collecting trip

Mexico 1992—Gang of Ten

/ Ted C. MacRae / 3 Comments

As a young collector attracted to woodboring beetles, my interests were split evenly between the families Buprestidae and Cerambycidae. In those early days, I actively sought the counsel of experts in both families, looking for help with identifications. Most were more than gracious with their help, and receiving their letters and return shipments of beetles I had sent for their examination was a highlight of each winter season. There was one man, however, whose letters and parcels I looked forward to receiving more than any other—the late, great Gayle Nelson. More than just a report of identifications, Gayle’s letters were also rich with advice, suggestions and encouragement—he became my first mentor. I coauthored my first published paper on Buprestidae with Gayle (Nelson & MacRae 1990), and when I moved to California in 1990 I had the chance to meet him in person and accompany him on a collecting trip to the great southern Californian deserts. Talk about learning from the master! In the meantime I had also struck up correspondence with long-time buprestophiles Rick Westcott and Chuck Bellamy. I guess between the three of them they saw some potential in me, as shortly after my move to California they invited me to join the upcoming World Buprestid Workers Gathering—a 2-week collecting trip in southern Mexico scheduled for July 1992. While not all of the world’s buprestid workers were able to make this trip, a majority of the heaviest hitters from the U.S. and Europe were there. The photo below is the only one I’m aware of in which all ten participants are present, and while I felt like a midget amongst giants at the time, I’ve enjoyed more or less regular correspondence with most of the participants of that trip over the many years that have since passed.

Huahuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, Mexico - July 1992 (L to R): Ted MacRae, Rick Westcott, Hans Mühle, Chuck Bellamy, Gayle Nelson, Byrd Dozier, Dave Verity, Kim Pullen, Svata Bílý, Mark Volkovitsh (photographer unknown).

Huahuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, Mexico—July 1992 (left to right): Ted MacRae, Rick Westcott, Hans Mühle, Chuck Bellamy, Gayle Nelson, Byrd Dozier, Dave Verity, Kim Pullen, Svata Bílý, Mark Volkovitsh.

That trip remains one of the best insect collecting trips I’ve ever experienced (although there are many others now that also bear that distinction). Gayle, Dave Verity and I started in the state of Guerrero and worked our way down into Oaxaca, where we met up with the others and collected together as one large group before Chuck, Rick and I split off and returned for more collecting in Guerrero. I don’t remember how many species I collected—somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or so, but I’ll never forget finding the first specimens of what would eventually be described as Oaxacanthaxia nigroaenea Nelson & MacRae 1994. We found it at the type locality (near Tehuantepec) of what was then the only known species in the genus, O. viridis Bellamy 1990, that represented an apparently relictual line of buprestids with affinities to certain Old World genera. While that was the only new species that I described from the trip, several described by others are based at least in part on material that I collected. Another highlight of the trip was the “big, dead tree” in Cañón del Zopilote, Guerrero (literally, a big, dead tree), the high branches of which yielded several specimens of Polycesta cortezii Thomson 1878 and one Jelinekia barri (Nelson 1975). Sadly, I wasn’t much of a journal-keeper in those days, so most of the memories that remain from that trip are just snippets in time. Nevertheless, whenever I look at specimens collected on that trip I am usually able to recall the circumstances of its collection, and I recently had the chance to go through much of this material in detail again, as many of the specimens collected represented newly documented state occurrences and adult host plants. These records can now be found in a newly published paper by me and Chuck in which two new species of Actenodes collected during subsequent trips are described (MacRae & Bellamy 2013).

REFERENCES:

MacRae, T. C. & C. L. Bellamy. 2013. Two new species of Actenodes Dejean (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) from southern Mexico, with distributional and biological notes on Buprestidae from Mexico and Central America. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 89(2):102–119.

Nelson, G. H. & T. C. MacRae. 1990. Additional notes on the biology and distribution of Buprestidae (Coleoptera) in North America, III. The Coleopterists Bulletin 44(3):349–354.

Nelson, G. H. & T. C. MacRae. 1994. Oaxacanthaxia nigroaenea Nelson and MacRae, a new species from Mexico (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). The Coleopterists Bulletin 48(2):149–152.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

2013 Oklahoma Collecting Trip iReport

/ Ted C. MacRae / 6 Comments

I’m back home after my week-long collecting trip to western Oklahoma, and at the risk of sounding hyperbolous I can only describe it as one of the most successful collecting trips I’ve ever had. Seriously! These kinds of trips don’t happen all that often for a variety of reasons—timing is off, rains didn’t happen, weather was uncooperative, etc. etc. Once in a while, though, everything comes together, and this was one of those times. The trip was also a return to my roots so to speak—I’ve been rather distracted in recent years with tiger beetles, but jewel beetles (family Buprestidae) and, to a lesser extent longhorned beetles (family Cerambycidae), are really the primary focus of my taxonomic studies. It had been several years since I’d had a good “jewel beetle trip,” so that was the focus of this trip. In planning the trip, I recalled seeing jewel beetle workings in several woody plant species in the same area during last September’s trip, and the occurrence of May rains seemed to bode well for my early June timing.

Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

My instincts proved to be justified—in seven days in the field I collected an estimated 1000–1500 specimens representing at least two dozen species of Buprestidae and a dozen or more Cerambycidae. More important than the numbers, I collected a number of species in good series that I have either not or only rarely collected before, and in fact the second beetle that I collected turned out to be a new state record! Of course, I also brought along my full-sized camera and associated gear and photographed many of the species that I collected. I will feature these photos in future posts, but for this post I thought it might be fun to give a high level view of the trip illustrated only with photos taken with my iPhone (which I also carry religiously in the field with me). The iPhone is great for quick snaps of scenery and miscellaneous plants and animals for which I don’t feel like breaking out the big camera, or as a prelude to the big camera for something I’d like to share right away on Facebook. Moreover, there are some types of photos (landscapes and wide-angles) that iPhones actually do quite well (as long as there is sufficient light!).

Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Atop the main mesa at Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

My first destination was Gloss Mountains State Park (Major Co.), a stunning system of gypsum-capped, red-clay mesas. I’ve already found a number of rare tiger beetles here such as Cylindera celeripes (Swift Tiger Beetle), Amblycheila cylindriformis (Great Plains Giant Tiger Beetle) and Dromochorus pruinina (Frosted Dromo Tiger Beetle), and in the past two falls I’ve found two interesting jewel beetle records: Chrysobothris octocola as a new state record, and Acmaeodera macra as a northern range extension. On this trip, I started out beating the mesquite  (Prosopis glandulosa) and immediately got the longhorned beetle Plionoma suturalis—a new state record! They were super abundant on the mesquite, and I collected several dozen specimens along with numerous C. octocola as well. I then moved over to the red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), which was showing a high incidence of branch dieback, and collected nice series of several buprestids, including what I believe to be Chrysobothis ignicollis and C. texanus. Up on top of the mesa there are small stands of hackberry (Celtis laevigata) and soapberry (Sapindus saponaria), both of which are very good hosts for Buprestidae. Not much was on the soapberry, but I beat large series of several Buprestidae from the hackberry, including what I believe to be Chrysobothris caddo and—the real prize—Paratyndaris prosopis! My old friend C. celeripes was also out in abundance, so I collected a series to add to my previous vouchers from this site. Back down below, I marveled at a juvenile western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) in the area where I found some more A. cylindriformis larval burrows. Daylight ran out before I could dig them up, and after 11 hours in the field I was exhausted, so I returned the next morning and got one 1st- and two 3rd-instar larvae and went back up on top of the mesa and beat several more P. prosopis from the hackberry.

Bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

My second stop was at Alabaster Cavern State Park (Woodward Co.), where C. celeripes was again abundant on the gypsum-clay exposures surrounding an impressive gorge thought to be a collapsed cave complex. I focused on beating hackberry because of the success with buprestids on this plant at Gloss Mountains SP, and although they were not quite as abundant here as at Gloss Mountains I still managed to end up with good series of C. caddo and several species of Agrilus. Because I had spent the morning at Gloss Mountains, I had only a partial day to explore Alabaster Caverns and, still getting used to the weight of the camera bag on my back, decided to leave the big camera in the car. This was a mistake, as I encountered my first ever bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) and had to settle for iPhone photos of this species—the photo above being the best of the bunch. An approaching storm put an end to my second day after another 10 hours in the field, and I drove an hour to Woodward.

Moneilema sp. on Opuntia phaecantha | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

Moneilema sp. on Opuntia macrorhiza | Alabaster Cavern State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma

My third day started out at nearby Boiling Springs State Park, a riparian oasis on sandy alluvium alongside the nearby Cimarron River. The woodlands are dominated by hackberry and American elm, and although a few buprestids were beaten from hackberry and honey locust (Gleditisia triacanthos), the numbers and diversity were not enough to hold my interest in the spot. After lunch, I decided to return to Alabaster Caverns SP and explore some other areas I had not had a chance to explore during the previous partial day. It’s a good thing that I did, as I ended up finding a nice population of longhorned cactus beetles in the genus Moneilema associated with prickly pear cactus (Opuntia macrorhiza). I collected a nice series of adults and also learned a few lessons in how to photograph these beetles on their viciously protective host plants. The photo above gives a taste of what will come in the photos that I took with the big camera. After eight hours in the field and darkness falling, I drove two hours to Forgan in Beaver Co.

Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

Day 4 in the field started out cold and ominous, having stormed heavily during the previous night and with thick clouds still hanging in the sky. I feared the day might be a wash but decided to venture to Beaver Dunes State Park anyway and take my chances (beating can still be productive even in cold weather as long as the foliage is not wet). It’s a good thing that I did, as the buprestids were as numerous as I’ve ever seen them. The park’s central feature is a system of barren sand dunes that are frequented by ORV enthusiasts and surrounded by hackberry woodlands. The park also has a reservoir and campground, around which are growing a number of cottonwoods (Populus deltoides).

Hackberry Bend Campground, Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

Hackberry Bend Campground, Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

These hackberrys and cottonwoods proved to be extraordinarily productive. On the former I collected large series of several species of Chrysobothris and Agrilus, and while I collected fewer Buprestidae on the latter, these included Agrilus quadriguttatus and Poecilonota cyanipes! The latter species I had never collected until last year (from Cerceris fumipennis wasps), and beating the lower branches of the declining cottonwoods produced a series of about a dozen specimens. I also got one specimen on black willow (Salix nigra), along with a few Chrysobothris sp. and what I take to be Agrilus politus. Also in a low branch of one of the cottonwoods was a bird’s nest with a single egg that, according to Facebook comments, either represents the American Robin or a Gray Catbird. (I returned the next day and saw two eggs in the same nest.)

American Robin or Gray Catbird nest w/ egg | Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

American Robin or Gray Catbird nest w/ egg | Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma

As the day drew to a close, I found two interesting longhorned beetle species at the edge of the dunes: one large, powdery gray Tetraopes sp. on milkweed (Asclepias sp.), and huge numbers of Batyle ignicollis evidently perched on the yellow spiked inflorescence of an as yet undetermined plant. I have seen this species on many occasions, but always in low numbers, yet here were literally hundreds of individuals on the plants, all having assumed a characteristic pose on the inflorescence suggesting that they had bedded down for the night. I only spent eight hours in the field on this day because of the late start, and as darkness approached I began the two-hour drive to Boise City.

Black Mesa landscape

Sculpted sandstone landscape in the vicinity of Black Mesa State Park, Cimarron Co., Oklahoma

The final two days in the field were supposed to be spent exploring the area around Black Mesa in the extreme northwest corner of Oklahoma, and another hour of driving was needed to get to the area from Boise City. I first went to Black Mesa State Park, and while the landscape was stunning (see above) the area was extremely dry. I feared the collecting would not be at all productive in this area but wanted to give the area a good effort before making a call. As I approached the entrance to the park, I saw a jeep parked by the side of the road with a license plate that read “Schinia,” which I recognized as a genus of noctuid moths that are very popular with collectors. I pulled over and talked to the driver, who was indeed a lepidopterist from Denver and had just arrived himself. We talked and exchanged contact information, and learning of my interest in beetles he directed me to a small stand of Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) and one-seed juniper (Juniperus monosperma) on a sculpted sandstone escarpment not far from the park. I found the spot, and although I beat three Chrysobothris sp. from the first juniper tree that I whacked, another hour of beating produced only one more beetle from the juniper and nothing from the oak. I returned to the spot where we had met and encountered him again on his way out! We stopped and chatted again and found a few specimens of what I take to be Typocerus confluens on the yellow asters, but by then I was having my doubts about staying in the area. I told him I was going to check out a ravine in the park and then decide.

Petrified forest | Black Mesa State Park, Cimarron Co., Oklahoma

Petrified forest | Black Mesa State Park, Cimarron Co., Oklahoma

The petrified forest ended up being the only interesting thing I found in the ravine—the area was so dry that I think even the real trees were almost petrified! At any rate, it was clear that I was not going to have much success in this area. I looked at my watch, knowing that it would take three hours to drive back to Beaver Dunes, and estimated that if I left now I could get in about three hours of collecting at Beaver Dunes where I’d had so much success the previous day. Thus, I did what I rarely do on a collecting trip—drive during the afternoon!

Beaver Dune

The main dune at Beaver Dunes State Park, Beaver Co., Oklahoma.

A chunky grasshopper nymph inhabiting the dune

A chunky grasshopper nymph inhabiting the main dune.

I arrived back at Beaver Dunes with several hours of daylight still remaining, so I decided to take a look around the main dunes before heading towards the woody plants. I’ve actually visited Beaver Dunes previously, on the tail end of a fall tiger beetle trip in 2011. At that time I had seen only the rather common and widespread species Cicindela formosa (Big Sand Tiger Beetle) and C. scutellaris (Festive Tiger Beetle), but I thought there could still be a chance to see the much less common C. lengi (Blowout Tiger Beetle). Early June, however, is a little late to see the spring tigers, and in fact I saw only a single C. formosa. Nevertheless, I find dune habitats irresistible—alien habitats occupied by strange plants and animals, and I spent a bit of time exploring the main dune before heading back towards where I had collected so many Buprestidae the previous day.

Low water levels in the reservoir at Beaver Dunes are a result of three years of drought.

Low water levels in the reservoir at Beaver Dunes are a result of three years of drought.

Western Oklahoma, like many parts of the central U.S., has suffered rather severe drought conditions for the past several years. This was evident not only in the large amount of branch dieback seen in the woody vegetation of the area (and probably a contributor to my success at collecting Buprestidae) but also the very low water level in the park reservoir. In the photo above the small cottonwood saplings in the foreground and large cottonwood trees in the left background indicate the normal water level. Cottonwoods, of course, like to keep their feet wet, and the trees around this reservoir—left high and dry by the drought—have responded with major branch dieback and lots of subsequent adventitious sprouting at the bases of the main branches. It was from this adventitious growth that I had beaten most of the Poecilonota cyanipes that I collected the previous day, so I repeated the cottonwood circuit in the hopes of collecting more. Not only did I collect more, but I collected twice as many as the previous day, so I ended up with a very nice series of more than two dozen individuals of the species from the two days collecting. I also did a little more beating of the hackberry trees which had produced well the previous day and collected several more Chrysobothris caddo, C. purpureovittata, and Agrilus spp. such as A. lecontei, A. paracelti, and perhaps others. When I arrived I was unsure whether I would stay here the following day, but eventually I decided I had sampled the area about as well as I could and that I would go back to the Gloss Mountains for my last day in Oklahoma. Thus, as the day began to wane I began hiking back to the car and spent the next two hours driving back to Woodward to spend the night.

Steep slope below the main mesa | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Steep slope below the main mesa | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Echinocereus sp. | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Echinocereus sp. | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Arriving at the Gloss Mountains the next morning was like coming home! I’ve spent so much time at this place and found so many great insects, yet every time I come here I find something new. Today, however, my goals were more modest—I wanted to improve on my series of Paratyndaris prosopis and Chrysobothris texanus, so I focused most of my time beating the hackberry and juniper on top of the mesa and continued beating the juniper down below as well. Success! I collected four more Paratyndaris off of the hackberry, but the C. texanus were far more abundant on this day than they were earlier in the week—I probably got another two dozen individuals of this species. Of course, I also got distracted taking photographs of a number of things, so the day went far more quickly than I realized. I wanted to leave around 6 pm and get in about three hours of driving so that I would have time to make it into Missouri the next morning and have a nice chunk of time to collect before finishing the drive and arriving home on Saturday night. It was actually closer to 7:30 pm before I hit the road, the reason for the delay being the subject of a future post (I will say that BioQuip’s extendable net handle comes in handy for much more than collecting tiger beetles!).

Dolomite glades | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

Dolomite glades | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

Long Creek | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

Long Creek | Hercules Glades Wilderness, Taney Co., Missouri

For my last day of collecting, I decided to stop by at one of my favorite spots in the White River Hills of extreme southwestern Missouri—Hercules Glades Wilderness in the Mark Twain National Forest. I’ve been to this place a number of times over the years, but in recent years my visits have usually been late in the season to look for the always thrilling to see Cicindelidia obsoleta vulturina (Prairie Tiger Beetle). It had actually been about 25 years since I’d visited these glades during the spring, and because of the success I’d had collecting in Oklahoma I was really optimistic that I would find the same here. Sadly (and inexplicably), insect activity was very low, and it didn’t take long for this to become apparent as branch after branch that I beat along the trail through the dry-mesic forest down to Long Creek yielded nothing. By the time I got to the creek I still had not collected a single beetle. A consolation prize was found along the creek, as beating the ninebark (Physocarpos opulifolius) produced a few specimens of the pretty little Dicerca pugionata, and a couple more consolation prizes were found further up the trail approaching the main glade when I saw a Cylindera unipunctata (One-spotted Tiger Beetle) run across the trail and then beat a single Agrilus fuscipennis from a small persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) tree at the edge of the glades. It had been about 25 years since I last collected the latter species, so I was very happy to see it, but no more were seen despite beating every persimmon tree that I saw during the rest of the day. At the end of the day, I had hiked seven miles and collected only six beetles—a rather inauspicious ending to what was otherwise a wonderfully successful trip.

A rare ''selfie''

The author takes a rare ”selfie” at Gloss Mountains State Park.

Arriving back at the car at the end of the day on the last day of an extended collecting trip is always a little depressing—despite the vagaries of travel, cheap hotel beds, meals on the go, and general exhaustion, I’m never happier than I am when I am in the field. Still, the success that I’d had during this trip did much to ease my depression, and arriving home late that night and seeing my girls again (who waited up for me!) finished off any remaining depression.

© Ted C. MacRae 2013

The Ups and Downs of Bug Collecting

/ Ted C. MacRae / 25 Comments

Recently The Geek In Question  posted an awesome graph to help visualize the stages of euphoria and despair she experiences while going through the manuscript process. Fellow grad students David Winter (The Atavism) and Morgan Jackson (Biodiversity in Focus) each took the bait and ran with their own version of the process. It has been far too many years since I was a grad student (moment of whimsy overtakes me), and I’ve gone through the manuscript process so many times now that I actually find the whole thing rather enjoyable. Presumably this results from my love of writing, combined with the sageness of having experienced most of the potential pitfalls and feeling confident in how to prevent or deal with them.

For my version of the Geek-Graph™, I thought I would take a broader look at the whole process of what it is to be a publishing Bug Collector. Here is my version:

I’ve been at this long enough to know what I like and what I don’t like, and it strikes me that I love the up front and the final product, but there are elements in between that I simply detest. I love time in the field—a bad day in the field is better than a good day of just about anything else. Some of my best field memories involved getting skunked on the collecting, just because the field experience itself was so weird, new, eventful, etc. I’ve spent days in the desert, it’s dry environs parched by drought, with nary a beetle to be had despite beating hundreds of tree branches. I hated it at the time, but I get euphoric recall of those days when I see something that reminds me of those trips. Even driving between localities, while not time “in the field,” is enjoyable for me as it’s a chance to see the landscapes. It’s only when I have to take time out to buy supplies mid-trip and, especially, hunt for hotels late in the day, that I stop enjoying my time completely.

After I’ve collected the specimens is where I hit the snag—pinning and labeling, ugh!!! It wasn’t always that way; in my younger days I rather enjoyed it. But in those days I was practicing my art and gaining skills. Now I’m as good at pinning/labeling as it gets, and my perfectionist tendencies don’t allow me to do anything less than perfect when I do do it. But it takes time—lots of time to do it perfectly, and especially when you collect the large numbers of specimens that I do. This is the point where I consistently question my decision not to pursue taxonomy as a career. I could have been enjoying the assistance of professional specimen preparators to take care of this for me, but nooo… I had to do it avocationally so I could “do my own thing”! Okay, a quick slap to the face and I’m back.

Once those specimens are pinned and labeled, it’s all fun from here on out.¹ Identifying specimens and adding my “Det. label” is enormously satisfying, even for routine, common species. Excitement mounts if the specimen turns out to be something rare, more so if it represents something I’ve not collected before. This is normal for all collectors, but for me there are additional chances for excitement if the specimens represent new information—e.g., a new state or host plant record, or (gulp!) a new species! Identified specimens also form the basis for manuscripts, and once I’m at that stage it’s pure happiness. I love writing the manuscripts. I even love revising them based on reviewers feedback (even when not very positive—hey, it makes for an improved paper). About the only negative is a little bit of post-publication depression when you realize that your paper is actually read by only a small number of specialists, and you haven’t really offered anything ground-breaking, but rather just an incremental increase in the vast, collective knowledge. But I usually don’t have time to let that get me down—by then I’m already out in the field collecting more bugs!

¹ I probably should make a confession here—sometimes I go ahead and include data in manuscripts from specimens that I haven’t even pinned and labeled yet. The siren call of the unwritten manuscript is far more irresistible than the grating nagging of the unprepared specimen!

Copyright Ted C. MacRae 2012

Return to Calico Rock

/ Ted C. MacRae / 17 Comments

Sandstone glade | nr. Calico Rock, Arkansas.

Although western sand dune endemics were the top goals on my  during last fall’s Annual Tiger Beetle Trip, I started the trip by leaving St. Louis in the most unlikeliest of directions—south! No, I wasn’t trying to get to Denver without having to drive the tedious stretch of I-70 through Kansas. Rather, I wanted to take advantage of the chance to witness active adults of the Missouri/Arkansas disjunct population of Cicindelidia obsoleta vulturina (prairie tiger beetle)—perhaps my favorite of all tiger beetle species—on the sandstone glades near Calico Rock in north-central Arkansas. Widely disjunct from the main population’s eastern limit of distribution in central Texas, I’ve seen them at many locations in the White River Hills of southwestern Missouri and adjacent Arkansas over the past ten years, but never in the area around Calico Rock where they are best known from the state. I already had precise localities where I knew I could see them, as I had found 3rd-instar larvae earlier in the year (some of which had already emerged as adults), so I wanted see them and document the range of variability exhibited by adults at this southeasternmost known extent of the disjunct population’s distribution.

Cicindelidia obsoleta vulturina | nr. Calico Rock, Arkansas.

Although the adults were not quite as numerous as I have found them at certain sites in Missouri, I had no trouble finding them once I got to the area where I had collected the larvae this past June. While showing Steve Spomer our Missouri population last year, he commented that our Missouri adults seemed much less flighty than adults he had seen at Calico Rock. I must say that I agree with him, as I found the adults much more difficult to photograph than those in Missouri. To be honest, I had to stalk nearly ten individuals before the male in the photo above finally allowed me to get close to him. When adults are numerous this is not a problem, but in this case every failed attempt required several more minutes of searching for the next subject. Eventually, however, I got my mojo and started having success with the photographs.

Unlike true spring-fall species, mating occurs in fall instead of spring.

In the main population, and like other members of the genus Cicindelidia, adults are active during the summer months and exhibit the classic “summer” species life history. The Missouri/Arkansas disjunct population, however, shows a phenologic shift in adult activity to the cooler fall months—perhaps in response to the generally droughty conditions that prevail during the summer in this part of the country followed by rains during late summer and into fall. (This is one reason why I think this population may be deserving of separate subspecific status.) In this regard they appear to be “spring-fall” species, but their life history does not match true members of that group, which emerge during fall as sexually immature adults, hibernate during winter, and re-emerge during spring for mating and oviposition. Thus, one never sees adults of classic spring-fall species like Cicindela limbalis mating during the fall. In contrast, adults of this disjunct population emerge, mate, and lay eggs all during the fall before the onset of winter, then they’re done. The eggs hatch during fall and require another season or two to reach 3rd-instar and pupate during the summer for fall emergence.

Coloration likely functions in crypsis, as shown by this individual nestled in amongst moss and lichens.

When viewed as prepared specimens in a cabinet, C. obsoleta and its subspecies are among the most conspicuous of species due to their large size (in Missouri and Arkansas only Tetracha virginica is larger), olive green coloration, and bold white maculations. More than likely, however, the combination of color and markings serve a crypsis function in their native habitat. This is clearly evident with the individual in the above photograph, who had retreated to a moss- and lichen-covered rock crevice in his efforts to evade my lens. Squint your eyes a little bit, and he almost disappears! It must be similar for visually based predators such as birds and lizards.

On more open ground and from a lower angle, the beetle is much more visible.

This same individual, however, becomes quite visible when chased onto more open rock surfaces (and viewed more laterally than from above). It is common to see individuals out in the open such as this, but more often than not when alarmed they fly or run to less exposed areas, relying on their cryptic coloration to avoid detection. In fact, when I follow beetles that have evaded me to the spot where I am sure they must have landed, I often fail to see them even though I am looking almost exactly in the area where they are sitting until they start to crawl and their movement catches my attention.

A rather greenish individual tries to hide amongst lichens and shortleaf pine duff.

I have observed a great deal of variability in coloration and maculation at locations in Missouri, with individuals ranging from bright green to dull olive-green to dark green and even brown, and the markings ranging from complete to interrupted. I saw a similar amount of variability in the Calico Rock population, with the exception of brownish (which I have only seen at the northernmost localities in Missouri) and fully maculated individuals. Most of the Calico Rock individuals were dull olive-green, but the female in the above photo (trying to evade my attentions by hiding amongst lichens and pine duff) was as bright a green as I’ve seen in any individual.

A very weakly maculate individual.

As mentioned above, I didn’t seen any individuals that I would consider fully maculated, and several that I saw were more weakly maculated than any I’ve seen in Missouri. The female in the photograph above was the most weakly-marked individual that I saw, with the lateral and median bands greatly interruped—the latter nearly reduced to small discal spots.

A dark, almost blackish female.

While I did not see brownish individuals as I have seen at the northernmost localities in Missouri, I did see the occasional blackish individual—the one in the above photograph also exhibiting about the greatest degree of macular development that I observed among the adults seen. My impression now is that there are clinal patterns to the coloration and macular development in this disjunct population, with markings tending to be more developed in northern localities. With the specimens collected from this and the many other locations throughout the disjunct population’s range that I have now sampled, a more critical assessment of variability in this population may now be possible.

Beetle's-eye view of sandstone glade habitat.

It has become standard practice for me to photograph tiger beetle habitats whenever I can. However, I’ve become interested recently in trying to understand how tiger beetles perceive their own habitats. While this isn’t possible to know precisely, ground level photographs can provide at least a clue into seeing the world from a beetle’s eye. I almost find this perspective of the glade habitat more interesting than the human perspective shown in the first photograph.

The last sight that their prey sees.

There can be little doubt about what the beetles themselves look like from the perspective of their prey. The photograph above may not properly represent the image generated by an insect’s collective ommatidia, but it certainly must be just as frightening!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

A cicindelophilic wish list

/ Ted C. MacRae / 3 Comments

  • Cicindelia obsoleta vulturina disjuncts bolting across lichen-covered sandstone balds.
  • Cicindela scutellaris yampae—red, white and blue in all its glory!
  • Big, bold, hugely white Cicindela formosa gibsoni bouncing across the sand.
  • Cicindela arenicola dancing across the St. Anthony dunes.
  • Hugely-mandibled male Cicindela waynei riding the backs of their lovers.
  • The almost pure white Cicindela albissima in its own tiny little corner of Utah.
  • Cicindela theatina, perhaps most colorful of the western sand dune species.

In a perfect world, I will make it to every one of these locations and encounter each and every species in the list. More realistically, it would be presumptuous to expect complete success on such a quickly planned, last minute trip—I’ll be happy to make it to at least some of these sites and find what I’m looking for. Beyond the above species there should also be the more reliable Cicindela lengi, C. tranquebarica, and the nominate forms of C. formosa and C. scutellaris—classic denizons of the west. When I get a chance to take a look in alkaline flats, perhaps I’ll also be able to add C. willistoni or C. parowana to the bounty list. When I can take specimens, I will (responsibly), and when I can’t I’ll hopefully take acceptable photos. Really though, this is mostly about getting out and seeing a huge swath of the country that I’ve never seen before during the most gorgeous time of year. I’ll see it my way—up close and personal and not just blasting by at 70 mph. Sometimes life just doesn’t get any better!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Sweet Sixteen!

/ Ted C. MacRae / 16 Comments

The 7th Annual Fall Tiger Beetle Trip™ is officially over – Chris and I rolled back into town a little after midnight last night. It was an amazing trip – perfect weather, unparalleled scenery, and a record-breaking 16 species of tiger beetles seen in 13 localities across four states. Not only does this beat my previous trip record of 13 species, but we did it with only five days in the field. At the time of my previous update, we had visited several locations in the South Dakota Badlands and Nebraska Pine Ridge and found ten different tiger beetle species, including Cicindela pulchra (beautiful tiger beetle) – our top priority for the trip – C. nebraskana (prairie long-lipped tiger beetle), and C. lengi (blowout tiger beetle). Our plan for the next day was to visit the Badlands of Wyoming to look for C. decemnotata (Badlands tiger beetle – appropriately) and the Yampa River Valley of northwestern Colorado to look for C. scutellaris yampae and C. formosa gibsoni, all three of which we managed to find (though with caveats – stay tuned). Our originally planned final field day was to take us back into Wyoming to look for C. longilabris (boreal long-lipped tiger beetle) in the mountains east of Laramie and the Nebraska Sand Hills to look for the delicate little C. limbata before heading back home. However, we were finally paid a visit by “the skunk” and did not see any of these species (although our sighting of C. limbata (common claybank tiger beetle) in Wyoming did officially break the old trip record). Not wanting to end the trip on a disappointing day, we delayed our departure for home yesterday and visited two more sites at the eastern edge of the Nebraska Sand Hills (sites M and N in the above map) – a clay bank site where we saw a robust population of C. denverensis (to augment the single individual we had seen earlier in the trip) and several C. splendida (splendid tiger beetle), and another sand dune/blowout system where we at last succeeded in finding C. limbata.

The day after the end of the Annual Fall Tiger Beetle Trip™ is usually a somewhat depressing day for me. Not only is the trip over, but likely so is the entire insect collecting season. I know I need the down time to process the specimens and knowledge acquired during the season, but the field work itself remains my favorite aspect of this pursuit. Nevertheless, the experiences from this trip will fuel my memories for years to come, and in the next weeks I’ll share some of the stories that unfolded. Until then, I leave you with this portrait of C. pulchra – looking rather annoyed with me for my persistent efforts to take his photograph.

Cicindela pulchra - the ''beautiful'' tiger beetle

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Reunion in the Badlands… and beyond

/ Ted C. MacRae / 14 Comments

Two years ago I targeted Nebraska and South Dakota for that year’s Fall Tiger Beetle Trip. I had gotten my first experience with what Nebraska had to offer with a long weekend trip to the Nebraska Sand Hills during the previous fall, and with my appetite fully whetted as a result of that trip, I made a full-blown week-long trip through not only the Sand Hills, but further west to the Pine Ridge area in northwestern Nebraska and the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a phenomenal trip that featured not only tiger beetles (13 species in all), but rare longhorned beetles, aggressive rattlesnakes, and a stunning array of autumn-flavored Great Plains landscapes.

Ted MacRae and Matt Brust stand in Cicindela nebraskana habitat (northwestern Nebraska).

Probably the species that I was happiest to encounter on that trip were Cicindela nebraskana (prairie long-lipped tiger beetle), C. lengi (blowout tiger beetle), and C. limbata (sandy tiger beetle).  I can’t claim sole credit for those finds, since I had made arrangements to meet Nebraska tiger beetle expert Matt Brust and have him show me some of his favorite sites. With Matt’s help, both in taking me to localities and directing me to others, I found nearly every species that I was hoping to see. Nearly, but not every species that is. The one species I really hoped to see but knew was a long shot was Cicindela decemnotata (Badlands tiger beetle). It’s right at the easternmost limit of its distribution in northwestern Nebraska, and only a handful of individuals have been seen in the state. Another species I did not see was Cicindela pulchra (beautiful tiger beetle). You’ve heard me talk about this species on several occasions, referring to my experience with it in south-central Kansas (written up in this little note) and my later obsession – so far unfulfilled – with finding it in nearby northwestern Oklahoma. I didn’t even try to look for this species… because nobody knew it was there! It was not until the following year that Matt found it in the Badlands of South Dakota, and since then he has located a number of populations in that area.

It is with C. decemnotata and C. pulchra in mind that I make return trip to the South Dakota Badlands for the Annual Fall Tiger Beetle Trip™. This time I am accompanied by fellow cicindelophile and field companion Chris Brown, and by the time you read this we will be on our way to meet up with Matt once again and focus our efforts on finding these two species. In this far northern area, it is already late in the season, so success is not assured. However, with Matt showing or directing us to some of the localities where he’s found these species, we’ve got the biggest bullets in our guns possible. Since I’ve already seen many of the other interesting tiger beetle species up that way (C. nebraskana, C. lengi, C. limbata, etc.) from the previous trip, we will be free to devote all of our attention to finding these two species – including driving even further west into the heart of Wyoming, where C. decemnotata occurs a little more reliably. If I come back from this trip with nothing more than some great photos of one of these species, the trip will have been a success. If I come back with photos of both of them, the trip will have been a huge success. Along the way, I’ll still keep an eye out for other tiger beetles – especially C. nebraskana, C. lengi, and C. limbata, because about the only thing I would wish for on top of success as photographing C. decemnotata and C. pulchra is nicer photographs of these other species as well to replace the dreadful point-and-shoot versions that I have from my 2008 trip.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Hunting the Great Plains giant tiger beetle

/ Ted C. MacRae / 17 Comments

In the early 1980s, I was a young, green entomologist, fresh out of school with a budding interest in beetle taxonomy, a zeal for collecting, and a desire to meet other like-minded individuals. Among the first collectors I had the good fortune to meet was Ron Huber, one of the country’s leading tiger beetle experts and co-founder of the journal CICINDELA (now 42 years as co-editor). Although my interests had by then already begun narrowing to woodboring beetles, I liked tiger beetles well enough and managed to secure from him a single specimen of what Erwin and Pearson (2008) would later dub the “Great Plains giant tiger beetle,” Amblycheila cylindriformis – the largest tiger beetle in North America. I don’t remember what prompted Ron to part with this spectacular specimen – perhaps it was the lone Proserpinus gaurae (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) adult that I possessed, which I had reared from a field-collected larva around that time, or maybe Ron had such a nice series of the species that making the day of a young collector was in itself reward enough. While clearly a tiger beetle, it was still so different by virtue of its enormous size (the species ranges from 25-38 mm in length), somber coloration, small eyes, and strictly nocturnal habit. For much of the past 25 years, that specimen has sat in my cabinet amongst a small assortment of other, mostly mundane tiger beetles that I had opportunistically taken on my woodboring beetle-focused collecting trips. While I longed to someday see the species for myself, to do that would mean making a special trip out to the Great Plains – woodboring beetle desert that it is – during the middle of summer and stumbling through the prairie in the dark with a flashlight. Such an effort always seemed too great for the sole purpose of finding a single species, and not even a woodboring beetle at that.

Interests evolve, however, and while I still consider woodboring beetles to be my primary interest, tiger beetles have increasingly occupied my attention over the past several years. Contrary to woodboring beetles, the Great Plains are a mecca for tiger beetle diversity, and in recent years I’ve made a number of trips to Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and Oklahoma specifically to look for them. Such was the case in June of last year when I went to the Glass Mountains in northwestern Oklahoma on a hunch and found Cylindera celeripes, Dromochorus pruinina, and a large tiger beetle larva that I just recently concluded must represent A. cylindriformis. I had been rearing the larva for a year by the time I figured out its identity, and when I did I sudden found myself facing a “perfect storm” – an upcoming holiday weekend, adults presumably in peak adult activity, and I knew exactly where to look for them. Impulsively, I decided to use my July 4th weekend to make the 525-mile drive from St. Louis to the Glass Mountains – this would give me 2 nights to look for them and still allow me to make it back to work on Tuesday morning. Anything else I could find during the day would be icing on the cake, but even if I found nothing, the chance to see A. cylindriformis in the wild seemed worth the gamble.

I made it to Joplin, Missouri near the Oklahoma border by midnight on Friday but awoke to threatening skies the next morning. The threat of rain became a promise as I drove further west, and by the time I arrived in Enid, Oklahoma – just 30 miles from the Glass Mountains – it was raining heavily. I stopped at a coffee shop to access Wi-Fi, and checking the radar showed a line of storms moving up through Texas and western Oklahoma into Kansas – sitting right over the Glass Mountains! The forecast gave no reason for optimism, with a 50% chance of thunderstorms through the weekend. Smartly, I had recorded the locality of the Huber-specimen – collected in northwestern Kansas – and checked the forecast for that area, but it was even worse (50% chance of thunderstorms through Sunday and 80% Sunday night). Clearly this was not good, but I had made the drive and was determined to make something happen. I decided the best thing to do would be to just continue driving west – however far that was – until I got past the storm system and see what was around – wherever that might be. I gassed up amidst a gusty, torrential downpour and headed west out of town. As I drove, the rain lightened up and eventually ceased. The roads were wet, but at least it wasn’t raining, and when I arrived at the Glass Mountains even the roads seemed to be drying. Winds were still strong, but the clouds had broken somewhat, allowing brief periods of sun to further dry things out, and what followed was a most fascinating day on top of one of the Glass Mountain mesas (highlights include C. celeripes, D. pruinina, Microstylus morosus, Trichodes sp. – look for these in future posts). As dusk approached I searched the grasslands below hoping to see a rattlesnake or two – I had seen a western pygmy rattlesnake here last year, and western diamondbacks are also in the area, but I saw none.

Of course, all this was really just passing time – waiting for nightfall and hoping the rain continued to hold off so I could begin searching the prairie down below for A. cylindriformis. It had sprinkled once or twice during the day, and I couldn’t tell if the darkening western sky was truly rain or the just the coming dusk. At 9pm, with darkness fast approaching, I set out with my headlamp and made a beeline for the native prairie habitat on the lower talus slopes where I had last year collected the larva and observed additional larval burrows that I took to be the same species. I must admit that the thought of walking alone through the prairie at night in western diamondback rattlesnake habitat made me more than a little nervous, and I kept just as much an eye out for them as I did the tiger beetles that I was looking for. As the night wore on, my hopes began to dim – I had searched for almost an hour and had covered most of the area where I had seen larval burrows last year. With no sign of the beetle, the negative thoughts started to enter my head – did I make this drive for nothing? How sure was I that the larva really represented Amblycheila? Did I have the right search image? I mean, they’re huge black beetles – they should be easy to spot, right? Oh great, I made all this fuss on my blog about looking for the species – how embarrassing to have to say, “Uhm, well, I didn’t find it.” Just as I began wrapping back around the bottom of the talus slope, there it was – no doubt about it! I just watched it for a while and noted that it moved with some urgency, but it was not the speedy, jerking walk of ‘regular’ tiger beetles – rather, it was more lumbering, seeming to pick each foot up rather high, like a cat with rubber bands on its feet (how would I know about that?). There seemed little risk of it escaping me, so I got out the camera and began following it to take photographs – no way! While it may have lacked the speed of other tiger beetles, it also lacked their propensity to occasionally pause long enough to allow a shot or two. Add the darkness, fear of rattlesnakes, and constant bumping of the flash unit on my headlamp, and it was soon apparent that getting good field photographs was going to be a low percentage proposition. I resigned myself to taking photographs later in a terrarium (several shown here) and spend my time in the field more productively looking for additional individuals.

Finding the first individual did wonders for my motivation, and though still nervous about the potential for rattlesnakes I continued searching an ever-widening swath of the talus slope and adjacent areas. Another hour passed, and I had searched not only the native prairie below the talus slopes, but clay exposures on adjacent somewhat altered habitat. Again, the negative thoughts started creeping back into my mind – am I really gonna walk away from here with a single individual? I can say I found it, but that was a long drive for one beetle! I continued searching along an adjacent drainage ditch, and by 11:30pm I conceded that my victory was small and walked back to the truck to get a container to fill with native soil for a terrarium. Though it was a bit of a walk back up to the talus slope where I had seen the larval burrows, I wanted to take soil from that area specifically to give myself the best shot at obtaining eggs from my single (hopefully female) individual for an attempt at rearing more specimens from larvae. As I approached the exact spot where I had collected last year’s larva, I saw another, even larger adult! I don’t know which was greater – my excitement at finding such a large individual, or my relief in knowing that I would not go home with only one. Of course, with the second individual came a new shot of motivation, so once again I scanned across the talus slopes, and during the next half hour I found two more very near to where I had found the second one. By then it was past midnight, so I set about the business of digging soil for the terrarium. I finished the job (getting stung something terrible by three red, big-headed ants that had crawled up my pant leg while I was digging), took one last sweep across the immediate area, and turned to walk back to the truck when I saw the biggest one of all – I later determined it to be a male measuring 35 mm in length (that’s just about an inch and a half, folks!). With five individuals now, the urgency to find more was gone, and I decided I’d done what I needed to do and should get into town and find a hotel room. As I walked back to the truck, rain began to fall – lightly at first but ever increasing. Once back at the truck it was raining persistently enough that I could only hurriedly take some quick photographs of the beetles in their terrarium as in situ documentation of the momentous occasion!

Occurrence of Amblycheila cylindriformis. White arrows indicate where adults were found, all of which were on red clay/gypsum exposures on lower talus slopes in native prairie habitat. No adults were seen in clay/gypsum exposures further below the slopes in either native (zone 1) or altered prairie (zone 2) or further down in roadside drainages (zone 3).

Although I had accomplished my main goal, I looked forward to the opportunity the next day to search for C. celeripes at other nearby sites to better understand the extent of the area’s population.  Sadly, the rain that had held off for nine hours before returning just after midnight was back for good, with radar the next morning showing a broad swath of rain extending across the entire western part of Oklahoma and north into Kansas.  There wasn’t much for me to do but savor the previous day’s experience while I made the 525-mile drive back east.  This may represent a significant record for the species – Vaurie (1955) in her review of the genus did not see any specimens from Oklahoma (although she did examine a few specimens from adjacent areas of Kansas), and Drew and Van Cleave (1962) reported only a single specimen from the state in nearby Woodward County.  Significant record or not, it was an experience that I’ll not soon forget.

Photo Details: Canon 50D (ISO 100, 1/250 sec), Canon MT-24EX flash.
Photos 1-3: Canon 100mm macro lens (f/14-20), flash 1/4 power w/ Sto-Fen diffusers.
Photo 4: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5X macro lens (f/14), flash 1/8 power w/ Sto-Fen + Gary Fong Puffer diffusers.
Post-processing: levels, unsharp mask, slight cropping on photo 1.
Note to self: clean specimens with moist brush to remove dirt before photographing them!

REFERENCES:

Drew, W. A. and H. W. Van Cleave.  1962. The tiger beetles of Oklahoma (Cicindelidae). Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science 42:101–122.

Erwin, T. L. and D. L. Pearson. 2008. A Treatise on the Western Hemisphere Caraboidea (Coleoptera). Their classification, distributions, and ways of life. Volume II (Carabidae-Nebriiformes 2-Cicindelitae). Pensoft Series Faunistica 84. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, 400 pp.

Vaurie, P. 1955. A review of the North American genus Amblycheila (Coleoptera, Cicindelidae). American Museum Novitates 1724:1–26.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

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