Birding

Ornithology, or at least bird watching, seems to go well with Entomology. At least it does for me, and I know quite a few fellow entomologists who are also bird enthusiasts. I'd consider myself a bird lover for sure. I had parakeets and chickens growing up, and they were definitely among my favorite pets. In college I learned how to "watch birds" with a guide and binoculars, looking for field marks and enjoying building a collection of sightings.

A Western Scrub Jay (Davis, California, 2012) 

Like so many other things in my life, birding has been somewhat curtailed lately, taking a backseat to parenting duties. But I do have a stocked bird feeder with suet cakes and a thistle sock outside the window where I sit with my napping baby. I even happened to snap a few bad pictures through said window. Winter is so much better with birds around to watch.

Here is my list so far this winter:

 Chickadee. The first to show up usually, cute, tiny and quick - hard to get a picture of.

Junco. Hangs out on the ground with the sparrows and in the cypress.

Cardinal male. Females are around as well

Tufted titmouse. Hangs out with Juncos and Chickadees

White breasted nuthatch. This guy is my favorite. Loves the suet cake.

Carolina wren. Greedy little beast.

White-throated Sparrow. They love to hop around under the cypress but sometimes go to the feeder.

Red bellied woodpecker male and female (not pictured)

Purple finch. Very territorial, won't let anyone eat while he's there.

Goldfinch. They love the thistle sock, and showed up almost as soon as I put it up! (males with winter plumage, can't wait for the bright yellow to return!)

Red-winged blackbird female. There were about a dozen females all foraging through the lawn. It was a little embarrassing how long it took me to figure out what they were...

Downy woodpecker male and female.

 A little group shot

Drama!

Not pictured: Blue jay, House finch, Yellow bellied sapsucker male, Hermit thrush, House Wren.

A Blue Tarantula!

While I was in grad school, I was gifted a baby blue tarantula by a friend, an

Avicularia versicolor. I named him Aragog and I raised him to adulthood. The spiderlings of this species are a brilliant blue, and the adult final molt color is a black, purple, pink and green!

If you made it through all those photos, maybe you appreciated the beautiful spider. If you are horrified, I apologize. In truth, I am somewhere in between these two views. It is my hand the tarantula is crawling on in the end, but I was rather nervous to hold him. Tarantulas are actually rather fragile and I was afraid of getting startled and dropping him. But we both made it through the encounter unscathed. I'm glad I got to witness the life of such a beautiful creature, but I'm not sure I will again!

Found Insect: Bagworms

These well camouflaged objects are the creations of caterpillars in the family Psychidae. Called "bagworms", they build a protective case out of silk around themselves and incorporate pieces of plant material to conceal them. We found these while out walking. One was obvious on a bare lilac branch, while others on a juniper were better concealed but numerous enough to notice.

Bagworm on lilac. (Note the buds! Spring is coming!)

Evergreen bagworm Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis  on juniper. This case looks empty - well attached bags can remain on the tree for years.

Bagworms have an interesting life history. The larvae live in the bag they build around them, with their heads poking out to feed, and they drag the case as they move around. In the autumn, they attach the bag to a branch and pupate face down inside. The male moths emerge in about a month to mate with the females who remain in the bags. 

Here's where it gets weird. The female has no eyes, legs, wings, or antennae and can't eat. Since she can't leave the bag, the male finds her by a strong pheromone she emits and mates with her through a hole in her case. After mating, she dies, and the eggs - which are still inside her - hatch. The newly hatched larvae emerge though her body, and then leave the mother's bag to create their own.

Found Insect: Ant

You can often find indoor insect "pests" such as cockroaches, flies, and ants in your house in the winter. Ants hardly belong in that grouping in my mind, since next to bees, they are probably my favorite insect. Yet their penchant for "cleaning up" sometimes translates to raiding kitchens - which ive also had to deal with, so pest is a term I understand.

In any case, yet another instance of finding a bug without trying occurred the other day while I sat in a chair with my napping baby. This ant was calmly strolling across my stomach giving me plenty of opportunity to photograph her. I say "her" because all ants you see patrolling your counter are female. The males are infrequently-seen winged creatures which emerge in large numbers to mate with new queens. Maybe you have seen them if you're a sidewalk/lawn searcher like me.

An ant on my skin (my very pale, winter skin).

After I took her picture, I gently pinched her up and tossed her on the rug. I remember learning that insects and other small animals do well with falling from heights due to their weight/surface-area ratio. They never get up enough speed to fall hard due to wind resistance. I'm sure she landed safely and moved on to picking up crumbs around the high chair.

Found Insect: Springtails!

OK, so springtails are not technically insects, they are "non-insect hexapods". They have six legs but taxonomists have placed them outside of class Insecta for reasons having to do with their mouth-parts being inside their head. They are in a subclass called Collembola.

I found these little guys floating on the surface tension of a puddle while on a walk in the woods. They are only about a millimeter in length.

Dicyrtomina sp.

Found Insect: Trichoceridae, the Winter Cranefly

There aren't a lot of insects out and about in January. But I only had to look out my window to find one today!

This little fly is called a winter midge or winter cranefly, belonging to the family Trichoceridae. They are active in the winter, hence their common name. When the weather warms a little, clouds of males can be seen flying about.

If you look hard enough you can find other insects that are active in the winter, or some that are waiting out the cold in hiding. I have written a few articles pertaining to winter insects for the publication Habitat Herald. If you'd like to read more, the pdfs can be found here:

Habitat Herald Vol 12 Issue 4 - Life in Winter Streams (pg 5)

Habitat Herald Vol 18 Issue 4 - Gardens: A Winter Refuge (pg 10)

Ask an Entomologist

People who know I studied insects often have questions regarding the insects in their lives. Even in the blur of my busy mom-existence I enjoy trying to help put names on the bugs we find. 

My uncle encountered a small leaf hopper in his kitchen and sent me a text complete with photos of the beast. Usually, I don't know what the bug is exactly, but with a good description or even better a photo, I know how to identify the family or at least make a good guess (there are at least a million species of insect out there!!) bug guide is one of my go-to sites. I proceeded to exchange a series of texts regarding the amusingly named "fluffy bum" leaf hopper.

The picture he sent of the Fluffy bum Scolypopa australis

Most people simply want to know if their bug is dangerous, what it is, and what it eats. My cousin had a more dramatic visit with a large beetle which crash landed in her ceramics studio. She sent me a text with photo to identify. Though intimidating, this stag beetle is harmless enough, though it can bite if handled. She wisely confined it under a glass for documentation. Most adult insects don't eat much since they do all their growing as nymphs and larvae.

Probably Lucanus capreolus - Reddish-brown Stag Beetle

It always makes me feel useful to help others with their insect queries. I love solving day to day mini-mysteries and the identification process is good practice and keeps my skills from completely atrophying. 

If you have insect questions for me, please leave a comment, or leave a message or post on my Facebook page. I'll do my best to help you out! 

Sympathy for Insects

sen·ti·men·tal

ˌsen(t)əˈmen(t)l/

adjective

of or prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.

I always saved the bugs. Any insect or spider found indoors was captured carefully with a cup and paper and carried outside to safety. It was my designated job. Boys in elementary school would tease me by killing spiders in front of me, making me cry. I tried to develop a thick skin but my sensitive side always got the best of me. In high school we made insect collections in biology class. I did my best to use already-dead specimens I found, re-hydrating them to pin and turn in. I still got excellent marks on the project. 

In college, I struggled with an assignment that required us to count aquatic insects and then pop them into vials of alcohol. In my childhood I collected aquatic invertebrates as part of a stream monitoring program, but I always endeavored to set these critters free after we identified and cataloged them. It made me sad to condemn these little animals, I wanted to put them back in the water and I argued with my professor about the value of insect life. But he told me I had to draw the line somewhere. In the end I did, but I still felt torn. 

And then came graduate school, where I really had to face my role as insect killer. I'll never forget my first trip collecting bees with seasoned experts, asking questions about the cyanide used in the kill jars, and how long it took the bees to die, and of course pondering the question of whether or not insects feel pain (most entomologists agree that they do not). After catching the first bee I killed myself, I sat on a bench staring at its lifeless body in the jar and cried. 

In entomolgy, collection is incredibly important, especially in taxonomy and systematics which were my focus. My lab was the Bohart Museum, which houses a large insect collection. Scientists have always had to kill to collect and catalog animals. It allows us to keep a voucher for each species, a physical example. When combined with collection data such as location and date, it also provides a record of where and when animals lived, giving us a picture of a place, a history of ecosystems and biogeography. As more land is developed, collections provide some of the only solid historical and scientific information about a place. Not to mention how much easier it is to identify and double check IDs if you have the animal in hand. Collections are incredibly valuable. As an entomologist, I finally had to accept that though I usually felt bad about it, I would have to kill insects for the good of science.

I still got into trouble due to my soft spot for insects. On one survey trip I told my advisor I had seen several specimens of a white weevil and only taken two. She was irritated and informed me that I should have taken them all, because they could have been different cryptic species. She was right, but then I felt I should have spared whatever ones I could. What if they were the last ones? How would they reproduce and live on? I continued to collect and kill insects, but I often took my camera and tried to let them live when I could. 

I do often prefer the sometimes trickier task of photographing insects. It's all about opportunity . Unless you capture and incapacitate the insects, you have to photograph them on their terms, while they are resting or too busy to flee. I have always enjoyed insect photography, and looked up to other insect photographers, such as UC Davis alum Alex Wild and Kathy Garvey. Alex gave a seminar on insect photography while I was still at UC Davis. I use lots of the information I learned there but I'm always learning. Kathy takes amazing insect photos and has a wonderful blog. I even found my way into a few articles :)  

These days, I rarely collect insects, though that has less to do with conscience and more to do with lack of time. Collection requires a good deal of equipment (most of it's not very baby friendly). So until my kids can join me with little nets of their own, I'll stick with the much more portable camera.

Many people view insects almost as tiny robots, pieces of the environment that don't really matter unless they directly interact with them. But they actually have a huge role in our lives, and are incredibly important to the planet. Killing them is often for our own good, whether killing the pests that eat our food, or the parasites that drink our blood and spread disease, or simply collecting specimens for scientific study. In my view, insects are tiny living animals, and their lives deserve a certain amount of consideration, too. And that's why I'm a sentimental entomologist.

Insects of 2014: Hymenoptera

Well this order is definitely my favorite, so I've saved the best for last. Hymenoptera include ants, wasps, and my study group, bees!

These ants are eating crumbs from a 4th of July picnic. Some of them bit us, forcing us to move on. You can see two casts, a soldier and several workers.

Though called red velvet ant, this is actually a flightless female wasp in the family Mutillidae. Dasymutilla occidentalis invades the nest of bumblebees and parasitizes them. The females sting is incredibly painful, leading to the wasps other common name - cow killer

These are pictures of a Blue winged digger wasp Scolia dubia. One of their favorite prey is Japanese beetles. They fly in a pattern low above the grass in a courtship display. The female digs down in search of a host grub and lays an eggon each which developes inside the beetle larva.

This wasp belongs to a group called the square-headed wasps Subfamily Crabroninae. They nest in sticks.

This large dead wasp is a horntail, a primitive sort of wasp. It is called the Pigeon Tremex Tremex columba.

This is a Four toothed mason wasp Monobia quadridens.

These are two female carpenter bees Xylocopa virginica, on a Black-eyed Susan and lavender. Carpenter bees nest in wood, often in the rafters of porches. People often run into the harmless males (only female bees can sting) as they patrol their  "airspace". And they make a good show of defending it from any passing insects, or sometimes people, but it's all noise.

These are male Megachile, the one on the right belongs to the subgenus Litomegachile, which I studied in grad school and wrote my thesis on.  

This is also a Megachile male, though an introduced species, and quite large. The giant resin bee Megachile sculpturalis uses plant fluid to make resin for its nest construction and hails from Asia.

This is another male bee, this time a bumble bee Bombus sp. Males have bigger eyes, and a round fluffy sort of body and no stinger. This one is drinking nectar from a clover. Beside mating, that is all they do, feed on nectar.

This is a cuckoo bee in the genus Coelioxys which parasitizes Megachile nests. Like a cuckoo bird, the female lays an egg in the host nest. The young cuckoo bee hatches first, kills the hosts egg and feeds on the provision the host bee left for its young. This is a male, and its tattered wings let you know it has been around for a while.