Missouri

ESA in absentia

/ Ted C. MacRae / 6 Comments

Click on image to see larger version.

The Entomological Society of America (ESA) held its 58th Annual Meeting earlier this week in San Diego, California. For those of you who were unable to attend, I’ve included a link to a poster that I and coauthors Chris Brown and Kent Fothergill presented, titled Cylindera cursitans: Distribution and Seasonal Occurrence in Southeast Missouri. Okay, I can already see the puzzled faces, as many of you know I was unable to attend myself. In fact, none of the poster authors were in attendance – if Kelly Tindall, Kent’s entomologist-wife, hadn’t attended the meetings the poster would have never seen the light of day.

Despite lead authorship on the poster, I had a minimal role in its preparation.  Kent did much of the dirty work – clipping text and figures from a manuscript on the subject that we recently submitted to the journal CICINDELA, while Chris and I sat back and gave thumbs up and thumbs down opinions on each iteration of Kent’s hard work.  My heartiest congratulations to Kent for producing such a nice piece of work, to both Kent and Chris for putting up with my obsessive nitpicking over every trifling detail as we readied the manuscript for submission, and to Kelly for lugging a poster halfway across the country in the middle of winter when it didn’t even have her name on it.

REFERENCE:

MacRae, T. C., C. R. Brown, and K. Fothergill.  2010. Cylindera cursitans: Distribution and Seasonal Occurrence in Southeast Missouri. Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, San Diego, California, December 12-15, 2010.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Eye of the Turtle

/ Ted C. MacRae / 60 Comments

Adult male three-toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis).

Is there anything more lovable than the humble turtle?  As old as the dinosaurs, they stumbled onto a body plan that works and promptly dropped out of the evolutionary arms race.  Slow, plodding, and seemingly oblivious, they steadfastly cling to their quite, unhurried lives.  As the rest of the earth’s diversity of life races on, turtles go about their business much as they have done for more than 200 million years now.  They are survivors.

My friend Rich and I encountered this three-toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis) during our hike of the lower North Fork Section of the Ozark Trail in extreme southern Missouri.  Three-toed box turtles are one of four U.S. subspecies of the eastern box turtle, occupying the area west of the Mississippi River from Missouri and Kansas south to Texas and distinguished by their largely unpatterned shell and – yes, three toes on the hind legs rather than four.  I walked right by this guy the first time without noticing him, and only when I turned around to go back and look at something else did I see him sitting there – neck fully extended.  Box turtles exhibit considerable variability in color and patterns on the head and neck, and this particular individual is one of the more conspicuously colored that I’ve seen.

And the eye – as red an eye as I’ve ever seen!  Almost surely a male, as females may have some red in the eye but rarely to such a spectacular degree.  Also likely full-grown based on his rather large size, though probably not too advanced in age yet since the growth rings were still easily visible (in older turtles the growth rings gradually wear smooth).  I estimated it at about 12 years based on ring counts – still a far cry from the 30-50 years that are not uncommonly documented.  He kept a watchful eye on me as I studied him, and I wondered about what his future held.  As an adult, he has settled into a small home range from which he rarely ventures – likely visible to me in its entirety from where I stood.  For the next several decades, he will amble across this single hillside on an endless quest for earthworms, strawberries, and mushrooms.  Save for a possible run-in or two with a destined-to-be-frustrated coyote, fox, or racoon, it will be a largely uneventful life.  He is a survivor.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Answer to Super Crop Challenge #2

/ Ted C. MacRae / 8 Comments

I was hoping that Super Crop Challenge #2 would prove a little more difficult than the first one, but first responder Troy Bartlett quickly sniffed out the correct answer – the top part of the abdomen of the marmorated orb weaver, Araneus marmoreus.  As the first correct responder he earns bonus points.  Dennis also came up with the same answer after temporarily being led astray, and Colton got it right as well (once he realized the challenge was here and not over on FaceBook).  I might be justified if I deducted points for misspellings in the genus and common names (if there is any field unforgiving of spelling errors, it’s taxonomy); however, I’m watching a Christmas movie with my family and am feeling the holiday spirit.  That spirit extends to Dave as well, who earns pity points for refusing to believe that I would offer consecutive spider challenges (actually the first Super Crop Challenge was an opilionid, but the ID challenge before that was another spider, making this the third straight arachnid challenge I’ve posted – it wasn’t by design).

The crop I used for this challenge was taken from the above photo – not the best of the series, but it had the most symmetrical view of the dorsal abdominal pattern that some think looks like a face.  This is just one of many color variations exhibited by this most variable of North American spiders – see this BugGuide page for a pictorial summary of the extraordinary amount of variation found in this species.

My friend Rich and I encountered this individual – a female – in an upland oak/hickory forest while hiking the lower North Fork Section of the Ozark Trail in extreme southern Missouri.  These spiders normally hide in a retreat during the day (usually a curled leaf) and spin a new web at night – I’m not sure why she was out during the day, as it didn’t appear she was recycling the web, tattered and torn and probably still remaining from the previous evening.  When I first approached, I accidentally brushed against one of the support lines, which sent her scampering up into her retreat.  I figured “tapping” on the leaf might cause her to drop back out – Rich was skeptical, but after a few taps, the spider not only dropped out but obligingly went right back down to the center of the web and stayed in place long enough for me to get a few shots of the ventral surface.  (I couldn’t suppress a smug chuckle as Rich muttered in exasperated disbelief!)  Moving around to the other side disturbed the spider again, and she once again took refuge in her retreat.  This time, rather than fight it, I carefully uncurled the leaf that formed her retreat, working gingerly to avoid disturbing her, and took a series of photos of her attractive dorsal surface as she sat in the retreat.

Photo Details: Canon 50D w/ 100mm macro lens (ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/16), Canon MT-24EX flash w/ Sto-Fen + GFPuffer diffusers. Typical post-processing (levels, minor cropping, unsharp mask, etc.).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Answer to Super Crop Challenge #1

/ Ted C. MacRae / 19 Comments

Seemingly correct answers came quickly to yesterday’s inaugural Super Crop Challenge, which featured a curious structure atop a harvestman (class Arachnida, order Opiliones) that I encountered while hiking the lower North Fork Section of the Ozark Trail in extreme southern Missouri. “Seemingly” I say, because even though some points were earned, others remained left on the table – the organism was rightly recognized as a harvestman, and the structure in the photo does indeed contain the ocelli (or eyes).  However, nobody actually named the structure itself (see update below) – the ocularium (ocular or optical tubercle would also have been accepted).  Hey, I’m pedantic and proud!

As near as I can tell, this individual belongs to the genus Leiobunum (family Sclerosomatidae).  Species in this genus are notoriously difficult to identify; however, the super long legs, dark dorsal stripe, pointed abdomen, and very long palps with “knees” that extend dorsally to a level well above the ocularium suggest a male L. vittatum or one of its close relatives (Schulz 2010). Leiobunum vittatum is a common inhabitant of wooded habitats across the eastern U.S.

I took this shot with an MP-E 65mm macro lens at about 2.5X. The short working distance of the lens at this level of magnification makes it difficult to photograph these longer-legged species in lateral profile due to their habit of “waving” their especially elongate 2nd pair of legs in the air as pseudo-antennae – one touch of any part of the camera sends them scampering. I chased this guy back and forth across a downed tree trunk for some time before I finally got lucky when it encountered some prey (note the long structure extending down from the mouth area – I believe it is the antenna of a tiny, nymphal blattodean) and became distracted just long enough for me to close in and fire off a couple of close shots. He was actually closer to the underside of the log, so when I took this photo I was leaning far over the log with the camera almost upside-down!

Okay – Art earns points for being the first to identify it as a harvestman, while Geek snaps rare duplicate ID points for using the order’s scientific name (no complaining – scientific names will always get points on this blog).  Art, Aniruddha, and Geek also get half-points for mentioning (in order of correctness) eye, ocelli (technically more correct, but wrong plurality), and ocellus (yes, only one is visible – did I mention my pedantic tendencies?).  However, I’m going to declare arachnologist and Opiliones specialist Chris as the winner of this round for his impressive display of generic-level identification based on the meagerest of evidence!

Update 11/22, 11:00 a.m. – actually, Chris did name this structure in an email sent to my office address while the comments box was unchecked and, thus, earns a clean sweep of this challenge.

Photo Details: Canon 50D w/ MP-E 65mm 1-5X macro lens (ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13), Canon MT-24EX flash w/ Sto-Fen + GFPuffer diffusers. Typical post-processing (levels, minor cropping, unsharp mask).

REFERENCE:

Schulz, J. W. 2010. The Harvestmen of Maryland (accessed 20 November 2010).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Super Crop Challenge #1

/ Ted C. MacRae / 8 Comments

ID quizzes and challenges seem to have become an increasingly popular subject for natural history blogs. I’ve done a few of my own, but my straight up ID challenges are starting to seem a little unimaginative compared to the DNA sequence, crypsis, mimicry, taxonomy fail, and other challenges being offered up by bug blogdom’s more creative types. To step it up a notch, I offer the first Super Crop Challenge. Small structures that we take for granted within a larger context often take on alien qualities when viewed in isolation. Can you identify this structure and the organism that possesses it?


Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Desmocerus palliatus – elderberry borer

/ Ted C. MacRae / 31 Comments

Desmocerus palliatus (elderberry borer), Squaw Creek Natl. Wildlife Refuge, Missouri.

Last June I made two trips to the Loess Hills in northwestern Missouri to survey additional sites for Cylindera celeripes (swift tiger beetle), which my colleague Chris Brown and I had discovered in some of the area’s few remaining loess hilltop prairie remnants the previous year. One of these potential new sites was  Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, where a few tiny slivers of hilltop prairie can still be found on the fingers of loess bluffs that border the refuge’s several thousand acres of restored wetlands that famously host large concentrations of snow geese and bald eagles during the fall and spring migrations.  On the first visit, I had arranged to meet with Corey Kudrna, Refuge Operations Specialist, who was kind enough to take several hours out of his day to personally guide me to each of the site’s loess hilltop prairie remnants. 

As we crossed the highway right-of-way at the base of the bluffs on our way to the one of the remnants, we passed through a large patch of common elderberry, Sambucus nigra ssp. canadensis.  Anytime I see patches of this plant, especially in June, I immediately think of Desmocerus palliatus (elderberry borer) – a spectacularly colored longhorned beetle (family Cerambycidae) that breeds exclusively in the living stems and roots of this plant.  It is not a particularly rare species, but for some reason I have not had much success in finding this species.  In my close to three decades of collecting beetles, I had encountered perhaps a half dozen individuals – never more than two at the same time.  Still, when I get the chance to look at elderberry I look for this beetle, and when I did so this time I was delighted to see one within a few moments of entering the patch.  I was ecstatic when I saw another one almost immediately after the first, and I was stunned when I realized that they were all around me!  Good fortune continued on my subsequent visit two weeks later, when I was able to spend a little more time trying to get a good field photograph.  Wind was a problem, the beetles were easily alarmed, and their tendency to rest in the upper reaches of the plant made it difficult to brace myself and the camera while shooting, making this a rather difficult subject to get a good photograph of.  The photo shown here is literally the last of around two dozen that I took and is the only one that I really like.

Many cerambycid beetles are mimics of other more noxious species, mostly ants and wasps.  However, elderberry borers appear to be the exception in that they are themselves noxious.  The cobalt blue and bright orange coloration of the adults screams aposematic (warning) coloration, and it is reasonable to assume that they accumulate in their bodies for defensive purposes the cyanogenic glucosides produced by elderberry plants (Huxel 2000).  Even their movements are those of a chemically protected model – lumbering and clumsy, without the alert evasiveness usually seen with other flower longhorn species.  Presumably this species participates in a Müllerian mimicry complex involving netwinged beetles (family Lycidae, particularly species in the genus Calopteron) and perhaps Pyromorpha dimidiata (orange-patched smoky moth, family Zygaenidae) as well, and it may serve as a Batesian model for the equally colorful but completely innocuous Lycomorpha pholus (black-and-yellow lichen moth, family Arctiidae).

Photo Details: Canon 50D w/ 100mm macro lens (ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/10), Canon MT-24EX flash w/ Sto-Fen diffusers.

REFERENCE:

Huxel, G. R.  2000.  The effect of the Argentine ant on the threatened valley elderberry longhorn beetle.  Biological Invasions 2:81–85.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Cicindela pulchra on white

/ Ted C. MacRae / 16 Comments

Two more photographs taken with my new diffuser, this time the spectacular Cicindela pulchra (beautiful tiger beetle). Which one do you like better?

Photo Details: Canon 50D w/ 100mm macro lens (ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/16), Canon MT-24EX flash w/ oversized concave diffuser. Standard post-processing (levels, unsharp mask).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

Forgotten Foto Friday: Centruroides vittatus

/ Ted C. MacRae / 12 Comments

I got this idea from Doug Taron over at Gossamer Tapestry, who credits Steve Borichevsky at Shooting my Universe for an occasional feature called Forgotten Photo Friday (hopefully my use of the alternative spelling “Foto” won’t be considered too presumptuous).  Perfect timing, as I recently ran across these photos of Centruroides vittatus (striped bark scorpion) that I took last fall after finding him secreted under a rock in a dolomite glade at White River Balds Natural Area in extreme southwest Missouri.  One other photo from the series did make it onto the blog last year – an extreme closeup of his seemingly “smiling” face (see A face only a mother could love), and while these photos are less extreme, I think they still deserve to be shared nevertheless.



One thing that strikes me about this individual is how marvelously well-matched is his coloration with that of the surrounding rocks – a perfect example of the cryptic coloration that characterizes most members of the family (Buthidae) to which this species belongs.

Photo Details: Canon 50D w/ 100mm macro lens (ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13-16), Canon MT-24EX flash (1/4 ratio) w/ Sto-Fen. Typical post-processing (levels, minor cropping, unsharp mask).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010