Florida

Return to Nowhere

/ Ted C. MacRae / 14 Comments

Back to some hard-core, field natural history.  Two years ago, on my virgin experience at collecting tiger beetles in Florida, I visited a spot called “Road to Nowhere”¹ at the suggestion of North American Tiger Beetle Master Dave Brzoska.  He said as many as 6–10 species can be seen there if the season is right, although my early August timing might be a tad late.  Despite having only a few hours from late afternoon to dusk to explore the area, I came close with the following five species: Cicindela trifasciata ascendens (Ascendent Tiger Beetle), Habroscelimorpha severa (Saltmarsh Tiger Beetle), Eunota togata togata (White-cloaked Tiger Beetle), Ellipsoptera marginata (Margined Tiger Beetle) and E. hamata lacerata (Gulf Beach Tiger Beetle) (see Tiger Beetles at Florida’s “Road to Nowhere”).

¹ For those of you who haven’t heard of the “Road to Nowhere,” it ranks as one of the top tiger beetle “hot spots” in the country (perhaps second only to Arizona’s famous Wilcox Playa).  According to Doug Taron at Gossamer Tapestry, the site—an expansive coastal salt marsh and mud flat along the isolated central Gulf Coast of Florida—was built some decades ago at the behest of corrupt state officials as a landing strip for small airplanes running drugs into this country.


One species I did not see on that trip is Habroscelimorpha striga (Elusive Tiger Beetle).  The common name is well deserved—the species is restricted to salt marshes, mud flats, and openings in coastal pine forest along the west and northeast coasts of Florida and South Carolina, and apparently nobody has ever seen it during the day (Pearson et al. 2006)!  Despite this, the Road to Nowhere is one place where the species can be seen somewhat reliably through its attraction to ultraviolet “blacklights.”  With this in mind, I began my 48-hour tiger beetle blitz during last August’s family vacation to Florida by timing my departure from St. Petersburg so that I arrived at the Road to Nowhere as dusk was falling—just in time to setup the lights, sit back with a beer, and wait for H. striga to cover the sheet!  The plan had a few kinks—I got a little bit of a late start, so by the time I got to Steinhatchee it was already getting dark.  Because of this, I missed one of the turns (my memory isn’t as good as it used to be) and got lost.  By the time I finally got my bearings, it was pitch black as I drove the 11-mile length of that lonely road through sand scrub and coastal marsh to a point where the road just simply stops.  Although the area is no longer used much for drug running, I still felt somewhat vulnerable as I setup the blacklight at the edge of the expansive salt mud flat.  There was one additional kink—I had forgotten to bring my copy of Pearson et al. (2006), any North American tiger beetle aficionado’s “Bible.”  Having only my memory of reading about the species to draw on, I hoped that I would recognize it if I saw it, or least recognize it as something different from the other species I expected to see there.


I’ve heard stories about the area being filled with tiger beetle collectors from all over the country with their blacklights and bucket traps, with someone yelling “striga!” every hour or so. However, I was the only person there that night. I hoped I wasn’t too late, as August is at the back end of the known adult activity period. Very quickly three other species, E. hamata lacerata, E. marginata and H. severa (the latter similar to H. striga, but much more abundant) began literally swarming all over the sheet and ground beneath. It was exciting at first, as I’d never encountered these (or any other tiger beetles) so abundantly at blacklights. In time, however, I satisfied my appetite for specimens and actually started becoming rather annoyed at their abundance—as if they might be “chasing away” the rare H. striga that was attracted to the light before I had a chance to see it.


Eventually, however, it happened. I spotted a somewhat different looking tiger beetle, but instead of yelling “striga!” my reaction was “What is that?” It was dark(ish), and I noted a subsutural row of green punctures on each elytron—”Is that punctulata?” I picked it up and looked at it closely, still thinking maybe punctulata but not sure. It was shinier, and a little bigger, and I noted the presence of marginal white spots at the middle and rear of the elytra. “No, that’s not punctulata… Is it striga? It must be striga! Yeah, it’s striga!” I dug down into the deep recesses of my memory and recalled that H. striga, indeed, was a darkish species, although I could not recall anything about the row of punctures. I finally decided that it really couldn’t be anything else but H. striga, an ID arrived at by process of elimination rather than recognition. Looking back, I feel a little cheated—I never got my “striga!” moment, that instant of sudden jubilation.  Instead, it was just a slow, creeping realization of what I had (listen to me—complaining about finding H. striga!).

I would actually find about a half dozen individuals of H. striga that night. The first one, per standard procedure, went live into a vial as a backup for studio photos if I didn’t manage to get any in the field.  That proved unnecessary, however, as I was able to photograph the two subsequent individuals shown in this post. It was not just H. striga that kept me busy with the camera, but feeding, perching, and trophy-bearing individuals of E. hamata lacerata and some other species that I have still to discuss as well. It was non-stop action from the time I setup the lights, interrupted only briefly at one point as I nervously watched a set of car headlights approach from the distance, stop a few hundred yards up the road, and then slowly turn around and disappear. By the time I finally took a moment to look at my watch it was already 1 a.m.! Soaking wet from the nighttime humidity, dirty from laying on the salty, muddy ground, and exhausted from the 4 hour drive and non-stop action after my arrival, I finally packed up the lights and began the drive back to civilization—praying that I would be able to find a motel without too much delay!

REFERENCE:

Pearson, D. L., C. B. Knisley and C. J. Kazilek. 2006. A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada. Oxford University Press, New York, 227 pp.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Another account of the recently rediscovered Cicindelidia floridana

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Back in August I had the chance to see with my own eyes wild individuals of Cicindelidia floridana, a tiger beetle that had been recently rediscovered after being thought extinct for nearly a century.  Accompanying me during that trip were Chris Wirth (author of the tiger beetle blog Cicindela) and Dave Brzoska (tiger beetle collector extraordinaire, and lead author of the paper announcing the beetle’s rediscovery).  I recounted that experience in my post Photographing the Newly Rediscovered Cicindelidia floridana, and now Chris has done the same in his post Revisiting the recently rediscovered C. floridana.  Chris has perhaps the most perfect field photograph of one of these beetles—go check it out (and while you’re there read about his first trip to see the beetle in his post Presumed extinct, Floridian tiger beetle rediscovered after 73 years).  And so that you don’t leave here empty-handed, here is another photograph of the beetle that didn’t quite make the cut in my earlier post:

Cicindelidia floridana | Miami-Dade Co., Florida

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Use of extension tubes for better lighting

/ Ted C. MacRae / 17 Comments

The photos in this post of Tetracha floridana (Florida Metallic Tiger Beetle) illustrate a technique that I have begun using recently to improve the lighting in my full-flash insect macrophotographs—use of extension tubes!  I know this sounds strange, and I actually just stumbled onto it myself when I started using extension tubes in combination with my Canon EF 100mm macro lens.  Okay, I can hear it now: “Why not use the Canon MP-E 65 mm macro lens?”  It’s a good question, as at magnifications above 1X there is no finer lens than the 65mm.  However, the tiger beetles that I spend a lot of time photographing are right in that size range where sometimes I need magnifications below 1x (whole body shots of medium to large species), while other times I need magnifications above 1X (small species and closeups—particularly face shots).  Fortunately, the entire spectrum of magnifications (up to 5X) is covered by these two lenses, but there is, unfortunately, no overlap.  This is where the extension tubes come in—when all 68mm are added the 100mm lens effectively changes from a 1.0X–∞ lens to a 0.7–2.0X lens.  This gives a frame width of 11–33 mm, perfect for nearly all North American tiger beetles (most species range from 6-20 mm, excluding legs and antennae). 

In addition to allowing a more appropriate range of magnifications without the need to switch out lenses, this has one other effect—it moves the lens a little closer to the subject.  That in itself is of no particular benefit, but since I use the front-of-the-lens-mounted Canon MT-24EX dual flash, it also moves the flash a little closer to the subject.  It’s not a huge distance, only about 20 mm, but keep in mind that the flash heads extend forward from the front of the lens (especially with the Kaiser shoes that I use with my diffuser), and the front of the diffuser itself lies at about 60 mm in front of the lens face.  Thus, at 1X the the front of the diffuser sits ~80 mm from the subject with the 100mm lens only, but with 68 mm of extension tubes added it sits only 60 mm from the subject.  The closer the light source is to the subject, the greater the apparent light size, and larger apparent light size results in more even lighting with reduced specular effects.

Tetracha floridana | Pinellas Co., Florida (100mm lens only)

100mm lens + 68mm extension tubes

100mm lens only (slightly cropped)

100mm lens + 68mm extension tubes

The primary disadvantage to doing this is loss of ability to focus to infinity.  Frankly, this is functionality I never used with the 100mm lens, preferring instead the 17-85mm wide-angle lens for more general landscape and habitat photos.  The other downside is that placing the lens closer to the subject can result in greater chance of “spooking” the subject and causing it to flee or behave evasively.  Again, however, my experience is that if a subject can be photographed at 1X with the 100mm lens, it can be photographed at 2X with the 100mm lens + extension tubes.

Has anybody else ever tried this, and if so what was your experience?

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Charming Couple revisited

/ Ted C. MacRae / 4 Comments

Another view of the of Ellipsoptera hamata lacerata (Gulf Coast Tiger Beetle) that I photographed in a small mangrove marsh in Seminole, Florida. These are actually among the first tiger beetles that I ever tried to photograph at night, and the major learnings involved: 1) figuring out how to turn on the flash lamp and then compose the shot quickly enough before the lamp shut off, and 2) making sure to use the histogram in the field to ensure I’d gotten the proper flash level. My first few attempts all tended to be underexposed because the brightness of the image on the playback screen in the darkness caused me to keep undersetting the flash exposure compensation. I’d not previously gotten in the habit of using the histogram in the field since I do a lot of flash level bracketing, but perhaps this is a tool that will allow me to cut down on that to some degree. Anyway, these are two additional photos that worked out pretty well—I like the first because of the contrast between the bright white mandibles of the male versus the off-white mandibles of the female, and the second (female only after the male bolted) for its nice view of the curiously bent elytral apices that distinguish it from the female of the very similar and (in this area) sympatric E. marginata (Margined Tiger Beetle). Also clearly seen in the second is one of the distinct basolateral grooves on the pronotum that serve to receive the male mandibles during mating (compare to same area on pronotum of male). I was amazed at how easy this mating pair and other individuals of this species were to photograph at night in view of their extreme wariness during the day.

Ellipsoptera hamata lacerata | Seminole, Pinellas Co., Florida

Note curiously bent elytral apices and basolateral pronotal groove for reception of male mandibles.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Gnom, Gnom, Gnom…

/ Ted C. MacRae / 9 Comments

I’ve become a big fan of night-time tiger beetle photography since my early August trip to Florida.  Not only does it open up the world of nocturnal species that might go undetected during the day, it also affords the opportunity to see diurnal species engaged in behaviors that are more difficult to photograph during the day.  This female Gulf Beach Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera hamata lacerata) came to my blacklight at a coastal salt marsh near Steinhatchee and promptly began munching on a smaller beetle that had also come to the light.  I didn’t get a good enough look at the prey early on to identify it, and by the time I was able to zoom in big with the camera lens the prey had already been macerated to a crunchy pulp.  It was interesting to watch the tiger beetle grasp and chew the prey with its mandibles while manipulating its position with its maxillary parts.




Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Why I Roamed the Marsh at Night

/ Ted C. MacRae / 22 Comments

Tetracha floridana (Florida Metallic Tiger Beetle) | Pinellas Co., Florida

For two years I waited.  The narrow strip of coastal scrub and mangrove marsh along the intracoastal waterway behind my sister-in-law’s condominium in Seminole, Florida had been an unexpected surprise during my first visit in August 2009.  Despite its small size and urban surroundings, it proved to be a good spot for tiger beetles, including Ellipsoptera marginata (Margined Tiger Beetle) and the closely related E. hamata lacerata (Gulf Coast Tiger Beetle).  Also living there was a much rarer tiger beetle—the Florida-endemic species Tetracha floridana (Florida Metallic Tiger Beetle), but I did not know this at the time.  In fact, had I not happened upon some larval burrows as I was leaving the preserve and decided to collect a few and rear them to adults, I would still not know they were there.  Only after the two larvae that made it back to St. Louis alive emerged as adults in their rearing container did I realize what I had found.  The reason I had not seen any adults during my visit was simple—they, like all members of the genus to which they belong, are strictly nocturnal!  Nevertheless, I knew I would return sooner or later and have another shot at seeing adults of this species in the wild.

A male, distinguishable by the thick brushy pads on the front tarsi.

And return I did.  My wife and I decided fairly early this year that we wanted to return to Florida for our summer vacation.  She likes the beach and her sister, and the kids like the beach and their aunt.  I don’t like the beach so much (though my sister-in-law is pretty cool), but I love Florida for its diversity of tiger beetle species and their high level of endemism.  During my 2009 trip I managed to find nine species, which, in addition to T. floridana, included also the very rare and potentially threatened Cicindelidia highlandensis (Highlands Tiger Beetle), known only from the Lake Wales Ridge in central Florida, and the (near) endemic Ellipsoptera hirtilabris (Moustached Tiger Beetle).  This year I set my sight on several other endemics—e.g. Cicindelidia floridana (Miami Tiger Beetle)—and near-endemics—e.g. Cicindelidia scabrosa (Scabrous Tiger Beetle).  My searches for these targets would have to wait for a few days, but for T. floridana I had only to wait until nightfall on the day we arrived.  The bleating chorus of tree frogs was my signal, and as the rest of the family retired to their bedrooms I geared up with my collecting fanny pack, camera bag and headlamp and headed out to the marsh.

The species lacks the violaceous reflections found on the elytra of T. carolina.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it was a little unnerving to walk into the marsh surrounded by darkness and greeted by scuttling hordes of sea slaters.  The anticipation of finally seeing T. floridana, however, was more than enough motivation to forge onward while deliberately scanning the ground with my headlamp.  For some amount of time I focused on the more barren areas, which is where I would have expected the adults to occur, but only after I also began scanning some of the sparsely vegetated ground—typically slightly elevated above the moister and more barren areas—did I see the first adult.  Its agile dash into and through the vegetation upon my approach was a little surprising and required more effort than I expected to finally capture it.  Elation!  Finding rare species is always a treat, but it is extra special when you find one where nobody previously knew it existed.  Over the course of the next 1½ hours (as well as the following night and two nights after that) I would see countless adults, giving me comfort that I could collect a reasonable voucher series without causing negative impacts on the population.

A female oviposits in the soil amongst the sparse, salt-tolerant vegetation.

I had hoped to see mating pairs but never did; however, I did find a female in the act of oviposition.  Consistent with the apparent adult preference for sparsely vegetated areas rather than barren ground, the female was nestled amongst the vegetation while she excavated a hole for the egg she would lay.  On the last night that I visited the marsh, I focused my efforts on finding larval burrows, starting in the area where I had seen them two years ago.  I only found a few but succeeded in fishing one 3rd-instar larva out of its burrow.  You see, even though I photographed one two years ago, the larva of this species remains undescribed in the literature.  Since I allowed the two larvae I had collected to complete their development to adulthood, I still lacked preserved specimens that could be used for the basis of a description.  I now had one, but for a formal description it would be better to have at least a few examples.  Remembering that I had seen the female ovipositing amongst vegetation rather than out in the open, I began searching the nearby vegetated areas for burrows.  This approach was met with better success, and from the dozen or so burrows that I was able to find, I succeeded in fishing out two more 3rd-instars.  I already have several preserved larvae of Tetracha virginica (Virginia Metallic Tiger Beetle) and a single T. carolina (Carolina Metallic Tiger Beetle) collected in southeastern Missouri by my good friend Kent Fothergill—this small series of T. floridana now leaves me lacking only the also-undescribed T. impressa (Upland Metallic Tiger Beetle) among the four North American (sensu stricto) species of Tetracha.  I will be anxious to compare the larvae of T. floridana I now have with those of T. carolina and T. virginica in an effort to find species-specific characters.

This male is sporting some very impressive teeth on his mandibles.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Creepy Crawly Crustaceans

/ Ted C. MacRae / 11 Comments

During my early August trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida, I spent several nights exploring the small mangrove marsh behind my sister-in-law’s condominium in Seminole. There were other reasons for me wanting to do this that will be revealed in a future post, but suffice it to say that, to this land-locked Midwesterner, the intertidal zone between land and sea is a strange and weird place. The plants are strange—long aerial roots, salt exudate-covered leaves, succulent jointed stems; and the animals are strange—molluscs and crustaceans featuring just as prominently as the insects with which I am more familiar. Even the smells are strange. Add to that the cover of darkness and it seems downright alien. For me, stumbling through the marsh with only the bright tunnel of light from my headlamp to reveal whatever lurks in the surrounding blackness seemed like a walk on another planet—new, exciting, and a tad unnerving!


As I took those first tentative steps through the marsh, one of the first things I noticed scuttling across the moist ground were what looked to me like giant wood lice.  Terrestrial isopods (class Malacostraca, order Isopoda) are nothing new to me—”roly-polys” and wood lice are common where I live, but I have never seen any as large as these, measuring as much as 25-30 mm in length (that’s an inch or more, folks!), not even counting their quite long antennae and uropoda.  They were also quite numerous, abundant actually.  I must confess to feeling a little creeped out at first upon seeing them—I could just imagine these strange, alien creatures suddenly swarming all over me and devouring the flesh from my body under the cover of darkness.  Okay, it was more of a fleeting thought than a palpable fear, but it has been awhile since I’ve encountered an arthropod with which I am so completely unfamiliar.  During the course of the night I photographed a number of individuals, not knowing what characters might be most important for identification and hoping that maximizing the number of photographs would increase my odds of getting the right shot.  Once I sat down to figure out what they were, the answer came quickly, as there is really nothing quite like sea slaters (genus Ligia).  Several species of these apparently common residents of intertidal zones are found on both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts (Schmalfuss 2003), where they hide during the day and come out at night to scavenge on algae and whatever other organic matter they can find.




Despite my initial thought that a species ID might not be possible, I was eventually able to determine with a fair degree of confidence that the individuals in these photos represent L. baudiniana.  This species is distinguished from two other species in the genus in Florida (Schultz and Johnson 1984) by the combination of its long uropoda (L. oceanica—introduced from Europe—has the uropoda much less than 2/3 the length of the body) and brush-like structures on the first pair of legs of the male, visible in the middle photograph above (L. exotica males lack these structures and possess instead a process at the distal end of the leg). These characters are illustrated nicely in Richardson (1905), which despite its great age seems to still to be a relevant resource for the family in North America.


Congratulations to Morgan Jackson, who wins Super Crop Challenge #8 with 11 points and distinguishes himself as the only participant to correctly identify the species.  Dave and Roy complete the podium with 9 points each.  In the overalls, two-time Session Champ Ben Coulter earned 8 pts to retain his lead with 22 pts, while Mr. Phiddipus and Roy move into a tie for 2nd place just 4 pts off the lead.  It’s still early, but this is shaping up to be a competitive session!

In the next post, I’ll reveal the real reason I was so interested in searching this marsh at night…

REFERENCES:

Richardson, H.  1905.  A monograph on the isopods of North America.  Bulletin of the United States National Museum 54:i–liii, 1–727.

Schmalfuss, H. 2003. World catalog of terrestrial isopods (Isopoda: Oniscidea). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde (Serie A) 654:1–341 [revised and updated online version].

Schultz, G. A. and C. Johnson. 1984. Terrestrial isopod crustaceans from Florida (Oniscoidea). Tylidae, Ligiidae, Halophilosciidae, Philosciidae, and Rhyscotidae. Journal of Crustacean Biology 4(1):154-171. 

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Super Crop Challenge #8

/ Ted C. MacRae / 23 Comments

Here’s a face you don’t see that often (or at least I don’t).  There’s little doubt about what body parts are shown here, so rather than awarding points for naming structures we’ll treat this as a standard ID Challenge.  However, the categories are a little different from the usual—2 pts each for class, order, family, and genus (I suspect a species ID may not be possible, at least from this photo).  Standard challenge rules apply, including moderated comments (to give everyone a chance to take part) and bonus points awarded on a discretionary basis for a variety of reasons, e.g. as tie-breakers if multiple participants arrive at the same correct answer, providing additional relevant information, humor, etc.  

Reminder: I am quite the pedant—points can be awarded or taken away depending on one’s attention to detail.  Also, when all else fails pity points will be awarded.


Good luck!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011