Water Crickets

Just below the weir are a series of small pools which tend to reduce to shallow puddles as the summer progresses, filling up again whenever the river runs high. These pools hold Water Crickets, one of several sites where I know they occur in my square. I suspect that they also occur on most of the burns that run through the crofts in this area, I'll check more closely this year. 

Today I wandered down to the weir and had a quick scan across the pools. Surprisingly, I spotted at least six Water Crickets (I say surprisingly because just last week the river was a raging torrent, sweeping away everything in its path). Typically, they scattered to the far edge as soon as I approached. I was keen to photograph one, but after ten minutes of playing cat and mouse with the canny critters I accepted defeat. Then I spotted a lone individual on the surface of a small puddle... 

Ha, gotcha! 

Water Crickets are very attractive bugs (that's 'bugs' in the true sense of the word) so I was pleased to have the opportunity to study this one through the handlens for a couple of minutes. Quite stunning in close up, the image really doesn't do it justice. 

I released it back onto the puddle surface where it surprised me by staying put for several minutes allowing a few more images to be taken. 

I forgot that there are two species of Velia in Britain, both of which could occur on Skye. I'm pretty happy that this is the commoner of the pair, Velia caprai. One of the distinguishing features concerns the uptilted tips to the connexivum in female V.caprai, these lie flat/drooping in V.saulii. Look at the images above and let your eye follow the row of orange spots down the sides of the body. You'll see they tilt upwards at the tip, and hence should be Velia caprai. But this feature is apparently only good on females. There's a second distinguishing feature concerning the first visible tergum below the pronotum. In V.caprai it is a narrow, sinuous strip, completely lacking in V.saulli. Sadly, none of my images convincingly show either a presence or a lack of this feature. Then I stumbled across a German webpage that suggests you can do the species on dorsal patterning, but then admits that both species are variable, so this is an unreliable means of distinguishing between the two species. So I'll just have to go back and do them properly! Happily, both species occur together in places, so I may have both present - which would be rather nice. Stay tuned for updates...

First New Fly of the Year

And it's not what any of us expected, especially me!

Yes it looks like a well-rotten cucumber, I agree. But this is a lifer for me! 

So you may recall that I signed up to the UK Hoverflies Larval Group on Facebook just a couple of weeks back. Well I was obviously paying attention somewhere along the line, because as soon as I found this beast glued to the underside of the boulder I'd just heaved out of the ground, I knew it was different to the usual Syrphus larvae I find in leaf litter. It seemed more wavy-edged along the margins, the colour was richer and the mottling more pronounced. But mostly, just cop a look at those rear breathing tubes! 

Cor, just look at the length of those! 

The rear breathing tubes on Syrphus are broader than they are long, these are clearly longer than broad. So, definitely not a Syrphus but what is it?

It's really quite an attractive thing, in an admittedly rather strange kind of way.

I felt that it looked good for Epistrophe, so put these three images up on the FB group. Not too much longer and it was confirmed by Nicola Garnham, one of the page admins, who said it was probably Epistrophe grossulariae but should be reared through to be certain. 

There are five species of Epistrophe in Britain, all of which occur in the southern half of England (plus one species known only from a single 'somewhat doubtful' Welsh sighting). Of these five, only two penetrate into the Scottish Highlands. One is Epistrophe eligans and the other is Epistrophe grossulariae. Happily, eligans has particularly elongated rear breathing tubes, which this larva lacks, leaving grossulariae as last man standing. All of this means that I've just ticked a hoverfly from the larval stage - I'm pretty sure I've never done that before! 

As larvae they live up in the trees feasting on aphids, particularly those found on Sycamore. The fact that I found this larva beneath a clump of Sycamore and Norway Maple makes perfect sense. They come to earth with the falling leaves, munching on any aphids that have also fallen to earth, before effectively running out of food and spending the winter in a state of dormancy. Then they pupate and emerge as adult hoverflies from April onwards (or probably June onwards up here).   

I'm also pretty sure that I ought to have seen this fly already, in the adult stage I mean. It's quite common across Britain, so is an overdue addition. I shall be keeping an eye out for the adults this summertime, I expect to be stalking and swiping at hoverflies for much of the coming season.

Slightly overdue January Update

I've been toying with the idea of producing monthly summaries and updates for my 2019 Challenge. I think it's worth doing, though it will be a rather short summary this month.

January 2019 - not a productive month for a variety of reasons. Firstly it's the middle of winter and we've endured low temperatures, hail, ice and also experienced snow cover towards the end of the month. Secondly, this is pretty much my busiest time of year at work whilst the hotel is closed down for various refurb projects. I've been putting in the extra hours and missing daylight hours as a result. Plus it's just a crappy time of year for trying to find inverts! Nevertheless, it hasn't been a complete flop and I even managed a lifer.  

Hemiptera - just a single individual hopper nymph beneath a rock (unidentified) Total = 0 species

Diptera - I undertook two targeted searches for hoverfly larvae in leaf litter and found a single Melanostoma (4 British species) plus several Syrphus (4 British species), a Phaonia larva (nearly 50 British species), a few Lauxiniidae larvae (nearly 60 British species) and quite a few of the trilobite-lookalike Lonchoptera larvae (6 British species). Also lots of tipulid larvae, families unknown (100s of British species). None of these are identifiable to species without being reared through to adulthood. However, I did manage to find and identify an agromyzid pupa found in the petiole of a Primrose leaf. Total = 1 species.

(Agromyzidae) Chromatomyia primulae

Coleoptera - six ground beetles, two weevils, two spider beetles, a rove beetle and a carrion beetle, all found beneath rocks/bark or on floodlit walls after dark, plus one indoors. Total = 12 species

(Carabidae) Cychrus caraboides, Nebria salina, Nebria brevicollis, Pterostichus niger, Pterostichus nigrita, Pterostichus madidus, (Silphidae) Phosphuga atrata, (Ptinidae) Ptinus fur, Niptus hololeucus, (Curculionidae) Otiorhynchus sulcatus, Euophryum confine, (Staphylinidae) Othius punctulatus.

Total = 12 Coleoptera (1 lifer), 1 Diptera, 0 Hemiptera.

I had been hoping to end the month on 20 species of beetles and at least a couple of diptera and hemiptera apiece. To be fair, the nights have been too cold for much nocturnal activity so hardly anything has been attracted to the security lights, plus I haven't bashed a single conifer or ivy hang for bugs. February should see the pace pick up with ever increasing daylight hours and a change of tactics on my part.

Weevil 'new' to Skye

Yesterday I took a wander up to what I've dubbed 'Upper Woods', the highest part of Uig Wood on the south side of the gorge above the River Conon. It's a nice area of woodland, lots of standing and fallen deadwood, good leaf litter, some tussocky grasses safe from the attention of sheep and, best of all, I've never seen another person in there. Ever. Sweet!

I decided to peel back a bit of loose bark, which turned into me ripping apart a soggy, wet lump which came apart in my hands. Amongst the numerous millipedes and a few woodlice, I spotted a small, elongate, wood-boring beetle. I knew what I thought it was, just needed to confirm beneath the microscope first. 

This may look like an active weevil but it was in fact entirely immobile, deep in its winter dormancy. 

Rocking in at a huge 3mm, this small splinter of a beast was indeed Euophryum, as I thought at the time. Originally from New Zealand, these small beetles have slowly expanded their way northwards through England and Wales until now they can be found all the way up to Shetland. Presumably in indoor timbers as opposed to rotten trees up there though - Shetland isn't exactly renowned for it's woodlands!

There are two species in the genus, plus Pentarthrum huttoni, a lookalike species which needs to be discounted. Luckily, Euophryum has a rather obvious feature lacking in Pentarthrum - namely the ninth interstice is strongly raised around the apex so that the elytra appear explanate from above (with thanks to the Watford Coleoptera Group for the clever wording). 

Here's a pic from above, note how the rear end of the elytra appear to have a flattened 'rim', this being the explanate feature mentioned above. 

Note the border around the rear angles of the elytra - absent in Pentarthrum

So now we know it's Euophryum, but is it confine or rufum? We need to have a look near the base of the rostrum and see whether or not there's an excision and also whether the antennal clubs are rounded or acuminate. Easy enough to see through the microscope, rather trickier to photograph though. Remember the entire weevil is only a smidge over 3mm in length!

Apologies for the light flare!

The arrow is pointing to where any incision would be, clearly there isn't one. This is very good news because it confirms the species as Euophryum confine which is already known from Scotland, whereas Euophryum rufum isn't. In fact confine is already known from the Inner Hebrides but, rather pleasingly, is not known from Skye (Moore, 2012).

This is my 12th species of beetle so far this January. I was hoping for twenty before the month is out, but we're enjoying a cold, wet snap at the moment so they aren't exactly throwing themselves at my feet just yet. Early days, it'll pick up. 

Carabid larva

Yesterday I spent a short while spinning small boulders in search of beetles, mostly without any success whatsoever. Possibly the cold snap has driven them further underground, certainly I didn't find much. To be fair, I was mid WeBS Count so my attention was more on birds than beetles.

However, I did find this impressively large and distinctive beast

I recognised it as a larval carabid and, due to the large size, figured it must be something like a Carabus. A bit of online picture-matching led me to Pterostichus. The sheer size of the beast would lead me to think it may be Pterostichus niger, which certainly occurs here, but that's just guesswork. 

What I do know is that nowadays my camera seems incapable of taking sharp images. I've truly trashed the lens, it's scratched and the coating has come off. It's a mess (and less than 18 months old). If it's as simple as ordering a replacement lens and unscrewing the old one, I shall do that. If it's a case of the whole camera requiring nitrogen purging or some such then I'm going to have to think about a replacement. And looking after it properly! My Olympus TG-4 Tough has been discontinued, replaced by the TG-5 with its inferior macro stacking abilities. Arse, I do hope I can just order a replacement lens and fit it myself.  

Lost Species

A couple of weeks back I did a bit of online shopping and treated myself to yet more beetle books. One of these caused me a fair bit of umming and aahing before I finally bit the bullet and ordered the damn thing. This is the book in question

I think it should be 'A Checklist of the Beetles of the British Isles', but then they didn't ask for my opinion. 

You'll have to excuse the stereotypically Scottish tartan carpet in the background. I ripped up all of the reception, lobby, bar and conservatory carpets last week, they are soon to be replaced with a soulless representation of floorboards. Anyway, I grabbed a bit for myself and carved it into a rug for my room. It's the MacDonald tartan, the MacDonalds being one of the larger clans in this area (there's one buried in the cemetery called Ronald - I kid ye not!) The rug helps to keep my toes warm, laminate flooring can get very cold. Though maybe if I didn't wander around barefoot all evening long...

Guess who snuck the ONLY surviving bit of original carpet into his room :) 

ANYHOO - 

So I bought the Checklist and began flipping through the pages. Yup, it's a list alright! Reading the blurb near the front, the author goes into detail regards the various uses of this checklist. One such use is 'to provide a standard systematic arrangement for setting out a collection or preparing a faunistic study such as a county monograph'

Or to correctly rearrange the sequencing of my own beetle lifelist, which appeals greatly. So I set to comparing my own beetle list against the Checklist, found a couple of errors (on my part, not with the Checklist...) and essentially re-ordered the bulk of it to follow the family ordering as per the book.

Oh yeah, I noticed that by the end of it all I'd rather carelessly managed to lose two whole species. Bloody Checklist, I should've saved my money. 

I've adjusted my PSL totals accordingly, as can be seen here. Somehow I'm still behind that confounded Tony fella - and he claims to not even look at beetles! I'll overhaul him soon though, he'll be up to his eyeballs in Wood Warblers before he knows it and I'll be waving my sweep net at him as I cruise on by in a few months time (or so he boldly claims...)

By the way, the Checklist is brilliant, though it required a bit more detective work regards some of the taxonomical updates than I'd expected. Involvulus icosandriae (was Rhynchites caeruleus) took longer to unravel than was absolutely necessary, for instance.

As an aside I've ordered myself two plastazote-lined storeboxes from W&D. I already have an empty one. I plan to fill these with the coleoptera, diptera and hemiptera that I shall be tackling this year, one order per box obviously. I ordered them on the 2nd January. On the 5th January I received a confirmation email and I've been checking for parcels ever since. Today (15th January) I received a further email telling me that the items had now been despatched. Bloody hell, I can only hope that they'll arrive in another month or so, probably hand-delivered by a heavily moustached gentleman riding a Penny Farthing. 

By sheer happenstance, this was the view I enjoyed last October in the heart of Chelmsford. Look closely, now!

W&D special delivery coming through! Make way! In the name of the King, Make way!  

Golden Spiders

The hotel here has a staff house situated a few hundred feet from the main building. It's not necessarily the most spotlessly clean house in Britain, but it's hardly a slum either. There's a small downstairs loo and it was here that I discovered a population of Niptus hololeucus wandering along a short length of kickplate beneath the sink unit. I think four is the most I've ever seen at one time, more often just one or two are visible. I've looked for them four times so far this year without success, I was starting to worry that they'd died out. Happily, I found one this morning. 

They really like wandering along the silicon seal I put down between the kickplate and the lino

These are small beetles, just 3 or 4mm in length, and quite slow moving. They don't appear to be particularly agile, in fact they seem completely unable to right themselves if flipped onto their back. They often spend periods of time completely inactive, sitting with legs pulled in and looking for all the world like a crumb of debris, though this is probably just a reaction to my switching on the light in an otherwise entirely dark place. Sometimes they slowly shuffle back and forth, almost a rocking motion in fact, without moving anywhere. Just slowly rocking/shuffling/rocking/shuffling. Really quite bizarre, I have no idea why they do this. 

Twice I've found one climbing the doorframe, both times approximately two feet above the floor. Otherwise they seem to restrict themselves to a three foot length of kickplate, very occasionally I've found them maybe ten inches from the edge, just sat there out in the open looking puzzled and lost. 

I managed a couple of pretty poor video clips of today's individual wandering along the mastic bead. This is very much zoomed-in and hence the quality is pretty poor. If you look closely you should be able to see the raised "hairs" covering the elytra. The background noise is the overhead extractor fan, not much I can do about that, sorry. 

The head is held facing downwards and slightly rearwards, in essence the beetle can't see where it's going. Note how the antennae are put to good use, much as a blind person would tap ahead with a cane. I love these beetles, they have such great character!

Here's the 'habitat shot', ha! 

The strip of lino beneath the sink unit is the spot for Niptus

I no longer live in this staff house, I'm annexed onto the hotel itself now. The current residents of the staff house show no interest in spraying, bleaching or mopping this downstairs loo. So it looks as though Niptus will have a home for a while to come. I must remember to scatter a few biscuit or cereal crumbs in there from time to time...

(It's probably best not to let my boss or the housemates know about this - are we agreed chaps?)