Of bladderworts and their bladders

So. I was wrong. I identified those yellow flowers as Utricularia intermedia, the Flat-leaved Bladderwort. It turns out they were the Common Bladderwort, U. macrorhiza. And I got an explanation of why.

This is why I love places like iNaturalist!

 Anyhoo (not a typo), I had gone back, for the third time, to look at the plant. And this time, I brought a grabber tool to collect some of the underwater leaves. I took photos, then brought the leaves home to look at the bladders under the hobby microscope. And posted the photos to iNaturalist. Here.

So here are some of those photos; look at all the bug-eating bladders!

One long stem, on the path by the pond. Narrow leaves, black bladders everywhere.

Tip of the branch. Where the sunlight is brightest, the bladders look pink.

As seen under the microscope. Each bladder is attached to the stem with a short stalk.

In among the leaves. This defines the plant as U. macrorhiza.

A couple of bladders.

Again; these are critter traps.

Tiny hairlike projections at the opening of the bladder are sensitive to the motion of passing organisms like Daphnia (water fleas). When they are stimulated, these hairs cause the flattened bladder to suddenly inflate, sucking in water and the passing animal and closing a trap door after it. (Botanical Society of A.)

And when I rinsed them, at home, to get the mud off them, I found that there were hitchhikers; two caddisfly larvae, and a damselfly larva, probably a bluet like the ones darting over the water.

The leaf-like tail extensions function like gills. About 1 cm. long.

So now they're sitting in a bowl with the leaves and the mud and all. The caddisfly larvae are busy eating, but I haven't been able to get their photo.

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Bueno. Me equivoqué. Esas flores amarillas, las identifiqué como Utricularia intermedia, y resulta que eran U. macrorhiza  la utricularia común. Y me explicaron el porque.

¡Por esto es que me gustan sitios como iNaturalist!

 Pues, había regresado por tercera vez a examinar la planta carnívora. Y esta vez, traje una herramienta que sirve para recoger cosas fuera del alcance de la mano para poder recoger algunas de las hojas subacuáticas. Saqué unas fotos y luego traje las hojas a casa para mirar las vejigas bajo mi microscopio. Subí las fotos a iNaturalist. Aquí.

Y esas hojas llevan cientos de vejigas.

1. Un tallo lleno de hojas, en las piedras al la orilla de la laguna. Totalmente lleno de vejigas, también.
2. El extremo del tallo. Donde le pega el sol con fuerza, las vejigas se ven color de rosa. Con un poquito menos de luz, se ven negras.
3. Vistas las hojas bajo el microscopio. Cada vejiga se une a la rama con un tallo corto.
4. Las vejigas se distribuyen entre las hojas. Esto es una de las características que define la planta como U. macrorhiza.
5. Dos vejigas.

Repito; estas son trampas para insectos.

Proyecciones miniaturas, parecidas a pelos, en la apertura de la vejiga sienten el movimiento de organismos tales como las Daphnia (pulgas acuáticas). Cuando se estimulan estos pelos, hacen que la vejiga, hasta entonces delgada, se infle, succionando el agua y con ella, el animalito, y cerrando la puerta atrás. (Botanical Society of A.)

Hay más. Cuando lavé las hojas en casa, para quitarles el lodo, descubrí que llevaban pasajeros; dos larvas de frigáneas y una larva de caballito del diablo.

Foto #6. La larva del caballito del diablo. Las apéndices en forma de hoja en el extremo del abdomen sirven para obtener oxígeno del agua.

 

Heart-shaped wheel

 At the beaver pond today, the bluets were busy:

Boreal bluet, on hardhack leaf.

Mating pair, the male above, the female below. And her shadow.

With the damselfly clan, which includes the bluets, the female takes an active part in the mating game. (As opposed, for example, to spiders, where the female repels the male, and may eat him.) It's a four-step process; he prepares himself, transferring sperm from the back end of his abdomen to a pocket at the front; she grows a batch of eggs. Then he goes in search of a female, and grabs her neck with specialized claspers at the tail end of his abdomen. She, if she so chooses, then folds herself in half, to attach her tail end to the prepared sperm pocket, fertilizing her eggs.

They can fly around in this position (they call it the mating wheel); I saw two flying couples this afternoon.

When she's ready to lay her eggs, the male accompanies her, still holding her neck, as she visits the underwater plants where her babies will grow. She may need his protection; there's always the risk that she may get trapped underwater and drown before the eggs are all in safe places.

At the pond, these little blue arrows dart around, rarely stopping, always in a hurry. It's a hectic time of life for them, this being an adult: they've got a lot of egg-laying to do, and only a few weeks to do it in.

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En la laguna de los castores hoy, las libélulas estaban muy ocupadas:

1. Azulilla de estanque boreal, Enallagama boreale, en una hoja de Spiraea douglasii.
2. Una pareja, el macho arriba, la hembra (y su sombra) abajo.

Entre los caballitos del diablo, incluyendo a los del género Enallagma, la hembra toma parte activa en el proceso de apareamiento. (En oposición, por ejemplo, con las arañas, donde la hembra rechaza al macho o hasta lo come.) Es un proceso con cuatro etapas: (1) el macho se prepara, transferiendo esperma desde el extremo posterior de su abdomen hacia un órgano cerca del céfalotorax; la hembra produce un grupo de huevos. (2) Luego el sale en busca de una hembra, y la sujeta por la nuca con unos apéndices al propósito al final del abdomen. Entonces (3), ella, si le parece bien, se pliega y adhiere su extremo posterior al órgano copulador del macho, y así se fecundan sus huevos.

Pueden volar en esta postura; lo llaman el vuelo nupcial. Esta tarde vi dos parejas en el aire.

(4) Cuando la hembra va en busca de plantas subacuáticas donde pondrá los huevos, el macho la acompaña, deteniéndola todavía por la nuca, protegiéndola, pues siempre está en peligro de ahogarse en este momento.

En la laguna, estas flechitas azules se agitan, casi sin parar, volando a toda velocidad. Es una temporada de actividad frenética, esta etapa de vida adulta; tienen que implantar yoda la próxima generación y muy poco tiempo les queda de vida.

Caught in transit

There are the tiny flowers; they're a welcome find along the trails. And then there are the tiny, tiny critters. These crossed my path recently, some here, some there. Mostly fleeting encounters; none are in perfect focus, but I had fun snapping their photos anyhow. And some have stories to tell.

Caught in transit. 1 cm. caterpillar.

This little cat was dropping from a tree above, dangling from an almost invisible silk thread. His trip interrupted by my hand, he crawled down my wrist and arm, and dropped again from my elbow. I imagine a life cycle that started in the cherry tree overhead, and would continue on (or in) the ground below, where he would pupate and start the conversion to a moth.

Brown butterfly. One shot wonder. Next click; bare leaves.

Spider in her web over the water, Brown's Bay.

Her web spanned the space between a dock and the ramp. To get the shot, I had to climb the outside of the ramp and risk a dunking, camera and all. A topside view was impossible without a boat to stand in. She's well positioned to catch any mosquitoes the swallows miss.

Damselfly at the beaver pond. (Pacific forktail?)

And another.

These, with umpteen of their kin, were darting over the lily pads at the beaver pond. I would track one; with the transparent wings, they looked like flying needles. And they would land and immediately become invisible. Two made the mistake of landing on a clear background, where they stayed for all of maybe 30 seconds.

Plume moth, on my bedroom wall.

More Saskatoon flowers. There's an ant on these.

And finally, a spider housing development. I couldn't find any spiders, though. They'll all be hiding in the cracks of the bark.

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Ayer subí fotos de flores pequeñas halladas al borde de los senderos en el bosque. Hoy les toca a los bichitos; insectos y arañas que cruzaron mi camino en varios sitios. Encuentros pasajeros; ninguno se quedó a platicar. Las fotos no están perfectamente enfocadas, pero no importa, me divertí tratando de capdtar imágenes de estas criaturas. Y algunas tienen sus historias.

Fotos:

1. Este gusanito bajaba de un cerezo, colgado de un hilo de seda casi invisible. Cuando interrumpí su viaje con mi mano, siguió sin detenerse, bajando por mi muñeca y el brazo, y dejándose caer, con el hilito anclado en mi codo. Me estoy imaginando un ciclo de vida que empezó allá arriba en el cerezo, y que ahora le lleva a buscar asilo en el suelo, donde se hará su pupa para empezar a trasformarse en mariposa nocturna.
2. Una mariposa color café, sin identificación. Una sola oportunidad. Al hacer clic por segunda vez, solo salieron las hierbas.
3. Un araña en su telaraña sobre el agua. La había extendido entre el muelle y la rampa; para sacar la foto, tuve que trepar por el lado exterior del pasamanos, arriesgando una caída al agua con todo y cámara. Ha escogido un buen sitio para atrapar los mosquitos que logren evadir las golondrinas.
4. Un caballito de diablo, posiblemente Ischnura cervula.
5. Y otro. Estos, con una multitud de sus familiares iban y venían sobre las hojas de los lirios acuáticos en la laguna de los castores. Los seguía con la vista, tratando de ver donde se paraban; volando, con las alas transparentes, parecen agujas delgadas. Y luego se detienen y de repente se vuelven invisibles. Estos dos se equivocaron, deteniéndose sobre fondos de color sólido. Por unos segundos, nada más, y luego se echaron a volar.
6. Una polilla de pluma en la pared de mi recámara.
7. Otras de las flores blancas de Saskatún. Estas con una hormiga.
8. Y un condominio de arañas. No vi a ninguna araña; todas estarán escondidas entre la corteza del árbol.

Rainforest hideaway

There's always a pond ...

With glowing mushrooms. And invisible (to the camera) damselflies.

At the end of an unused driveway. It was late afternoon and the shadows were long; damselflies darted in and out of the shade, creating brief flashes of blue light.

Flashes of blue and green light

A few more Odonata from Reifel Island.

(We were there in mid-afternoon, on a baking hot day. It's not a good time for birding, but it sure was for bugs of all types!)

Male bluet. There must have been hundreds of these. Every photo taken over the water had many tiny flashes of blue, as they zipped back and forth, rarely stopping.

A female of the same species, not nearly as gaudy as her mate.

Skimmer, possibly the four-spotted skimmer, pausing briefly on dried grass.

And a sad story. There were many very small damselflies along the edge of the water, too small and too fast to get a good look at them. I got the impression of colourless wings vibrating at great speed, and not much else, until one landed right in front of me.

Unfortunately, the chosen landing spot was booby-trapped, and within seconds, a spider dropped down and sunk her fangs into the damselfly. It struggled wildly, twisting and shaking, only entangling itself even more. And the one half-decent photo I got shows more of the spider than of the fly.

The spider is another of the cross spiders. Very happy, not cross at all.

The damselfly has a black back, greenish-yellow underside, green and yellow eyes and legs. The wings are distinctive; just a cheese-cloth weave with a tiny brownish diamond near the tip. I have submitted it to BugGuide, without much hope of an identification, but you never know; those people are geniuses!

Moment under the sun

It's midsummer on Reifel Island, and in spite of the spotty, off-and-on, sort-of-summer weather we've been treated to this year, luxuriant vegetation lines the waterways. Head-high grasses, brilliant green leaves, juicy berries and little green apples, mounds and fields of flowers in glowing pink, yellow, white, and thistle-purple, drifting seed parachutes; a new glory appears at each turn of the pathway.

Along one of the inner trails, swarms of skinny bluets darted from thistle to grass to loosestrife, back to the grass to rest, briefly.

Bluets, about 1 1/2 inches long. Possibly Enallagma sp.

I couldn't get close enough to them to see clearly; in all the movement of grasses blowing in the wind, tree branches waving overhead, they somehow always noticed my cautious easing forward and darted away.

There were two colours. The males are patterned in crisp black and neon blue, females in neat brownish-black, glinting green when the light strikes them at just the right angle. I didn't see any mating couples; it's the season for love, but they would have been on the far side of the greenery, at the water's edge.

I had given up on seeing any bluets up close, and was turning to leave when I saw this:

A spider in the act of subduing a female bluet.

Zooming in. She is still moving, feebly, but her head is hanging down. I don't recognize the spider.

And in the grass behind them, the dance went on.

Update: Rebecca in the Woods has posted an amazing video of a spider wrapping up a big dragonfly. Go watch it!

Forgotten photos

I've spent hours digging through my spare hard drive looking for a couple of photos for a post I'm working on. I've only found one, so far. Still, it wasn't wasted time; my files are more in order now, and I discovered some good photos that I'd forgotten I had.

Pacific forktail, Van Dusen Gardens, 2009

Merlin on a pole, 2009, I don't remember where.

Sasha, at 18 years old, now absent but sorely missed.

Turtles on a rock, Van Dusen Gardens

A very fuzzy photo of a shy mouse behind a flower pot. An outside mouse, not a house pest.

And just because I like it, crazy or not; garden string.

Tomorrow, photos or no photos, an ordinary fruit that suddenly turns out to be weird.

A hairy, bug-eyed beauty

In Van Dusen Gardens last week, the damselflies were hunting over the ponds.

Pacific Forktail, Ischnura cervula

It's probably a male, because the female torsos (photo) are not usually blue; they are a mix of browns and orange. The four tiny blue dots on either side are also a male characteristic.

The name, "Forktail" refers to a tiny bump on the tip of the male's abdomen, not visible without a lens.

I was surprised, examining my photos, to see that they were haloed by white hairs. I had to look at a stack of damselfly photos to convince myself that this is the way they are, that it was not an infestation of some sort of fungus.

Hairy damselfly.

These hairs are useful, and important; the female lays her eggs underwater, while the male holds her, and rescues her once the job is done. The hairs retain bubbles of air, which enable both of them to remain underwater for up to ten minutes.

The lower part of the face, including half of the eyes, looks, here, as if it were clouded. In other lights, it glows a vivid green.

And while we're at it, I adjusted the colours of a photo to bring out the spots on the wings. One spot per wing, a pale brown oval with a dark center.


I looked these up. The wingspots are called pterostigma, and in an insect that hunts on the wing, are essential for survival:

"The purpose of the pterostigma, being a heavier section of the wing in comparison to nearby sections, is to assist in gliding. Without the pterostigma, self-exciting vibrations would set in on the wing after a certain critical speed, making gliding impossible." Wikipedia

Stabilizers, in other words, like those on an aircraft. In most species of damselflies, as in this one, they are located on the leading edge of the wing.

And this was supposed to be a quick post; load a pair of photos, name them, and off to bed. But I made the mistake of Googling those hairs, and look where it led me!

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Heart-broken and happy about it

A few minutes ago, this pair formed a pretty heart.

Along the bottom of the White Rock bluffs, creeklets trickle into a ditch running along the railroad track and emptying onto the beach. There is never much water in it; the weeds grow almost to the bottom. In wider spots, pondweed and brooklime flourish. This Saturday, the damselflies were providing the sparkles.

I caught this couple in an odd pose.


Lined up, head to tip of tail, the one in the rear curving under ...


... and dipping her tail in the water.

What was going on?

I knew that damselflies mate in a "wheel", although it looks more like a heart to me. The male clasps the female behind the head, using claspers on the end of his long abdomen. She then curls around and under, bringing the tip of her abdomen to his genitalia at the bottom of his middle section. (There's a clear image here, in BugGuide.)

But this was no "wheel" or "heart". Were they confused? Oh, Google!

They're Western Red Damsels, Amphiagrion abbreviatum*, and they're laying eggs. The male retains his hold on the female's upper thorax while they search for a good home for the next generation. Then she dips the ovopositor at the tip of her abdomen into the water and deposits the eggs.

Why he holds her during this process is uncertain. He may just be making sure that no other male gets a chance at her until his contribution is dealt with. My Field Guide mentions that in some damselflies, the male actually lifts her from the water when she is finished laying. A rescue operation, as it were.

*These are the only BC damselflies where both the female and male are red.
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