It's a buggy time of year

I take a camera to bed with me. Because tiny critters like my night light and bask there, just beside my headboard. So I take their photos. Of course.

Here are some of the ones that have turned up recently.

One of the Gall and Forest midges. The arrow points to one of the halteres.

The Diptera (two-winged), are flying insects; most of our flies, crane flies, hover flies, mosquitos, etc. Most other winged insects have 4 wings, but in the Diptera, the second pair of wings has evolved to become tiny, vibrating clubs, the halteres; they work as flight stabilizers and may help with steering.

A tiny yellow fly with multi-coloured eyes. Chyromya sp.

A female Bee Moth, Aphomia sociella

On the lampshade; a small crane fly, infraorder Tipulomorpha. A male; females have a pointed tip to the abdomen.

A weevil, one of the Snout and Bark beetles.

And a couple of visitors from other spots:

A woodlouse spider on my carpet. Dysdera crocata.

And outside, on my garden wall; a Brown-lipped snail, Cepaea nemoralis.

More beasties to come; it's a buggy time of year.

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Llevo la cámara conmigo a la cama. Porque a muchos insectos les atrae la luz de mi lámpara de noche; se "asolean" allí, en la pared al lado de mi cama. Y, claro, les tengo que sacar fotos.

Estos son unos de los que me han visitado recientemente.

1. Un mosquito pequeño (jején). La flecha indica uno de los halterios. El orden Diptera (que significa dos alas) incluye los insectos voladores con 2 alas, como por ejemplo, los Tipula, las moscas comunes, los mosquitos, los sírfidos. Otros insectos voladores tienen 4 alas; en el orden de los Diptera, el segundo par de alas se ha convertido en estos halterios, que les sirven para estabilizar el vuelo y pueden ayudar a dirigir la dirección del vuelo.
2. Una mosca dorada con ojos de muchos colores. Chyromya sp.
3. Una mariposa nocturna, "Mariposa abeja", hembra, Aphomia sociella
4. Una Tipula chica. Este es un macho; el abdomen de las hembras tiene el extremo puntiagudo.
5. Un gorgojo.
6. Y en otro sitio; una araña Dysdera crocata.
7. Y en mi jardín, un caracol "Margen marrón", Cepaea nemoralis.

Para mañana, tengo otros insectos; estamos en una temporada del año llena de criaturitas.

Count the legs

Tidying up the last of this batch of low tide photos:

11-legged crane fly? On an intertidal rock.

It's always surprising to me to find land-based insects and spiders in the intertidal zone. Damp piles of rotting seaweeds are usually hopping with small flies; where do they go when the water comes in and covers everything? I don't see them on the upper shore. And there are ants. And spiders, the fast-running Pardosa sp., and other wolf spiders; I see these mostly near the top of the intertidal zone. And on barnacle-encrusted rocks, I find crane flies. Mostly, they're all impossible to catch on camera; too fast, too much to focus on.

This 11-legged crane fly was just sitting still. 11 legs? No; must be a pair, caught in a tender moment. I've sent them in to BugGuide just to be sure.

Moon snail egg collar, about 15 cm. across. A sandwich; sand and mucus, eggs, sand and mucus. Once the eggs hatch, the collar disintegrates.

Small moonsnail shell. The snail has died. Crabs and gulls and sometimes starfish kill and eat moonsnails.

Next low tide day, slightly lower than this one: May  28. Alarm set.

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Estas son las últimas fotos que me quedan del dia primero, cuando la marea llegaba a su nivel mínimo.

• ¿Una típula con 11 patas? Vista sobre una roca cubierta de algas marinas y bálanos.

Siempre me sorprende encontrar insectos y arañas en la zona intermareal. Gran número de moscas pequeñas cubren los montones de algas húmedas y medio podridas que se acumulan a lo largo de la playa; ¿a dónde van cuando sube el agua y lo cubre todo? No las veo en la zona seca. Y hay hormigas. Y arañas, las arañas veloces Pardosa sp., y otras arañas lobo; estas las encuentro en la zona superior intermareal. Y volando alrededor de rocas cubiertas de bálanos, están las típulas. Generalmente, son imposibles de capturar con la cámara; revolotean rápidamente, y hay tantas otras cosas en el fondo.

Esta típula con 11 patas se quedaba quieta. ¿11 patas? Imposible. Debería ser una pareja, sorprendida en un momento privado. He enviado la foto a BugGuide para confirmarlo.

• Collar de arena de un caracol marino, Euspira lewisii. (Caracol luna) Es un sandwich: una capa de arena con moco, una capa de huevos, otra capa de arena con moco. Al eclosionar las larvas, el collar se desbarata.
• La concha de un caracol luna pequeño. El caracol ya murió; sus predadores son cangrejos, gaviotas, y a veces las estrellas de mar.

La próxima dia de marea bajísima es el 28 de mayo. 

More tinies

It seems that the tinies like my bedside lamp. I look up from my book, and there they are on the wall near the light. I don't see them anywhere else.

This week's visitors include several teeny-tiny moths and some fat spiders. And a guy with beautiful feathery antennae.

He looks like a crane fly, but is only a few mm. long.

UPDATE: From BugGuide, he's a non-biting midge, Chironomini spp.

A striped moth, about 4 to 5 mm. long.

And her plain cousin. 4 mm. long. She actually stayed around to be measured!

The tiniest this week. A spiderling about 2 mm. long.

Another white-patched spider like the one from a couple of weeks ago.

This spider was on an antique box, decorated with rows and rows of tiny Umbonium spp. shells. Each shell measures 5 mm across, making the spider's full length about the same.

UPDATE: She's been identified as Enoplognatha spp.

I'll send several of these in to BugGuide, to see if I can get an ID.

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Parece que a los bichos chquititos les gusta mi lámpara de noche. Estoy leyendo y levanto los ojos, y ahí están en la pared. No los encuentro en ninguna otra parte.

Los de esta semana incluyen unos mariposas nocturnas miniaturas y dos arañitas gorditas. Y un tipo con antennas que parecen plumas.

Fotos:

1. Parece un tipúlido pero mide apenas unos cuantos milímetros.
2. Una mariposa nocturna con manchas blancas.
3. Y una sin diseño. Esta se quedó tranquilo mientras lo medía; mide 4 mm. de largo.
4. Una arañita, la más chica de mis visitas esta semana, midiendo apenas unos 2 mm.
5. Y otra araña con esos "parches" blancos como la de la semana antepasada. Estaba encima de una cajita antigua decorada con hileras de conchas marinas de una de las especies de Umbonium. Cada caracol mide 5mm, lo que hace que la araña completa sea más o menos igual.

Voy a subir varios de estos a BugGuide, para ver si me los pueden identificar.

Crawlers, jumpers, singers

And going back to the piles of "hold for later" photos: a collection of critters.

In a handful of wet mud: an earthworm and a pretty Spotted Snake millipede, Blaniulus guttulatus.

Cricket, female. The males sing all summer under my kitchen window. The cat brought this one in, freshly killed.

The two spikes at the rear are cerci, sensory organs. The long, split-ended one is her ovipositor, used to lay her eggs.

Weevil, playing dead, as they do. When the photo session ended, he wandered away.

Not a "hold". A small crane fly on my wall this week. Interesting pattern on the wings, similar to that of the hairy-eyed crane fly, but that's an eastern species. I'll send it in to BugGuide.

A tiny jumper.

And a tiny moth.

Critters, critters, critters

... collected from here and there, some alive, some recently dead. I'm sorting last month's photos, playing catch up.

Harvestman on a house plant (Kalanchoe tomentosa)

Hover fly on yarrow. I'm not sure of the other beetle with the spots. Tyee Spit.

Twin berries, Lonicera involucrata, with an orange fly. Tyee Spit.

A crane fly who died on my windowsill. Aren't those wings pretty?

Looking at you.

Grasshopper on the Oyster Bay shore. Probably Pallid-winged Grasshopper, Trimerotropis sp. Mostly, they jumped away as soon as my shadow came anywhere near; for this one, I crawled up, inch by inch, down at his level. (No shadow!)

Another Oyster Bay grasshopper, same afternoon, same location. But this one didn't wait around for me. He may be a different species, but I can't identify him, and the Pallid-wings are quite variable.

Recently squashed spider. Just the eyes and mustache. One of the mesh web weavers, by the eye arrangement. (See BugGuide)

Water shots next, I think.

And now I have crane flies

First there were spiders, then moths, then more spiders chasing the moths. And now the nights are lively with jittery crane flies. They come in two sizes; small ones, about 3/4 of an inch long, and the big, hysterical ones, 4 1/2 inches toe to toe.

One slowed down finally. I found him dying on my dinner table.

Nose to wingtip, 4 cm. The legs, though are 6 cm. long. No wonder some people call them "Daddy longlegs"!

This is a male; the end of his abdomen has graspers to hold his mate. She will have a pointed tail end, with an ovopositor.

Flying about, they look like huge mosquitoes. But they don't have the mouthparts to attack humans, and most adults don't eat at all; they're too busy mating and laying eggs.

This is one of the smaller crane flies, very much alive. The three-pronged grasper is visible at his tail end.

Buggy day

Life goes on here, quietly. It's too hot to move*; even the bugs are in hiding. The sowbugs that frequent my collection of plants on the kitchen windowsill have moved elsewhere. Spiders lurk only in the darkest, coolest corners. The slugs have even abandoned the damp, broken flowerpot I set out for them, with murderous intent.

And then, in one 24 hour period, I had a stream of visitors. Maybe it's cooler inside.

The first. 2 AM, just over my bed. Tiny, but pretty.

Orange underwing moth on a dusty window. Most of the dust is outside. 10AM

From another angle, with her double reflections. The sun was bright this morning; the pink and green are refracted sunlight.

A small male crane fly with the greenest eyes ever. 5PM 

Midnight, resting under a lamp. An extremely small green fly. To my eyes, it was just an elongated speck.

Besides these, that day there was an interesting pale orange moth in an awkward place, that I could not reach to get in focus. A couple of mosquitoes; not interesting. A racing house spider, trying to escape the kittens. And a humongous crane fly that the cats beat me to. The smallest kitten ate it. And the June bug.

And today, we're back to lying low. The whole area is under an alert for hot weather, and there's a smoke haze wafted over from the burning mainland. Will these fires never cease?

Special air quality statement in effect for:
Campbell River
Comox Valley
Duncan
Nanaimo/Parksville
...
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, in collaboration with Island Health, has issued a Smoky Skies Bulletin for communities in the East Vancouver Island, the Southern Gulf Islands, and Greater Victoria regions due to wildfire smoke in the area. The current weather pattern over the BC coast is causing outflow winds to carry smoke from wildfires burning in the BC Interior towards the coast. Smoke concentrations will vary widely as winds, fire behaviour and temperatures change....
This Bulletin will remain in effect until further notice. (from gov. alert)

Higher pollution levels are expected to persist into Friday.

* I know, a temperature of 34 Celsius is not hot at all, if you're living where 40 is normal. But around here, we wilt at 30. To make up for it, we go out for long walks in pouring rain or deep snow.

Flipping wings

A four-legged crane fly dropped in for a visit, or maybe a place to rest and lick her wounds. Instead, I chased her from bathroom wall to tub to window, trying to get a photo of her pretty wings.

On the window. She's missing two left legs. 

On a glass box full of shells.

I hadn't noticed before; look at the wings. She doesn't just flap them; they also rotate. In the top photo, the leading edge, the one with the stiff ribs, is towards the back. On the box, it's now towards the front.

On a glass bottle. Leading rib is towards the front again.

And then I took pity on her and let her rest. In the morning, she had moved on.

(I know she's female because of the old-fashioned pen nib tip to her abdomen, the ovipositor.)

Beautiful wings

On a crane fly:

Tipula sp.

I looked these up on BugGuide, and found several with the same patterns (this one, for example), but BugGuide only identifies them down to the family, Tipulidae, or Large Crane Flies. It doesn't really matter; other LCF know where she belongs.

She's female; the males' abdomen ends in a club, while the females have this sharp, pointed ovipositor for laying eggs.

On a moth:

What are you thinking, little one?

On BugGuide, I found several different species of cutworm moths, Apamea, all present in the Pacific Northwest, all similar to this one. Apamea cogitata seems to be the best match. And I like the name; it means "Thoughtful Apamea".

And on a cricket:

Gryllus sp., female, as shown by her long ovipositor. She was trapped in my sink and tired of trying to climb the walls, so she sat still for me.

Every evening this summer, boy crickets chirp hopefully out on the lawn, holding those short, leathery hindwings up at an angle and scraping the serrated edges together. The curve of the hindwings against the body makes an echo chamber, amplifying the sound; females may hear the male's song up to 75 metres away!

Crickets are difficult to identify; most species look more or less alike. They are most easily distinguished by their song.

In a given area, it is usually possible to learn the various species through experience, by learning which songs go with which crickets at what time of year.  ... This is a group where it is actually usually easier to identify a specimen by hearing it than by seeing it! (BugGuide)

But the females don't make music; they don't have the equipment. So to identify a female, you have to find her mate, and get him to play you a song. I found a male tonight, hiding behind my favourite chair; tracked him down by ear. But once on stage, he refused to play any more, and scuttled away under the baseboard.

Such patience!

This crane fly sat on the cabinet above my kitchen sink all day. She never moved, even when I opened her door to take out supplies, not even when I banged about, washing big pots right underneath her.

"I'm waiting!"

She was still there when the day's work was done, and I finally got around to paying attention.

Rainbow wings and orange stripes. The pen-nib tail end is her ovipositor.

Zooming in from the side:

"It's about time you showed up with that camera!"

Zooming in more, to show those cute moustaches, and one of the pale yellow halteres. These take the place of the second pair of wings, and serve as stabilizers in flight.

I took the photos she was waiting for, and went to put the camera away. When I came back, she was gone.

Keeping an eye on us

These critters all dropped in to visit this week.

Hornet under glass

Hundreds of eyes, and toothed jaws.

Winged ant termite*. Running.

Not running.

Crane fly on carpet. Sleeping with his eyes open.

1/3 of the crane fly. I cropped out miles of leg.

Shot in the dark. Fly on outside of window, 10:00 PM.

Mosquito, with double reflection from glass door.

June bug. He came to help with the watering.

And a cute jumping spider, very small, was running around on my kitchen stove. Luckily for him, I wasn't cooking.

Such nice fuzzy pedipalps!

Eyes in the back of his head. Very useful.

Sitting up to beg like a puppy. Sorry, I had no spider treats for him.

I took him outside; the stove is no place to practice your jumps on.

*See comments. Thanks, Christopher!