Glowing colours.

Saturday's delight:

Their perfume glows, too; I could smell them before I rounded the corner and saw them.

And Sunday's:

Golden jewel beetle, Buprestis aurulenta, dreaming of trees.

These beetles lay their eggs near injured portions of a variety of conifers, including our Douglas fir, red cedar and pines. The larvae hatch, then bore into the wood, live there for several years - up to 40 years! - burrowing through the tree, until they bore an exit hole and emerge as adults.

This species is the most damaging in its genus. Larvae have been known to take 30 years to complete their development in structural timbers. The emergence holes sometimes penetrate roofing materials which results in leakages. The Orpheum Theater in Vancouver was water damaged after "bargin priced" roofing timbers, cut from trees salvaged from the Taylor River fire on Vancouver Island, produced a large number of adult beetles which bored straight through the tar roof. (Forestry, UBC)

In the shade of the underside of the tablecloth, the colours are strong, but the glitter is gone.

Green or bluish back, with red or copper wing edges. The underside is a bronze colour. This one was about an inch long.

... upon his back to bite 'im

A week or so ago, I was poking at an old log on the hillside above Kwomais Point, looking for spots of yellow slime mold, and a big, red beetle ran out from beneath it. He came home with me, in a cosy plastic bag.

I housed him with a handful of log bits in a lidded plastic bowl. He had company; the wood swarmed with tiny flies, assorted miniscule beetles, and at least one sowbug.

And I tried to get a decent photo of him.


He wasn't co-operating; he never stopped running, not even when I put him down for a nap in the fridge. I did my best, but most of the photos were of a blurred backside or the last segment of a leg. I gave up and put the whole container outside, in the cool. When I had time, I would try again.

Out of a hundred or so photos, some must turn out. This did.

Later that evening, I was sorting the photos, when I noticed something about them. Look at that last one, zooming in:


Do you see it?

Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.

I checked all the photos; there were three, maybe four of these along for the ride. Mites of some sort.

It's been a hectic week; I didn't check on Big Red, as I was calling him, until this evening. Unfortunately, in the interim, he has died. Sorry about that, Red; I should have let you go free last week.

But at least I could get a good look at his face, which he wasn't allowing before. I moved him to the upturned lid and lowered the light over him. A bunch of little red specks, fast-moving specks, came with him. Oh. The mites; I had forgotten.

Poor, dead Big Red, overrun with hungry parasites.

The mites. Spider-like, but with only 3 pair of legs.*

Red-brown waistcoat, cinched with a white belt, white tail end.

The rest of the community in the plastic bowl seemed happy and busy, and I am sleepy. So Big Red and his mites went back among them; I will keep an eye on things and see what happens. Will the mites multiply? Leave him a shell only? Fill him with eggs? Go away and leave him to rot? Will those yellow slime molds develop here? Oh, the possibilities!

And I got that face shot: look at these jaws!


And four little spoons to hold his food. Handy.

*Update: Christopher Taylor to the rescue again! (See comments) The mites have 4 pairs of legs, not 3, as I said. The front ones are held up, like antennae. (The better to grab you with, my dear.)
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Half a dozen photos of an old branch

We found this beautifully engraved branch jammed in among the logs and rocks in the splash zone at Kwomais Point. At first glance, it looked man-made. But no, it is the work of smaller artists:

Artistry by bark-tunnelling insects.

Look at the designs they have made!

Is that a fish, down in the shadows?

Woman in furs

Untitled

I peeled back the bark from one section. The wood was still damp, and the contents of the tunnels stayed with the bark. See how the raised design on the bark matches the engraving on the wood beneath.



I don't know what type of creature does this. The branch was green wood, still flexible, not driftwood, so it would have been carved on the tree; these are not marine organisms.

And it was too long for the car; maybe we should be carrying a saw on our outings, too.

A mouse logo.

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