–179.

Hodkinson ID & J Bird. 2007.Sedge and rush-feeding psyllids of the subfamily Liviinae (Insecta: Hemiptera: Psylloidea): a review. Joumal of the Linnean Society  128: 1-49.

Some Flowers for Tina

 

 I started the HomeBugGarden for two reasons: I needed an excuse to ruminate on what I could and could not contribute to invertebrate conservation in a small urban lot and I wanted to showcase some of my wife’s excellent photography. The first thing I learned during this endeavour was that although I had spent 40 years learning and practicing some aspects of the biological sciences, some of my most basic assumptions were not very scientific.

 That discovery was interesting, if disconcerting, but since I had decided to give up the profession of a tenured professor of the truth, in favour of one puttering around in a garden, the discovery seemed of but academic (or rather chewing-the-cud) interest.

 Discovering that things one always assumed were true were not, however, does tend to make one question other aspects of their lives. I’m not really ready to throw over most of these other convictions, but I am prepared to be neutral about them: maybe they are valid and maybe not. I’m pretty sure that when I die I will not go to heaven and God will not explain to me exactly what happened to the dinosaurs, but I am willing to suspend disbelieve about how successful others may be in their search for the truth.

 Perhaps I am merely maturing as a scientist – learning what questions can be addressed by the scientific method and which ones cannot. Perhaps.

 In any case, life marches on, relentlessly. I suppose I know this in the abstract sense, and more immediately in the recent deaths of several of my wife’s relatives. For the last 40 years or so, however, I have tried to keep a very broad buffer between me and my genetic family (the Pacific Ocean worked well).

 I come from a fairly dysfunctional family – and I think my brothers and sisters would mostly agree with this assessment – but not totally dysfunctional. Minor civil wars aside, my brothers and sisters have kept on mostly civil terms. We all dispersed from our natal home, but all the others have been drawn more or less back. Creepy, as if invisible spider web pulled us all back home, but I have resisted the pull. No kudos to me; though, rejection is always easier than accommodation, and I am the distant one.

 I thought that one day, perhaps, I might go back and get to re-know my family. There’s some saying somewhere about paths and good intentions, and I’m sure I’m stumbling down several of them at the moment, but in this case the good intentions never happened. Now it is too late, at least for my closest sister.

 A few months ago, my sister Tina was diagnosed with a cancer. Her emails were invariably cheerful and upbeat and the treatments seemed to offer hope. Then, suddenly last weekend, she was hospitalized with breathing problems. Here last emails told us not to worry, but on Friday she died.

That was very sudden, and all good intentions to the contrary, I will never get to show Tina the Home Bug Garden. I think she would have liked it. Although not an insectophile, she was interested and always sending me pictures of things she or her daughter Tessa had found in the backyard, in the driveway, in the bath tub, in the basement ... 

 Even if Tina would have just tolerated the bugs, I’m sure she would have like the flowers. So, here is my way of saying goodbye to my sister – a feast of flowers that I never got the chance to show her.