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.