parasitic wasps

Best of BitB 2014

/ Ted C. MacRae / 20 Comments

Welcome to the 7th Annual “Best of BitB”, where I pick my favorite photographs from the past year. Before I do this, however, let me briefly recap the year 2014. The trend of increasing travel each year continued, with more days spent on the road than in any prior year. Travel for work over the past few years has settled into a familiar routine—touring soybean fields in Argentina in late February and early March, working in my own field trials at (previously three, now four) sites in Illinois and Tennessee from late May through late September, touring more soybean fields at sites across the southeastern U.S. during mid-September, returning to Argentina in October to finalize plans for field trials in the upcoming season, and—finally—attending/presenting at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) Meetings (this year in Portland, Oregon). This heavy travel load makes scheduling my own insect collecting trips a bit tricky, but I’m a persistent sort! In late May I traveled to Tennessee and Georgia with fellow buprestophile Joshua Basham and lab mate Nadeer Youseff to collect several rare jewel beetles, then in late June I collected prionids and jewel beetles in Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma with Jeff Huether. In addition to these longer trips, I also managed to take advantage of my work travel to check out interesting natural habitats along the way to and from my field sites. I continue to give the occasional entomology seminar as well, speaking in March at “Day of Insects” in Ames, Iowa and here in St. Louis to the Entomology Natural History Group of the Webster Groves Nature Study Society in April and the Missouri Master Naturalists Confluence Chapter in December. On top of all this, I still managed to vacation with my family in Lake Tahoe during March and in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico during late July.

I say all this to highlight the fact that after all these years I still consider myself an entomologist with a camera rather than a bona fide insect photographer. The reason for this is that the science of entomology itself remains my primary focus—photography is simply one of the tools that I have come to use in my pursuit of the discipline. I don’t mean to imply that I don’t continue to work on my photography style and technique—because I do. But my style and technique are not goals in of themselves; rather, they are means to an end—that end being my entomological studies. With that said, I present my favorite BitB photographs from 2014. As in previous years, my photos are largely hand-held, in situ field shots that are intended to tell a natural history story in a (hopefully) aesthetic manner. Links to original posts are provided for each photo selection, and I welcome any comments you may have regarding which (if any) is your favorite and why—such feedback will be helpful for me as I continue to hone my craft. If you’re interested, here are my previous years’ picks for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Once again, thank you for your readership, and I hope to see you in 2015!

Paraselenis tersa? female guarding her eggs | Cordoba Prov., Argentina

Paraselenis tersa (Boheman, 1854) | Cordoba Prov., Argentina

From Tortoise beetles on the job (posted April 20). This photograph of a tortoise beetle female over her egg mass illustrates maternal guarding behavior—rare in insects. The perfect lateral profile shot and clean, blue sky background also give the photo a pleasing aesthetic quality.

Who likes mole crickets?

Scapteriscus borellii Giglio-Tos, 1894 | Emanuel Co., Georgia

From Who likes mole crickets? (posted June 6). This has to be the most comical expression ever on the face of an insect!

Chrysobothris orono Frost, 1920 | South Cumberland State Park, Tennessee

Chrysobothris orono Frost, 1920 | South Cumberland State Park, Grundy Co., Tennessee

From Chrysobothris orono in Tennessee (posted July 29). I found this rare jewel beetle for the first time this year with the help of Josh Basham and Nadeer Youseff. The beetle itself is beautiful enough, but photographing it on a pine root with a presumed adult emergence hole adds considerable natural history interest to the photo. Rock substrate behind the root adds a pleasingly blurred background.

Buprestis (Stereosa) salisburyensis Herbst, 1801 | South Cumberland State Park, Tennessee.

Buprestis (Stereosa) salisburyensis Herbst, 1801 | South Cumberland State Park, Tennessee.

From The Buprestis tree (posted August 10). This was another of several jewel beetles that I found for the first time after more than three decades of collecting this group. I like the value contrast in this photo from the striking, metallic colors of the beetle against the nicely blurred cinnamon-colored pine bark of the tree on which it is sitting.

A "super moon" watches over a parasitized hornworm caterpillar.

A “super moon” watches over a parasitized hornworm caterpillar.

From A time of reckoning (posted August 13). I fully admit this is a composite photograph. Nevertheless, it is a faithful recreation of a true sight, and I don’t consider the use of composite techniques to overcome equipment shortcomings to be unethical. There is a haunting symmetry between the blood red moon—considered by some as a sign of the second coming—and the sad, parasitized caterpillar waiting for its inevitable demise.

The greatly expanded palps are thought to mimic beetle mandibles or spider pedipalps.

Phyllopalpus pulchellus Uhler, 1864 | Hickman Co., Kentucky

From My, what busy palps you have! (posted September 2). I’ve become quite fond of insect photos with the subject “peering” at me, the photographer”, from some unusual vantage point. The “pupils” in the eyes of this red-headed bush cricket give the insect an almost quizzical look.

Acmaeodera immaculata Horn, 1881 | vic. Vogel Canyon, Otero Co., Colorado.

Acmaeodera immaculata Horn, 1878 | vic. Vogel Canyon, Otero Co., Colorado.

From Sunset beetles (posted September 30). Taking photos of insects at sunset is a challenging and ephemeral experience—one has only a few minutes to take advantage of the unusual and serene colors it offers, while at the same time trying to determine the best camera and flash settings to use in the rapidly fading light. Of the several that I’ve tried, this one is my favorite because of the softly complimentary colors of the beetle, the flower upon which it is sitting, and the dying orange sky behind it. If I had to choose, I would probably pick this one as my favorite of the year because of the unusual and serene colors.

Megacyllene decora (Olivier, 1795) | Stoddard Co., Missouri

Megacyllene decora (Olivier, 1795) | Stoddard Co., Missouri

From Amorpha borer on goldenrod (posted October 5). I featured this very same species in Best of BitB 2012 but can’t resist choosing this second attempt at photographing the spectacularly beautiful adult—this time on goldenrod. As with the previous version this is a true in situ field photograph, hand held and using the left-hand technique to achieve precise composition against a clear blue sky—difficult to do with an insect of this size and using a 100-mm lens, but well worth the effort.

Buprestis (Knulliobuprestis) confluenta Say, 1823 | Woods Co., Oklahoma

Buprestis (Knulliobuprestis) confluenta Say, 1823 | Woods Co., Oklahoma

From A Buprestis hat-trick! (posted October 14). I didn’t take near as many of the classic “frontal portraits” this year, but this one of a jewel beetle that had eluded me for more than 30 years until this past June is perhaps my favorite of them all.

Agrilus concinnus Horn, 1891 | Stoddard Co., Missouri

Agrilus concinnus Horn, 1891 | Stoddard Co., Missouri

From North America’s Most Beautiful Agrilus Jewel Beetle (posted October 19). There was a time when this beetle was considered one of North America’s rarest species of jewel beetle. Several years worth of hunting by me and others revealed this beetle’s association with mallow and its unusually late adult activity period—the two combining to make this beetle “seem” rare. This year I succeeded in photographing the spectacular adult beetle.

Cacama valvata female ovipositing

Cacama valvata (Uhler, 1888) | Vogel Canyon, Otero Co., Colorado

From Scorching plains, screaming cactus (posted December 5). Insect photos are always better when they also show some aspect of the subject’s natural history. I was lucky to find this female cactus dodger cicada in the act of ovipositing into the dry stem of cholla cactus—in a position where I could get a perfect lateral profile with a clean, blue sky background.

Moneilema armatum LeConte, 1853 | Vogel Canyon, Otero Co., Colorado

Moneilema armatum LeConte, 1853 | Vogel Canyon, Otero Co., Colorado

From Cactus beetle redux (posted December 20). Cactus beetles can be difficult to photograph, but sometimes they cooperate by nicely posing on a pleasing pink flower bud with a blue sky in the background and the cactus spines forming a nice, fuzzy “halo” around the jet black beetle. There were surprisingly few cactus spines impaled in the control unit of my flash after this photo session.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this 2014 version of “Best of BitB” and look forward to seeing everyone in 2015.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2015

A time of reckoning

/ Ted C. MacRae / 11 Comments

The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

A "super moon" watches over a parasitized hornworm caterpillar.

A “super moon” watches over a parasitized hornworm caterpillar.

I’m not normally one to quote Bible passages, but this line from Acts 2:20 seems appropriately ominous for the predicament of this poor hornworm caterpillar. The white objects on its back are the cocoons of tiny parasitic wasps in the family Braconidae who spent their entire lives inside the body of the growing caterpillar slowly eating away the inner tissues of the caterpillar, eventually consuming all but the most essential of its internal organs before exiting the skin and spinning their tiny, silken cocoons. Inside the cocoons the tiny grubs transformed into adult wasps, chewed their way out through the tip of the cocoon, and flew off to mate and find more hornworm caterpillars to parasitize. Its unwelcome guests now gone, this poor caterpillar has nothing to do but to sit and await its inevitable demise (which I suspect the caterpillar will not regard as such a “great and magnificent day”).

I found this caterpillar resting on a vine climbing a tree along the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri after setting up an ultraviolet light nearby and noticing the softly glowing cocoons. I was going to photograph it in situ, but I’ve learned that choice of background can have a dramatic effect on insect photographs, and the jumble of weeds and tree bark that would have comprised the background had I photographed the caterpillar where it sat seemed decidedly boring. I looked up and saw the blood red moon (a so called “super moon”) rising above the river in the eastern sky and decided to give it a try. The above photograph is actually a composite of two photographs—one of the caterpillar taken with flash and fairly normal camera settings, and another of the moon itself with aperture, shutter speed, and ISO all adjusted for very low light conditions (at least to the extent possible without a tripod). While this may not qualify in some people’s minds as a “real” photograph, it is nevertheless a true representation of what I actually saw, as I also made a number of attempts to capture both the insect and the moon in a single exposure. Since it is impossible to have both the insect (very close) and the moon (very far) in focus at the same time, the resulting photograph has a different, though still striking, effect, as shown in the photograph below:

IMG_6919_enh_1080x720

A more surrealistic version of the above photograph, with both caterpillar and moon captured in a single exposure.

This second photograph is actually much harder to take, as the moon does not appear in the viewfinder as the small, discrete, fuzzy-edged object resulting in the image, but rather as a large, blinding light that is difficult to place within the composition and know exactly where it will end up (at least, without a lot of trial and error). Add to that the fact that my camera image and histogram display panel is, at the moment, not functional, forcing me to “guess” if I had the right settings (in a situation where I’m well outside of my ‘normal’ settings for flash macrophotography). I’m a little surprised that I ended up with any usable photographs at all!

I’ve tried this type of photography with the sun as well—those interested to see how those photographs turned can find them at Sunset for another great collecting trip and Under Blood Red Skies.

© Ted C. MacRae 2014

A chalcidid jewel beetle parasitoid wasp

/ Ted C. MacRae / 9 Comments
Acanthochalcis nigricans | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

Acanthochalcis nigricans | Gloss Mountains State Park, Major Co., Oklahoma

As a student of jewel beetles with an interest in their larval host plant associations, rearing has been an important tool for my studies. Through the years, I’ve retrieved literally hundreds of batches of dead wood from the field and placed them in rearing containers that I keep in my garage. It’s hard work, but the several thousand jewel beetles that I’ve reared from these batches, many representing new distributions, host associations, and even new species (e.g., MacRae 2003) clearly suggest it has been worth the effort. Of course, jewel beetles are not the only insects that emerge from this wood. Numerous other insects have shown up in the rearing containers as well, mostly beetles in other families associated with dead wood such as longhorned beetles, powderpost beetles, checkered beetles, etc. Non-beetles have been reared as well, mostly representing parasitic hymenopterans, and in this group my favorite are the chalcidid wasps (family Chalcididae). Chalcidids and some of their close relatives are instantly recognizable by their greatly swollen and toothed hind femora. Most species in this family are parasitoids of Lepidoptera and Diptera, but some parasitize other insects, including jewel beetles and especially those in the genus Chrysobothris. I have reared a few hundred of these wasps over the years, representing at least a dozen or more species and currently being identified by fellow buprestophile Henry Hespenheide. Once identified, it will be an easy matter to associate these specimens with the Chrysobothris beetles that emerged with them from the same batch of wood. From this, we anticipate that any number of new parasitic wasp/beetle host associations will be revealed.

Among chalcidid wasps, the large size and very long ovipositor distinguish this genus.

Among chalcidid wasps, the large size and very long ovipositor distinguish this genus.

The chalcidid wasp featured in this post was not reared, but rather was encountered in the field during my recent collecting trip to northwestern Oklahoma. In fact, it was the very first insect that I encountered at the very first site that I stopped at—Gloss Mountains State Park. Although the wasp was photographed on a dead branch of eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), I first saw it on a dead branch of mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa). Based on its long ovipositor and large size (~19 mm in length, including the ovipositor), I presume this to be one of the two Acanthochalcis species commonly encountered in North America, with the presence of white pubescent patches on its abdomen identifying it as A. nigricans, occurring across the southwestern U.S. from Kansas and Oklahoma to California (A. unispinosa, ranging from Texas to California, lacks these pubescent patches). This species is a known associate of Chrysobothris jewel beetles, including C. femorata and C. edwardsii (Universal Chalcidoidea Database), but in this case I believe it is associated with C. octocola—an equally large jewel beetle that I first encountered on the mesquite at this very spot last fall (a new state record!). I beat quite a few more C. octocola adults from dead mesquite branches during this trip but didn’t find any other Chrysobothris spp. associated with the mesquite. That said, it is possible that the wasp is associated with the larger of two species of Chrysobothris that I beat from the eastern red-cedar at the site (forgive me for being coy about the identity of the beetle right now, as it will be the subject of a future post). However, since all of the wasps I saw that day were originally seen on or flying around dead mesquite branches I’m betting on C. octocola.

The white abdominal pubescent patches distinguish this species from A. unispinosa.

The white abdominal pubescent patches distinguish this species from A. unispinosa.

REFERENCE:

MacRae, T. C. 2003. Agrilus (s. str.) betulanigrae MacRae (Coleoptera: Buprestidae: Agrilini), a new species from North America, with comments on subgeneric placement and a key to the otiosus species-group in North America. Zootaxa 380:1–9.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

An elegant living fossil…

/ Ted C. MacRae / 16 Comments

In the insect world, hyperdiversity is the norm. More than a million species are known, and perhaps several million more await discovery. Beetles alone represent nearly a quarter of the earth’s described biota, with one genus (Agrilus in the family Buprestidae) bursting at the seams with more than 3,000 described species (Bellamy 2008). Biodiversity gone wild! While birders routinely field identify (and list) a majority of the birds they see to species, most insect enthusiasts are happy if they can simply identify their subjects to family—in most cases still leaving several hundred to several thousand possibilities for species identification. Even trained entomologists usually can identify only a tiny fraction of the insects they see and remain just as clueless about the vast majority of insects they encounter that don’t represent one of their limited number of study groups.

Pelecinus polyturator female | Wayne Co., Missouri

Pelecinus polyturator female | Wayne Co., Missouri

 Of course, that doesn’t mean field identification is impossible for all insects—certain groups such as butterflies, dragonflies, and tiger beetles lend themselves to field identification due to their relatively large size, bright colors, and distinctive markings. Many would also include the aculeate hymenopterans (i.e., “stinging” wasps and bees) among those groups for these same reasons. However, the vast majority of hymenopterans belong to a multitude of families characterized by tiny, parasitic species that seem (to this coleopterist’s eyes) to differ only in bafflingly minute details of wing venation and tibial spurs. (Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the difference between Tanaostigmatidae and Tetracampidae if my life depended on it!) Nevertheless, there are a small handful of parasitic hymenopterans in North America that are instantly recognizable due to their giant size (2 or more inches in length)—namely, Megarhyssa spp. (giant ichneumons) and the species shown in this post, Pelecinus polyturator (American pelecinid). Pelecinus polyturator is the only North American member of the family Pelecinidae, which itself contains only two additional species that are restricted to Mexico and Central/South America. It wasn’t always this way—fossils assignable to the family and representing 43 species in a dozen genera have been found as far back as the early Cretaceous (121–124 mya) across North America, Europe, and Asia (Grimaldi & Engel 2005). Surely this represents just the tip of the iceberg of Mesozoic and early Cenozoic pelecinid diversity, making today’s three species the last representatives of a once great lineage—”living fossils”¹ some might say.

¹ To ward off any scolding I might get from evolutionary purists, I get it; there is no such thing as a living fossil (except the T. rex skeleton in the movie “Night at the Museum”). I know that all species alive today have the same amount of evolutionary history behind them and are, if not from more immediate ancestors, highly derived compared to earlier life forms. I will admit that the term has become a bit overused as pseudoscientific shorthand for branding an organism as ‘primitive’ (another term which tends to raise hackles); however, I don’t see the problem with its use as informal reference to relatively ancient groups, usually more diverse in the past and now represented by only a few species. Innocuous shorthand is all it is.

This elegant female, recognizable by her extraordinarily narrowly elongate abdomen (males have a somewhat shorter abdomen that is widened at the end), was seen back in July 2011 as she flew to a blacklight and landed on nearby foliage in a mesic bottomland forest in southeastern Missouri’s Ozark Highlands. I have seen females on occasion over the years but have not yet seen a male, which are increasingly rare in more northern latitudes of the species distribution. I missed the focus a bit on this photo (and also the other half-dozen or so shots that I took)—photographing an active subject at night on elevated foliage without a tripod is difficult to say the least! Nevertheless, after post-processing it’s a decent photograph. If you are wondering why it took me so long to post it, that’s because only recently have I gained the confidence to “clean up” poorly exposed photos where the subject and/or substrate on which they are resting is so distractingly littered with debris as this:

Yuk!!!

Yuk!!!

Compare the original photo here to the final photo above it—how many post-processing tools can you detect the use of? 🙂

REFERENCES:

Bellamy, C. L. 2008. World catalogue and bibliography of the jewel beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestoidea), Volume 4: Agrilinae: Agrilina through Trachyini. Pensoft Series Faunistica 79:1–722.

Grimaldi, D. and M. S. Engel. 2005. Evolution of the Insects.Cambridge University Press, New York, xv + 755 pp.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2013

The Methocha

/ Ted C. MacRae / 5 Comments

As pointed out in my recent post, , there is much to learn still regarding tiger beetle larval parasitoids. In addition to bee flies (order Diptera, family Bombyliidae) of the genus Anthrax, tiphiid wasps (order Hymenoptera, family Tiphiidae) in the genus Methocha also parasitize tiger beetles in their larval burrows. Unlike bee flies, however, which sneakily lay their eggs in and around tiger beetle burrows when their victim isn’t watching, Methocha females aggressively engage the larva and even allow themselves to be grasped within the beetle larva’s sickle-shaped mandibles in order to gain entry to the beetle’s burrow.

Methocha appears to be a rather diverse genus, but it’s taxonomy is still incompletely known. George Waldren from Dallas, Texas is working on a revision of the genus and has found several new species in Texas alone. George is interested in seeing Methocha material from other areas as well and recently sent me the following reminder that adult females are active now:

…if you know of any areas with many tiger beetle larvae, now is the time to find Methocha. They superficially look like Pseudomyrmex ants, but once you see one you’ll catch on to them quickly. I collected more than 70 females today in a large aggregation of Tetracha carolina burrows.

In a subsequent message he adds:

Collect as many as you can, since they seem to be highly seasonal and rare most of the year. I almost always find them around beetle populations in sandy creek beds and receding bodies of water. A pooter works best if they are abundant and there isn’t much for them to hide under. Using your fingers also works—the sting is mild and usually doesn’t pierce the skin (depends on the person and size of the wasp). Vial collecting one by one works just as well.

Methocha females are generally overlooked due to their specialized life history and few specimens are in collections. Males are better represented since they’re easily collected with malaise traps.

If you have any Methocha specimens or manage to collect some, please contact George (contact info can be found at his BugGuide page). BugGuide does have a few photographs of these wasps to give you an idea of what they look like, but this excellent video titled “The Methocha” from Life in the Undergrowth with David Attenborough provides an unparalleled look at their appearance and behavior:


Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

A wiley wasp

/ myrmecos / 7 Comments

[The following is an invited post by Alex Wild of Myrmecos blog]

Little did Ted know that giving me the keys to his beetle blog meant I’d be able  to use his own soapbox to convince everyone that Hymenoptera (the ants, bees, and wasps) are just waaaayyyyy cooler than Coleoptera.

Exhibit A:

Leucopsis sp. ovipositing into a solitary bee nest

Meet Leucospis. This colorful insect, about a centimeter in length, is a parasite of wood-nesting bees and wasps. In this photo she is drilling down through a leafcutter bee nest to lay her egg in one of the bee’s sealed cells. There, her larva will consume the developing bee.

Leucospid wasps aren’t terribly common, so I was rather surprised to see this one on my front porch in downtown Urbana.

Revisiting the Swift Tiger Beetle – Part 1

/ Ted C. MacRae / 15 Comments
Photo details: Canon 100mm macro lens with 68mm extension on a Canon EOS 50D, ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, MT-24EX flash 1/4 power through diffuser caps

Photo 1 - Cylindera celeripes at Alabaster Caverns State Park in northwestern Oklahoma.

When my hymenopterist friend, Mike Arduser, came back from his first trip to Oklahoma’s Four Canyon Preserve last September, my first thought upon seeing his photos of the area was, “Ooh, that looks like a good place for tiger beetles!” Its rugged red clay and gypsum exposures reminded me of similar country I had seen in the not-too-distant Gypsum Hills of south-central Kansas, where I was fortunate enough to observe a nice population of the fantastically beautiful Cicindela pulchra (beautiful tiger beetle) back in 2005. When I later realized that the area was only 30 miles southwest of a confirmed recent sighting of Cicindela celeripes (swift tiger beetle, now Cylindera celeripes), I thought, “Ooh, I wonder if celeripes might occur there also.”

Photo details: Canon 100mm macro lens with 68mm extension tube on a Canon EOS 50D, ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, MT-24EX flash 1/4 power through diffuser caps

Photo 2 - Cylindera celeripes on lichen-encrusted clay soil at Alabaster Caverns State Park.

Recall that C. celeripes is one of North America’s rarest and least understood tiger beetles. This tiny, flightless, ant-like species has been recorded historically from eastern Nebraska south to north-central Texas, but its range appears to have become highly restricted over the past century. It hasn’t been seen in Nebraska for nearly 100 years now, and most recent records have come from its last known stronghold in the Flint Hills of Kansas. In 2003, however, a photographer by the name of Charles Schurch Lewallen posted on BugGuide a photograph of this species taken at Alabaster Caverns State Park in northwestern Oklahoma, and last year small numbers of adults were seen in the Loess Hills of western Iowa. This last sighting triggered an immediate trip to the site by myself and Chris Brown, who has been co-investigating the tiger beetle fauna of Missouri with me for several years now. The occurrence of this species in Iowa’s Loess Hills had reignited our hopes – faint as they were – that the beetle might yet occur in extreme northwestern Missouri, where the Loess Hills reach their southern terminus. We wanted to see the beetle in the wild to better understand its habitat requirements before resuming our search for this species in northwestern Missouri. We succeeded in finding the beetle – an amazing experience in itself – and brought three adults of this never-before-reared species back to the lab for photographs and an attempt at rearing. We did manage to obtain viable eggs, but we were not successful in rearing the larvae beyond first instar. I wrote about that experience last August in a post entitled, “The hunt for Cicindela celeripes” (that post is now currently in press as an article in the journal CICINDELA).

Photo details: Canon 100mm macro lens with 68mm extension tube on a Canon EOS 50D, ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/11, MT-24EX flash 1/4 power through diffuser caps

Photo 3 - Cylindera celeripes on gypsum exposure at Alabaster Caverns State Park.

Thus, when my friend Mike asked me earlier this year if I might be interested in joining him on his return trip to Four Canyon Preserve in June, I jumped at the chance. I figured I could look for celeripes at the preserve, and if I failed to find it there then I would go to Alabaster Caverns and see if I could relocate the beetle where it had been photographed in 2003. My goals were modest – I simply wanted to find the beetle and voucher its current presence in northwestern Oklahoma (and if possible photograph it in the field with my new camera!). Before leaving, I wrote to Charles Lewallen, who graciously responded with details regarding the precise location and time of day that he had seen the beetle at Alabaster Caverns, and on the first Friday of June I followed behind Mike and his lovely wife Jane during our ten-hour drive out to Four Canyon Preserve. For three days, I roamed the mixed-grass prairie atop the narrow ridges and dry woodland on the steep, rugged canyon slopes of the preserve – always on the lookout for that telltale “flash” between the clumps of bluestem and grama, ever hopeful that one would prove not to be the ant or spider that it appeared to be (and, indeed, always was). Many tiger beetles would be seen – chiefly the annoyingly ubiquitous Cicindela punctulata (punctured tiger beetle), but celeripes would not be among them. Whether this is due to historical absence from the site or a more recent consequence of the wildfires that swept the area a year earlier is hard to say, but its absence at Four Canyon meant that I would need to make a quick, 1-day detour to Alabaster Caverns before rejoining Mike and Jane at Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northeastern Oklahoma, where we planned to spend the second half of the week.

Photo details: Canon 65mm 1-5X macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D, ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, MT-24EX flash 1/4 power through diffuser caps

Photo 4 - Cylindera celeripes on gypsum exposure at Alabaster Caverns State Park.

Arriving at Alabaster Caverns I was filled with nervous, excited anticipation. Would I find the species, as Charles Lewallen had, or would I get skunked? I kitted up and started walking towards the area where Charles wrote that he had seen the beetle, noting the annoying “Removal of plants and animals prohibited” sign along the way. I hadn’t taken ten steps off the parking lot when I saw it! I froze at first, hardly believing that I had found it that quickly, then started watching the tiny beetle as it bolted urgently from one grass clump to the next. Recalling my experience with this beetle in Iowa (and fearing I would lose it amongst the vegetation), I captured the specimen and placed it live in a vial – I would talk to the park staff later about taking the beetle, but for now I needed to guarantee I had a backup for the lab in case I was unable to get field photographs of the beetle. I started walking again, and within a few minutes I saw another one – okay, they’re here in numbers. I carefully took off my camera bag and assembled the components, all the while keeping my eye on the beetle, and then I began trying to do what last year had seemed impossible – getting field photographs. It was easier this time – the vegetation was not so dense, so I could keep an eye on the beetle as he darted from one clump to another. I tried to wait until he settled in an open spot, but it soon became apparent that just wasn’t gonna happen without a “helping” hand. I started blocking the path of the beetle as he tried to dart away and then removing my hand to see if he would stay put. There were a few false starts, where the beetle looked like he would sit still and then dart just as I was set to take the shot, but eventually it wore down and started sitting still long enough for me to shoot a few frames. Torn between the need to get as many photographs as possible and the desire to look for more beetles, I decided to look around more to see how common the beetle was. As I walked out into the shortgrass prairie above the canyons, I began to see adults quite commonly. Most often they were seen as they bolted out into the open from a clump of vegetation when disturbed by my approach. The substrate was red clay and gypsum – just as I had seen in Four Canyon Preserve, but unlike that area the clay exposures were heavily colonized by a mottling of green, blue, and gray lichens. It made the beetles almost impossible to see when they were not moving – even at close range! I spent about an hour taking photographs of several individuals, even managing to photograph one that appeared to be parasitized by what I take to be a dryinid hymenopteran.

Photo 5 - Cylindera celeripes with parasite (dryinid hymenopteran?). Note also the ant head attached to right antenna.

Photo 5: Cylindera celeripes with parasite (dryinid hymenopteran?). Note also the ant head attached to right antenna.

After getting a sufficient series of photographs (is there really such thing?), I went to the park office hoping to convey the significance of this find to the Park Naturalist and to convince him/her to let me take some live individuals with me for another attempt at rearing. The Park Naturalist was out of the office, but the Park Historian was there. I could hardly contain my excitement as I explained to her what I had found, why it was so important, and my hope to try to rear the species with adults collected in the field. She not only responded as positively as I had hoped, but accompanied back out into the field so that I could show her the beetles. She told me it would be no problem to take some live individuals for rearing and to please let them know if there was anything else they could do to help me.  She then provided me with the day’s natural history “dessert” by pointing out a Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) – Oklahoma’s state flying mammal – roosting up in the top of a nearby picnic shelter. Standing atop the picnic table put me within arm’s length of the little chiropteran – close enough to see his tiny little eyes looking quizzically back at me.

Photo 6 - Cylindera celeripes macrohabitat, Alabaster Caverns State Park, Oklahoma. Note rather widely spaced clumps of vegetation (photo details: Canon 17-85mm zoom lens (17mm) on a Canon EOS 50D, ISO 100, 1/64 sec, f/8).

Photo 6 - Cylindera celeripes macrohabitat at Alabaster Caverns State Park. Note rather widely spaced clumps of vegetation.

It had begun sprinkling rain by then, so with some urgency I got my tools, extracted a couple of chunks of native soil and transferred them to the small “Critter Totes” that I had brought for the purpose, and began searching for live individuals to place within them. The beetles had become scarce as the drizzle turned to light rain, and by the time I had split about a dozen individuals between the two containers the rain was coming down hard enough to start puddling. I continued a last ditch effort to find “just one more,” but a lightning strike within a mile of the park put an end to that – the air now felt electric as I hurriedly walked back to the car (gloating unabashedly inside) and began the three-hour drive towards Tallgrass Prairie Preserve… (to be continued).

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Photo 7 - Cylindera celeripes microhabitat at Alabaster Caverns State Park. Note thick encrustation of lichens on clay substrate amidst white gypsum exposures.

Photo details:
#1-3, 5: Canon 100mm macro lens w/ 68mm extension on Canon EOS 50D, ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13 (photo 3, f/11), MT-24EX flash 1/4 power through diffuser caps.
#4: Same except Canon 65mm 1-5X macro lens, flash 1/8 power.
#6: Same except Canon 17-85mm zoom lens (17mm), 1/64 sec, f/8, natural light.
#7: Same except Canon 17-85mm zoom lens (35mm), 1/100 sec, f/7, natural light.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

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Body Invaders

/ Ted C. MacRae / 9 Comments

In keeping with the parasitic theme I established in my last two posts, I happened upon this brief video promotion for a National Geographic special called In the Womb: Extreme Animals which will air this Sunday (May 10). The video features the offspring of a parasitic wasp (Cotesia glomerata) that has injected her eggs into a caterpillar — and now they’re ready to emerge! It’s a fascinating study of parasitoid-host relationships, filmed incredibly from inside the caterpillar! Watch the whole video for the wicked, surprising ending.

Viewing tips: after beginning play, click on “HQ” in the lower right corner to view the video in high quality. Or, click on the video itself to be taken to YouTube, where you have the option to watch the video in HQ and in full screen mode (2nd button from the lower right corner). You will be amazed!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Body Invaders“, posted with vodpod

Tip of the hat to Adrian, who posted this yesterday (but I really did find it on my own).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

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