To mark the publication of the Emerald Ash Borer special issue from The Canadian Entomologist, guest editors Chris MacQuarrie and Krista Ryall from Natural Resources Canada have co-authored this blog post about the issue.
In 2002, residents of Detroit, Michigan noticed something was killing their ash trees. Ash trees in North America are susceptible to some diseases that can result in decline and mortality, so a forest disease specialist was dispatched to investigate why these trees were dying. It was soon determined that the culprit was not a disease, but an insect: a shiny, metallic-green, buprestid beetle not previously known from Michigan, or anywhere else in North America. Authorities in Michigan notified their Canadian counterparts who soon discovered numerous ash trees dying in Windsor, Ontario from damage caused by the same beetle. Eventually, with the help of a European systematist the insect was determined to be the previously described (and previously rare) Agrilus planipennis. Today, this insect is better known by its common name: the emerald ash borer.
To commemorate the discovery of emerald ash borer in North America, we organized a symposium and workshop at the 2013 Entomological Society of Canada’s and Ontario’s Joint Meeting in Guelph, Ontario. The timing and location of this workshop seemed appropriate because 2013 marked 10 years of research on the emerald ash borer and Guelph is located only a few 100 kilometres from where emerald ash borer was first found, and is now well within the insect’s Canadian range. Our goal with this symposium was to review the state of knowledge on emerald ash borer after ten years of research, and look ahead to the questions that researchers will be asking as the infestation continues to grow and spread. We were fortunate that many of the researchers who have contributed so much of what we know about emerald ash borer were able to participate.
We were quite pleased with how well the symposium turned out. However, information presented in a symposium is ephemeral and fades away as soon as the last talk is over. To prevent this, we imposed upon our presenters to also prepare written versions of their presentations. It took some time, but now these papers are all complete, and have been put together to form a special issue of The Canadian Entomologist dedicated to the emerald ash borer.
Emerald Ash Borer. Image credit: Chris MacQuarrie
Ten years is a long time in research. We estimated that over 300 papers on emerald ash borer had been produced over that period, with more being produced every month. It is our hope that this special issue can serve as an entry point into this literature for researchers new to the field. We also hope that this issue can be valuable to more established researchers as well, to use as a resource and a touchstone in their own work. This special issue can also serve as a reminder of how much effort is required (in both research and by people) to understand a new pest. What we have learned about emerald ash borer over the past ten years (well, 13 years now) is immense. There is still much to learn though.”
The Emerald Ash Borer special issue is the free sample issue of The Canadian Entomologist for 2015.
00Bloghttp://esc-sec.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ESC_logo-300x352.pngBlog2015-06-15 11:04:402019-11-14 21:31:12Emerald Ash Borer – marking 10 years of research
When I started teaching Invertebrate Zoology in the mid-1990’s, students were required to write term papers as one of the tools for evaluation. With a fairly heavy teaching load, this approach became somewhat unmanageable given relatively high enrollment, in particular since I feel that it is important to provide detailed feedback to each student so they can improve on their writing skills. Depending on a student’s skill level, reading, editing and marking a paper can be rather time consuming. After a few years, I therefore reverted to delivering a strictly lecture/lab based course with midterm(s), quizzes and (lab and lecture) finals, essentially the way I had been taught. Two years ago, with considerable trepidation, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try the blog format. This turned out very successful from a number of perspectives. The students really liked it, and I derived direct benefit by learning about organisms I would likely never have read or heard about. I also enjoyed marking these blogs, because a blog is shorter, less formal, and leaves a lot of room for personal style when compared to a term paper, while still retaining the requirements of coming up with a suitable topic, as well as finding and citing primary literature effectively.
While many of the blogs were about non-arthropods, a fair number of students chose members of this taxon to write about. In this blog, I highlight student blogs that may be of interest to ESC members.
The first blog by Santana Smith is about a group of marine arachnids that I know very little about, the sea spiders. In her blog, “Mating, Reproduction, and Courtship Behaviour of the Pycnogonids” she corrected that shortcoming to some extent. These are odd creatures, to be sure!
Lena Richter looked at “The Camouflage of Praying Mantids”. Most entomologists are familiar with the orchid mantis, but did you know that Phyllocrania paradoxa nymphs imitate ants?
Favourites for many students (and many arachnologists as well I should imagine) are the jumping spiders. Jessica Leach discusses Portia species in her blog “Jumping spiders: sex among cannibals”. Portia jumping spiders have been described as among the most intelligent of all arthropods.
Danielle New was fascinated by the use of tiny wasps for biological control, which she described in “Trichogramma, a Living Insecticide?” One has to marvel at the ability of these tiny wasps to work for us.
Insects provide inspiration for art, and Nicole Tweddle discusses the use of caddis fly larvae to create jewellery in her blog “Caddisfly (Order Trichoptera) Larval Diversity: The Unlikely Jeweller”. This blog was of particular interest to me, because many years ago at a meeting of the Entomological Society of America, I purchased caddisfly-manufactured earrings for my wife. They were not as exclusive as the ones featured in this article, however.
Madison Wong wrote about the not-so-pleasant effects of centipede venom in “The effect of venom in centipedes.” An arachnophile and former Prince George resident (who described his hobby/business of breeding tarantulas as an interest that went terribly wrong) kindly used to show his animals to UNBC students. One of the few critters he would not handle was his giant centipede!
“Giant Weta” or Wetapunga, the enormous anostostomatid crickets of New Zealand, was the topic for Amandeep Bhatti. Many of these large, flightless insects are threatened and thus of great interest.
Warren Noronha wrote about another species of jumping spider, “Phidippus audax: The Most Daring Spider.”Phidippus species are quite impressive as jumping spiders go. Where I live we have P. johnstoni, a closely related species.
Maeghan Forster provides the first of the 2015 crop of blogs, writing about the fascinating reproductive biology of the emerald cockroach wasp “Eating Your Babysitters: Brooding Behaviors of the Emerald Cockroach Wasp.” I love the way students link behaviours to everyday life, albeit a tad gruesome in this case.
“What in the world is the obelisk posture”, was my first thought when Austin Bartell gave me his proposed blog topic. He explains how dragonfly make use of this posture in “The Obelisk Posture of Dragonflies (Order Odonata)”
Giant Scolopendra centipedes provided the topic for Brittany Fotsch. In “A giant in the under-foliage: Scolopendra gigantea” she ends by referring to centipedes as pets: “A 30 cm, 46-legged, bat-killing, venomous critter is not for everyone, but nevertheless even Amazonian giant centipedes need some TLC.”
Conrad Taylor’s blog “How I was out-fished by a spider” received a lot of attention when I tweeted the link some time ago. It differs somewhat from most of the other blogs because it is built around a personal experience, and I am sure that is the reason for the attention, at least in part. It certainly makes it an enjoyable read.
The use of transparency in a butterfly caught the interest of Erin Haugland, who wrote about “Greta oto: The Invisible Butterfly.” One of the adaptations to make this approach feasible is the presence of submicroscopic bumps change the refractive index of the wing to match the surrounding air. Who knew?
Ian Curtis wrote about “The Reindeer Warble Fly (Hypoderma tarandi): An Arctic Parasite,” an insect I knew a little about from my time in Sweden. I also got the opportunity to communicate with my Norwegian colleague Arne C. Nilssen, who gave us permission to use his fabulous photo of an adult fly. Arne did his Ph.D. research on bark beetles, which is how I knew him.
An assignment like this is bound to have at least someone looking at honeybees. Jared Peet wrote his blog “Apis mellifera: Un-bee-lievable Communication” about these important insects, and in a second course I taught, two students wrote honeybee related blogs.
Water striders are incredibly successful hemipterans with some very odd mating behaviours. In her blog “Water striders: Strange Mating Rituals and Adaptations,” Rebecca Lerch describes how females protect themselves against overly amorous males.
Jennifer Noonan wrote about bioluminescence in lampyrid beetles. In her blog “Fireflies: Bioluminescence” she even included a drawing she made of the chemical reaction.
Angela Tsang’s topic was one that really fascinated me. “Commensalism, Mutualism, or Somewhere on the Borderline: A Relationship between a Frog and a Spider” is about a tiny microhylid frog that lives with a tarantula, normally a predator of frogs! Finding an illustration of this was easier said than done, but the author of one of the source articles, Dr. Francesco Tomasinelli, gave us permission to use a fantastic photo.
Aphids have never been my favourite insects (sorry Simon Leather!) although I could have ended up working with them, early on courtesy of Dr. Jan Pettersson in Sweden. It isn’t an organism I would expect a student to pick, but Grant Usick found an interesting angle in his blog “Acyrthosiphon pisum: The little pea aphid that could.” Perhaps I have to reconsider?
Brooke Wiebe picked Acacia ants for her blog “Pseudomyrmex ferruginea: The ideal tenant.” I still remember a presentation by Dan Janzen about these fascinating little ants and how they have assumed the defense role of Acacia trees.
For no particular reason, I left out several blogs about horseshoe crabs and Crustaceans. The Crustaceans covered were fiddler crabs, tongue eating isopods, trapeziid guard crabs, pistol shrimp, pom-pom or boxer crabs, tadpole shrimp, Dungeness crabs, and the goose barnacle. And that leaves out all the other interesting invertebrates, of which cephalopods were the most numerous – no surprise there! Anyway, many students exceeded my expectations by a wide margin, and I really believe that it was the format that gave them inspiration to go the extra mile. I am sure Dezene Huber (who will take over after I retire at the end of this year) will improve on the course. Nevertheless, the students deserve credit for a job well done! I hope you will read a few of these blogs, and that you will enjoy them.
00Sean McCannhttp://esc-sec.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ESC_logo-300x352.pngSean McCann2015-06-08 10:05:072019-11-14 21:31:11Blog posts by students of Biol 202
Do you have a good taxonomic knowledge of Canadian arthropods? Are you an awesome, champion collector? Do you want an excuse to spend a few days geeking out over lovely terrain and catching lovely wildlife? Well, the Biological Survey of Canada, the Royal BC Museum and the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative want you to join them in a BioBlitz of the Peace Region, June 22-26!
If this sounds like your cup of tea, then read the full invitation here. Sign up by June 15!
Who knows? Maybe you will find something completely unexpected (like this ridiculous mite!)!
PRAYING MANTIS Sterling silver, copper, 14K & 18K gold 18.5″l x 12″w x 9.5″h
We have featured the wonderful metalwork of Canadian artist Elizabeth Goluch before, in this awesome interview by Crystal Ernst. Now Ben Proudfoot of Breakwater Studios has produced this wonderful video featuring Elizabeth, her inspiration and work. If you are fascinated by insects aesthetically, or have a love for metalwork and sculpture, this is a great introduction to the artistic process!
[vimeo 125539638 w=560 h=315]
Living in Western Canada is pretty sweet. Especially here on the coast, we have a plethora of awesome insects that only occur in this region. I am trying to savour these insects while I can, as this fall I am moving to Toronto.
The snakeflies (Raphidioptera) are awesome animals, with a delightfully elongate prothorax and long bladelike ovipositors. These insects are fairly common in the early spring in a Garry Oak meadow not far from my mother’s house, so whenever I am in the vicinity at the right time I keep an eye out for them.
The most common snakeflies in BC are members of the genus Agulla.
What I had not noticed about these insects is how the pronotum wraps around ventrally, like a shield. Also look at the awesome ornamentation on the thorax!
The larvae of snakeflies are difficult to find, but if you flip over enough rocks or logs, you may just find one!
In fact, flipping over logs is exactly how I found this next western treasure…A tiger beetle that may just shatter your image of tiger beetles forever.
This is Omus dejeani, often referred to by its awesome common name, the greater night-stalking tiger beetle. This is a tiger that could easily be mistaken at a glance for a carabine, if not for the shape of the thorax. This is not a slender, bright, iridescent speedster, but rather a hulking, powerful night terror.
Regardless of the name, this beetle is a truly impressive beast, though I rarely encounter it. I wonder if it could be because of the introduction of the two similarly-sized invasive carabines Carabus granulatus and Carabus nemoralis.
Anyhow, regardless of where you live, get out and enjoy what your region has to offer. Insect season is in full swing, and life is short. This summer I will keep flipping logs to savour the western specialties!
Log flipping also brought me an encounter with another western treasure: the rough skinned newt (Taricha granulosa). Who doesn’t love a newt!
Emerald Ash Borer – marking 10 years of research
Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis). Credit: Debbie Miller USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org.
To mark the publication of the Emerald Ash Borer special issue from The Canadian Entomologist, guest editors Chris MacQuarrie and Krista Ryall from Natural Resources Canada have co-authored this blog post about the issue.
In 2002, residents of Detroit, Michigan noticed something was killing their ash trees. Ash trees in North America are susceptible to some diseases that can result in decline and mortality, so a forest disease specialist was dispatched to investigate why these trees were dying. It was soon determined that the culprit was not a disease, but an insect: a shiny, metallic-green, buprestid beetle not previously known from Michigan, or anywhere else in North America. Authorities in Michigan notified their Canadian counterparts who soon discovered numerous ash trees dying in Windsor, Ontario from damage caused by the same beetle. Eventually, with the help of a European systematist the insect was determined to be the previously described (and previously rare) Agrilus planipennis. Today, this insect is better known by its common name: the emerald ash borer.
To commemorate the discovery of emerald ash borer in North America, we organized a symposium and workshop at the 2013 Entomological Society of Canada’s and Ontario’s Joint Meeting in Guelph, Ontario. The timing and location of this workshop seemed appropriate because 2013 marked 10 years of research on the emerald ash borer and Guelph is located only a few 100 kilometres from where emerald ash borer was first found, and is now well within the insect’s Canadian range. Our goal with this symposium was to review the state of knowledge on emerald ash borer after ten years of research, and look ahead to the questions that researchers will be asking as the infestation continues to grow and spread. We were fortunate that many of the researchers who have contributed so much of what we know about emerald ash borer were able to participate.
We were quite pleased with how well the symposium turned out. However, information presented in a symposium is ephemeral and fades away as soon as the last talk is over. To prevent this, we imposed upon our presenters to also prepare written versions of their presentations. It took some time, but now these papers are all complete, and have been put together to form a special issue of The Canadian Entomologist dedicated to the emerald ash borer.
Emerald Ash Borer. Image credit: Chris MacQuarrie
Ten years is a long time in research. We estimated that over 300 papers on emerald ash borer had been produced over that period, with more being produced every month. It is our hope that this special issue can serve as an entry point into this literature for researchers new to the field. We also hope that this issue can be valuable to more established researchers as well, to use as a resource and a touchstone in their own work. This special issue can also serve as a reminder of how much effort is required (in both research and by people) to understand a new pest. What we have learned about emerald ash borer over the past ten years (well, 13 years now) is immense. There is still much to learn though.”
The Emerald Ash Borer special issue is the free sample issue of The Canadian Entomologist for 2015.
Access the special issue for free until 1st January 2016 here.
Main image credit: Debbie Miller, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org
Blog posts by students of Biol 202
The following is a guest post by Staffan Lindgren
When I started teaching Invertebrate Zoology in the mid-1990’s, students were required to write term papers as one of the tools for evaluation. With a fairly heavy teaching load, this approach became somewhat unmanageable given relatively high enrollment, in particular since I feel that it is important to provide detailed feedback to each student so they can improve on their writing skills. Depending on a student’s skill level, reading, editing and marking a paper can be rather time consuming. After a few years, I therefore reverted to delivering a strictly lecture/lab based course with midterm(s), quizzes and (lab and lecture) finals, essentially the way I had been taught. Two years ago, with considerable trepidation, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try the blog format. This turned out very successful from a number of perspectives. The students really liked it, and I derived direct benefit by learning about organisms I would likely never have read or heard about. I also enjoyed marking these blogs, because a blog is shorter, less formal, and leaves a lot of room for personal style when compared to a term paper, while still retaining the requirements of coming up with a suitable topic, as well as finding and citing primary literature effectively.
While many of the blogs were about non-arthropods, a fair number of students chose members of this taxon to write about. In this blog, I highlight student blogs that may be of interest to ESC members.
The first blog by Santana Smith is about a group of marine arachnids that I know very little about, the sea spiders. In her blog, “Mating, Reproduction, and Courtship Behaviour of the Pycnogonids” she corrected that shortcoming to some extent. These are odd creatures, to be sure!
The second blog by Alana Garcia is also about arachnids, more specifically Opiliones or harvestmen: “Opiliones and Parenthood: The Rare Exception of Maternal and Paternal Care in Arachnids”. Some of these odd creatures have surprisingly sophisticated and fascinating brood care.
Roscoe Lenardt wrote about hornets “The Genus Vespa: Eusocial societies and vicious stings”. Every time I watch something about Vespa mandarinia I am happy that we only have the baldfaced hornet where I live!
Lena Richter looked at “The Camouflage of Praying Mantids”. Most entomologists are familiar with the orchid mantis, but did you know that Phyllocrania paradoxa nymphs imitate ants?
Favourites for many students (and many arachnologists as well I should imagine) are the jumping spiders. Jessica Leach discusses Portia species in her blog “Jumping spiders: sex among cannibals”. Portia jumping spiders have been described as among the most intelligent of all arthropods.
Danielle New was fascinated by the use of tiny wasps for biological control, which she described in “Trichogramma, a Living Insecticide?” One has to marvel at the ability of these tiny wasps to work for us.
Insects provide inspiration for art, and Nicole Tweddle discusses the use of caddis fly larvae to create jewellery in her blog “Caddisfly (Order Trichoptera) Larval Diversity: The Unlikely Jeweller”. This blog was of particular interest to me, because many years ago at a meeting of the Entomological Society of America, I purchased caddisfly-manufactured earrings for my wife. They were not as exclusive as the ones featured in this article, however.
Madison Wong wrote about the not-so-pleasant effects of centipede venom in “The effect of venom in centipedes.” An arachnophile and former Prince George resident (who described his hobby/business of breeding tarantulas as an interest that went terribly wrong) kindly used to show his animals to UNBC students. One of the few critters he would not handle was his giant centipede!
“Giant Weta” or Wetapunga, the enormous anostostomatid crickets of New Zealand, was the topic for Amandeep Bhatti. Many of these large, flightless insects are threatened and thus of great interest.
Warren Noronha wrote about another species of jumping spider, “Phidippus audax: The Most Daring Spider.” Phidippus species are quite impressive as jumping spiders go. Where I live we have P. johnstoni, a closely related species.
Maeghan Forster provides the first of the 2015 crop of blogs, writing about the fascinating reproductive biology of the emerald cockroach wasp “Eating Your Babysitters: Brooding Behaviors of the Emerald Cockroach Wasp.” I love the way students link behaviours to everyday life, albeit a tad gruesome in this case.
“What in the world is the obelisk posture”, was my first thought when Austin Bartell gave me his proposed blog topic. He explains how dragonfly make use of this posture in “The Obelisk Posture of Dragonflies (Order Odonata)”
Giant Scolopendra centipedes provided the topic for Brittany Fotsch. In “A giant in the under-foliage: Scolopendra gigantea” she ends by referring to centipedes as pets: “A 30 cm, 46-legged, bat-killing, venomous critter is not for everyone, but nevertheless even Amazonian giant centipedes need some TLC.”
T. Callander chose to write about the symbiosis of yucca plants and yucca moths in “Yucca moths and yucca plants: the mailman and the mansion” in his entertaining and informative blog, again with an analogy to human life.
Conrad Taylor’s blog “How I was out-fished by a spider” received a lot of attention when I tweeted the link some time ago. It differs somewhat from most of the other blogs because it is built around a personal experience, and I am sure that is the reason for the attention, at least in part. It certainly makes it an enjoyable read.
The use of transparency in a butterfly caught the interest of Erin Haugland, who wrote about “Greta oto: The Invisible Butterfly.” One of the adaptations to make this approach feasible is the presence of submicroscopic bumps change the refractive index of the wing to match the surrounding air. Who knew?
Arachnophobes in New Zealand probably won’t cry over “Latrodectus katipo: The disappearing cousin of black widow spiders,” written by Finch Ye. It is comforting to know that even a black widow species will have proponents willing to go to bat for them!
Ian Curtis wrote about “The Reindeer Warble Fly (Hypoderma tarandi): An Arctic Parasite,” an insect I knew a little about from my time in Sweden. I also got the opportunity to communicate with my Norwegian colleague Arne C. Nilssen, who gave us permission to use his fabulous photo of an adult fly. Arne did his Ph.D. research on bark beetles, which is how I knew him.
An assignment like this is bound to have at least someone looking at honeybees. Jared Peet wrote his blog “Apis mellifera: Un-bee-lievable Communication” about these important insects, and in a second course I taught, two students wrote honeybee related blogs.
Water striders are incredibly successful hemipterans with some very odd mating behaviours. In her blog “Water striders: Strange Mating Rituals and Adaptations,” Rebecca Lerch describes how females protect themselves against overly amorous males.
Another spider blog that attracted attention was “The diving bell spider: reversed sexual size dimorphism” written by Sunjeet Minhas. To my knowledge, the Eurasian Argyroneta aquatica is the only aquatic spider.
Jennifer Noonan wrote about bioluminescence in lampyrid beetles. In her blog “Fireflies: Bioluminescence” she even included a drawing she made of the chemical reaction.
Angela Tsang’s topic was one that really fascinated me. “Commensalism, Mutualism, or Somewhere on the Borderline: A Relationship between a Frog and a Spider” is about a tiny microhylid frog that lives with a tarantula, normally a predator of frogs! Finding an illustration of this was easier said than done, but the author of one of the source articles, Dr. Francesco Tomasinelli, gave us permission to use a fantastic photo.
Aphids have never been my favourite insects (sorry Simon Leather!) although I could have ended up working with them, early on courtesy of Dr. Jan Pettersson in Sweden. It isn’t an organism I would expect a student to pick, but Grant Usick found an interesting angle in his blog “Acyrthosiphon pisum: The little pea aphid that could.” Perhaps I have to reconsider?
Brooke Wiebe picked Acacia ants for her blog “Pseudomyrmex ferruginea: The ideal tenant.” I still remember a presentation by Dan Janzen about these fascinating little ants and how they have assumed the defense role of Acacia trees.
In my arachnid lecture, I have to highlight the net-casting or ogre-faced spider, of course. This prompted Fiona Raymond to write her blog “The Hunting Techniques of the Net-Casting or Ogre Faced Spider (Araneae: Deinopidae)”. Arachnophobes miss out on so much neat stuff!
For no particular reason, I left out several blogs about horseshoe crabs and Crustaceans. The Crustaceans covered were fiddler crabs, tongue eating isopods, trapeziid guard crabs, pistol shrimp, pom-pom or boxer crabs, tadpole shrimp, Dungeness crabs, and the goose barnacle. And that leaves out all the other interesting invertebrates, of which cephalopods were the most numerous – no surprise there! Anyway, many students exceeded my expectations by a wide margin, and I really believe that it was the format that gave them inspiration to go the extra mile. I am sure Dezene Huber (who will take over after I retire at the end of this year) will improve on the course. Nevertheless, the students deserve credit for a job well done! I hope you will read a few of these blogs, and that you will enjoy them.
BioBlitz in BC’s beautiful Peace Region!
Do you have a good taxonomic knowledge of Canadian arthropods? Are you an awesome, champion collector? Do you want an excuse to spend a few days geeking out over lovely terrain and catching lovely wildlife? Well, the Biological Survey of Canada, the Royal BC Museum and the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative want you to join them in a BioBlitz of the Peace Region, June 22-26!
If this sounds like your cup of tea, then read the full invitation here. Sign up by June 15!
Who knows? Maybe you will find something completely unexpected (like this ridiculous mite!)!
Heavy metal insects!
PRAYING MANTIS Sterling silver, copper, 14K & 18K gold 18.5″l x 12″w x 9.5″h
We have featured the wonderful metalwork of Canadian artist Elizabeth Goluch before, in this awesome interview by Crystal Ernst. Now Ben Proudfoot of Breakwater Studios has produced this wonderful video featuring Elizabeth, her inspiration and work. If you are fascinated by insects aesthetically, or have a love for metalwork and sculpture, this is a great introduction to the artistic process!
[vimeo 125539638 w=560 h=315]
Lady Bug from Breakwater Studios Ltd. on Vimeo.
BUMBLEBEE Sterling silver, 14K & 18K gold 7″l x 7″w x 4″h
Western Specialties
Living in Western Canada is pretty sweet. Especially here on the coast, we have a plethora of awesome insects that only occur in this region. I am trying to savour these insects while I can, as this fall I am moving to Toronto.
The snakeflies (Raphidioptera) are awesome animals, with a delightfully elongate prothorax and long bladelike ovipositors. These insects are fairly common in the early spring in a Garry Oak meadow not far from my mother’s house, so whenever I am in the vicinity at the right time I keep an eye out for them.
The most common snakeflies in BC are members of the genus Agulla.
What I had not noticed about these insects is how the pronotum wraps around ventrally, like a shield. Also look at the awesome ornamentation on the thorax!
The larvae of snakeflies are difficult to find, but if you flip over enough rocks or logs, you may just find one!
In fact, flipping over logs is exactly how I found this next western treasure…A tiger beetle that may just shatter your image of tiger beetles forever.
This is Omus dejeani, often referred to by its awesome common name, the greater night-stalking tiger beetle. This is a tiger that could easily be mistaken at a glance for a carabine, if not for the shape of the thorax. This is not a slender, bright, iridescent speedster, but rather a hulking, powerful night terror.
Yes, make no mistake, this is a tiger through and through. The mandibles tell the tale. Bugguide has this to say about the origin of the generic name Omus: Probably from Greek omos (ωμος)- “raw, crude” or “savage, fierce, cruel”
Regardless of the name, this beetle is a truly impressive beast, though I rarely encounter it. I wonder if it could be because of the introduction of the two similarly-sized invasive carabines Carabus granulatus and Carabus nemoralis.
Anyhow, regardless of where you live, get out and enjoy what your region has to offer. Insect season is in full swing, and life is short. This summer I will keep flipping logs to savour the western specialties!
Log flipping also brought me an encounter with another western treasure: the rough skinned newt (Taricha granulosa). Who doesn’t love a newt!