Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady’s “newspaper clippings” file runneth over, so here are a few articles for you to peruse.  Please note that most come from the excellent Smithsonian daily e-newsletter, which is not only free (though a donation is always appreciated), but there’s no pay wall. The newsletter includes articles about current discoveries, archaeology, history, insects, birds and mammals, oceans, etc.

THE BUGLADY KNOWS that she’s preaching to the choir, here – not to the folks who say “Fewer bugs? That’s great!” Anyone who likes to eat, who likes birds (and dragonflies!), and who appreciates our natural communities and ecosystems should be a fan of insects and other “bugs” and should be concerned about their .

IN A RELATED VEIN – ().

ALGORITHMS ARE EVERYWHERE. Recipes are algorithms (“an algorithm is a finite set of instructions carried out in a specific order to perform a particular task.” Or solve a mathematical computation). Social media relies on algorithms to feed you content. Now it turns out that even .

ONE MEASUREMENT that the BugLady has always used to gauge insect numbers is the flurry of bugs around the porch light at night. Biographies of many insects, especially of moths, note whether they are attracted to light or not. Scientists are figuring out what’s really happening (, too).

WE JUMP IN LAKE MICHIGAN on January 1 (well, some of us do) (but not the BugLady); Cordova, Alaska has an Ice Worm Festival. Whatever gets you through the winter. Supposedly, cold-blooded critters don’t do so well when temperatures get below about 40 degrees (warm-blooded animals use part of their daily energy/food budget to maintain a core heat, but cold-blooded animals are at the mercy of the ambient temperature).  have a couple of tricks up their sleeves. 

Alas – we’ve just missed this year’s , but it’s not too early to start planning for 2025.  

MONARCH WINGS –

IN THE “ALWAYS-TASTEFUL” CATEGORY: years ago, a colleague of the BugLady’s husband asked if mice pee. Her husband knew that if he said yes, the man was going to go home and empty the cupboards and sterilize everything. So he said “No, the liquid is included in the mouse poop.” Do insects pee? Many don’t, and “peeing” isn’t exactly the right name for it because they don’t have a separate exit just for liquids. Insects have structures (OK – Malpighian tubules) that collect liquid waste (uric acid and ammonia) and deposit it in the hind gut. Terrestrial insects need to conserve water, so they reabsorb usable liquids from the hind gut and the rest gets mixed with the digestive wastes and excreted (“just like mice….”) (aquatic insects are constantly excreting liquid to keep from getting waterlogged). 

But – insects that suck sap have a different challenge. Sap contains sugar in very small concentrations, so plant juice feeders have to take in a lot of liquid (about 300 times their body weight daily) in order to get enough calories, and it comes out under pressure. . How do they handle it? 

FINALLY – in the “Better Late than Never” category – the BugLady posted an episode about caddisflies last week, and today BugFan Steve sent this great .

The groundhog did not see its shadow. The way the BugLady learned it, if he sees his shadow, there are six more weeks of winter, and if he doesn’t, there’s a month and a half until spring (and insects).  

The BugLady

The post Bugs in the News XIII appeared first on Field Station.

Another week, another zebra.

The BugLady had fun chasing this dynamite little insect along the banks of the Milwaukee River at Waubedonia Park in mid-summer (it likes to perch on the undersides of leaves). She had never seen one before, but after a few false starts, she discovered that it’s a Zebra Caddisfly (Macrostemum zebratum) (aka Macronema zebratum or Macronemum zebratum, depending on whose book you read), and that it’s considered pretty common. She had to adjust her mind set about what she had considered . For some basic Caddisfly facts and an explanation of the origin of their name, see this previous BOTW featuring the Caddisfly.

Many of the internet hits for caddisflies come from the trout-fishing community, where adult caddisflies are often called “sedges.”

ZCs are in the caddisfly Order Trichoptera (“hairy wings”), and in the Net-spinning caddisfly family Hydropsychidae which, according to , means “water nymph.” Hydropsychid larvae are found in rivers and streams across North America; they are (today’s vocabulary word) “rheophilus,” (from the Greek rheos” (flow) and philus (to love)). Adults are short-lived – some species are nectar feeders as adults, but others don’t feed at all – and they’re generally found on vegetation near the larval river.

Caddisflies are famous for using available material to build tubular cases that they drag around with them (one author calls them “mobile homes”), but the Net-spinning caddisflies don’t do that. Instead, they make an immovable shelter/retreat on a submerged rock, in a crevice between rocks, in debris, or on aquatic vegetation. They spin a silk trap net nearby in order to snag the edibles that float downstream, they poke the front end of their body out of their retreat periodically to check their catch, and they keep their silken nets clean. Algae-eaters knit a fine-meshed net, and larvae that fed on larger particles make a coarser sieve. Hydropsychid larvae breathe using tufts of gills on their abdomens.

Caddisflies mate at dusk near the water’s edge. Females of some species, including the Hydropsychids, have concave, fringed legs that allow them to swim down to deposit their gel-covered egg masses (up to 800 eggs) on submerged surfaces. Other species release their eggs at the surface or attach them to plants just above the water, so the larva will fall in after hatching.

Hydropsychid larvae actively defend their small territory. Making trap webs is energy intensive so they protect them by “stridulating” (making noise by rubbing bumps on their femurs across the side of their head) to discourage wandering caddis larvae from entering. If noise doesn’t deter the intruder, physical combat ensues.

Animals that live in strong currents need adaptations to keep from being swept downstream. Net-spinning caddisflies have claws on their prolegs so they can grip the slippery rock surfaces where they live and can hold onto the inside of their shelter (prolegs are stubby, hydraulically-powered stubs on the underside of the abdomen that help the larva navigate). Even though they can hang on, caddisflies may “let go” and drift in order to find new territories, and drift can also carry eggs downstream. Waubedonia Park has had some severe floods during the past two summers, and it’s mind-boggling to think of how the strong currents that scour the river bed can uproot and redistribute aquatic species.

The ZC is a Midwestern/Eastern species that has fairly broad tolerance for fluctuating currents, temperature, and water clarity, but its It is not as sensitive to pollution as many of its relatives are.

eat algae and diatoms as well as tiny crustaceans and aquatic insects (they are omnivore-detritivores), and they are eaten by trout and smallmouth bass. Adults that have chewed their way out of their underwater pupal cases and are floating/swimming to the surface are picked off by fish, and so are adults that are resting on the surface. Fishing lore abounds with stories about big hatches and about the anglers selecting a lure that correctly “matches the hatch.” Adults are also eaten by birds, frogs, bats, spiders, and dragonflies, and the larvae are parasitized by a wasp that ventures below the surface to find them.

When fishermen meet caddisflies, To see another human/caddisfly intersection, Google “caddisfly case jewelry.”

 
The BugLady

The post Zebra Caddisfly appeared first on Field Station.

The BugLady has been hanging out at the ephemeral pond again; what follows is a revision of a BOTW from 2012 (different pictures, somewhat different cast of characters). By now, many of these critters have whole BOTWs of their own at the Field Station’s Bug of the Week blog.

She celebrated Easter at the Church of the Ephemeral Pond this year—a choir of peepers, wood frogs, and leopard frogs gave witness that there were, indeed, Easter eggs, but the BugLady didn’t see any. In past years, Belted Kingfishers have gathered at the pond to enjoy the frog spectacle, too, but they’re a bit late this year, or maybe the pond is early.

Ephemeral ponds are (most years) just that—ephemeral (they’re also called vernal or spring ponds, but because some hold water in fall instead of spring, “ephemeral” is a more inclusive term). These are the here-today-gone-tomorrow ponds, the gather-ye-rosebuds-while-ye-may wetlands. The wonder of ephemeral pools is that they are populated by animals that take this annual disappearing act in stride—animals that are prepared to dry up with the pond or to get out of Dodge (timing is everything), and therein lie many tales.

An astonishing array of animals use ephemeral ponds as a place to drink, hunt, and breed, but an ephemeral pond is a challenging place to call home. The still, shallow water warms quickly (which encourages speedy metamorphoses) but contains little oxygen. As the water evaporates, its inhabitants squeeze into increasingly smaller spaces; water quality declines as waste products, including carbon dioxide, increase; and food gets harder to find. The handwriting is on the wall. The annual drought makes these ponds unsuitable for fish, which wreak havoc if they find their way in from nearby waterways in flood time. Do animals live there because they’ve developed adaptations that let them survive drought, or do they live there because the pond’s cycles give them something they need – a dry period?

Not every puddle that disappears seasonally is an ephemeral pond; the presence of certain indicator species verifies its status. Wood frogs, blue-spotted salamanders and fairy shrimp are considered obligate species (direct indicators) in Wisconsin, and finding empty caddis fly cases or encysted fairy shrimp eggs in the leaf litter of a dry depression in fall also identifies an ephemeral pond. A massive Citizen Science project to identify and census ephemeral ponds in southeastern Wisconsin is written up in the DNR publication: .

Who lives there?

Dragonflies

The BugLady photographed ovipositing (migrant) common green darners across a crowded pond on Easter, but they’re not the only dragonfly species that will use it, and damselflies do, too. Some young Odonates hatch and develop quickly, “goosed” by the warming water temperatures, and they emerge as adults before their pond disappears. Other dragonfly and damselfly species lay eggs in summer or fall, and their eggs go through a period of diapause (suspended animation), restarting when the pond fills again.

Mosquito Larvae

Mosquito larvae feed by filtering tiny stuff (bacteria, protozoa, algae) out of the water, and they are food for a host of carnivorous aquatic insects and for larval salamanders. The very-active larvae are called “wigglers;” the also-active pupae are called “tumblers.” The BugLady read that some species of mosquitoes lay eggs on damp mud near the pond’s edge—these enter diapause and can be dormant for years until the water rises again.

Water Tigers

Water Tigers (a BugLady favorite) are the larvae of Predaceous diving beetles (family Dytiscidae), and their name is richly deserved. They grab their prey (lots of mosquito wigglers, fairy shrimp, and the odd tadpole) and inject meat-tenderizing enzymes through their sickle-shaped mandibles. Although they are aquatic as both larvae and adults, the winged adults can escape to a wetter spot when the ephemeral pond dries, but they may also overwinter in the mud and litter of the dry pool. This one shared the plastic spoon with a daphnia.

Giant Water Bug Naiad

The BugLady loves these bugs (the front end is very sharp—handle with care), and not just because the male is caregiver for the eggs that his lady glues onto his back. Its strategy for drought is to find permanent waters until the ephemeral pond opens up for business next spring. In the low oxygen of the ephemeral pond, he rocks his body back and forth, sloshing water on the eggs and keeping them wet and oxygenated.

Water Mites

Water mites are a diverse bunch both in appearance and habit. Many nymphs (and some adults) are predators or parasites of aquatic insects, and they are commonly seen on dragonflies and damselflies. They move by scrambling through the water, and they can survive in low oxygen concentrations.

Caddisflies

Caddisflies creep around the vegetation of the pond wearing shelters made of bits of plants that they fasten together using homemade silk. Some species are herbivores that, while feeding, break down large pieces of plant material into smaller ones that smaller critters can eat. Others are carnivores—the BugLady read of one species that feeds on larval salamander embryos from un-hatched egg masses. Their eggs overwinter.

Planeria

Planeria, flatworms, are not related to leeches, which they somewhat resemble. Most scrounge bacteria, algae, and dead stuff from the pond floor, ingesting it through a ventral siphon. They get through the winter as eggs, and the adults of some species can encyst themselves. These dazzling green planeria are ephemeral pond specialists that carry around a bunch of photosynthesizing algae in their tissues. The planaria get oxygen and some sugars from the deal; the algae gets shelter and carbon dioxide.

Fairy Shrimp

In the early days of the pond, females produce soft-shelled “summer” eggs (some fertile, some infertile but parthenogenic that hatch into more females). If you zoom in on the female, you can see eggs. The summer eggs hatch quickly. As the pond winds down, they form “winter eggs” that have a thick shell that protects them from desiccation and that can withstand years of drought (up to 15 years), and that must be dried and re-hydrated in order to hatch. Maybe 3/8 of an inch long, the male has claspers on his “face” and the female’s face is hammerhead shark-shaped.

[metaslider id=7886]

These tiny guys, which are either Seed Shrimp or Clam Shrimp (the BugLady isn’t sure which) do look like seeds and clams, but they are Crustaceans, (very) distantly related to crayfish. Most are well under ¼” in length, which means they are targeted by many of the pool’s predators. The eggs of both are drought-resistant.

Daphnia

Daphnia are another BugLady favorite, partly because she can’t believe that she can actually photograph them. These tiny Crustaceans eat minute bits of algae, bacteria, and debris, and everybody eats them. Their jerky progress through the water gives them an alternate name—water flea. They overwinter as drought-resistant eggs. Daphnia eggs hatch within the female’s brood chamber and are released when she molts, and the BugLady is wondering if this shot captures a few young daphnia within the brood chamber.

Phantom Midge Larva

Phantom Midge Larva – a predaceous (sometimes omnivorous) larva that floats through the water column like a tiny dirigible, its paired air sacs fore and aft revealing its presence. Its stillness and transparency afford it camouflage; it grabs its prey with specially adapted antennae. It’s on the menu of larval salamanders and other predators.

Water Sowbug

Yes, related to the guys that peer up at you when you pick up a flowerpot in the summer. They don’t swim, exactly, but they paddle-walk slowly along on the pond bottom, feeding on detritus that they find along the way. Their young hatch from eggs within the female’s pouch, and they don’t have any special adaptations to survive the drought.

Scuds

Scuds – these amphipods scoot around the pool (or the BugLady’s plastic spoon) on their sides, demonstrating their alternate name “sideswimmer.” In a fish-free habitat, they can be plentiful. Like water sowbugs, they are omnivore-detritivores, chewing on organic detritus while they hold onto it with their front legs. When the water dries up, they bury themselves in the mud.

The BugLady recommends the nifty booklet A Guide to the Animals of Vernal Ponds by Kenney and Burne, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. And check out , where they describe ephemeral ponds as “wicked big puddles.” Pictures of animals can be found at .

If ephemeral ponds light your fire, check this (which the BugLady thinks looks interesting but cannot vouch for): A Guide to Creating Vernal Ponds.

Go outside—visit an ephemeral pond. The Game’s afoot!

 
The BugLady

The post Ephemeral Pond Critters Revisited appeared first on Field Station.

Caddisflies are famous for having soft-bodied, aquatic larvae that, depending on their species and habitat, that may be “log-cabin,” tube, or snail shell-shaped (caddisflies that live in strong currents may spin nets instead). For “glue,” they use silk that they produce in a gland in their “lower lip.” Some people “farm” caddisfly larvae, giving them bits of semiprecious stones and metals to build with and then making jewelry from the shed cases (you can Google it).

In the early days of modern taxonomy, caddisflies (now order Trichoptera) were listed with dragonflies, stoneflies, mayflies, dobsonflies (hellgrammites), lacewings, and more, in the order Neuroptera, but caddisflies were split off 200 years ago. Their larvae look caterpillar-ish and the adults are often mistaken for moths, so it’s not surprising that caddisflies are closely related to the Lepidopterans.

Giant Casemaker Caddisfly

The Giant casemakers belong to the caddisfly family Phryganeidae, and they’re found through much of the U.S., into Canada. Adults are about ¾” long (large, for a caddisfly) and dark/dull-colored, and they don’t stray far from the wetlands required by their also-large, stripy-headed offspring. Phryganied larvae live in cold water, both still and gently flowing, and they construct their cases by sticking vegetation together longitudinally or in a spiral (you can find left or right-handed spirals within the same species), sometimes incorporating tiny pebbles. Look for them in grasses that hang into the water, on submerged leaves, and on underwater plants and roots. When they’re disturbed, or when they’re defending their case from roving pryganeids that have misplaced their own case, larvae can crawl into and out of their cases far more easily than can other caddisflies (and from either end!). Do watch the video clip from (they remind the BugLady of otters).

Oligostomis ocelligera

The BugLady encounters this impressive, chunky caddisfly infrequently. Oligostomis ocelligera is a northeastern species that’s uncommon in Wisconsin, and there are only a few records from Minnesota. To see its distribution in Wisconsin, go to page 241. Sources list the emergence of adults in New York and Wisconsin for the last two weeks of May, but the BugLady photographed these in the first week of May in 2009 and 2016. They are said to have a long flight period.

Oligostomis ocelligera favors marshes, ditches, and lakes, but it also inhabits very slow streams. The larvae hunt and hide in submerged vegetation or in detritus on the floor of the marsh/pool/ditch/etc., but they’re also found under moist beds of moss, and the BugLady found a report of five larvae being found in a pitcher plant. The larvae are “shredders,” attacking large pieces of fresh or decaying vegetation and making little pieces out of big ones (thus providing food for smaller vegetarians and nudging the plant material toward decomposition); and they are “engulfer-predators” that eat tiny invertebrates whole, or bite off chunks. There’s some indication that the larvae are more inclined to vegetarianism in their early instars, becoming more carnivorous as they near pupation.

The Phryganeidae are scantily-studied, but the species that have been scrutinized deposit their eggs under water; in order to do so, a female must crawl below the water’s surface, cloaked in a film of air. Another report says that she may “run across the water to deposit her eggs.” The eggs are encased in a (except, a species that uses ephemeral ponds hangs its mass of jelly above the receding water to dry out and be reconstituted when the pool is). Eggs hatch in mid-summer, and the larvae house themselves by .

When they’re ready to pupate late in the following spring, they burrow into waterlogged wood or other soft substrate and they modify their larval case. The pupae of some phryganeid species have mandibles, but Oligostomis ocelligera doesn’t, so when they pupate, they plug the front end of the case with bits of debris glued with silk, creating a barrier that they will be able to push through as an adult (species that retain their mandibles can chew through the front door). One source said that pupae climb up on land before emerging.

The larvae are considered to be moderately tolerant of pollution on biotic index lists, but the BugLady came across a paper documenting O. ocelligera larvae thriving in streams in Pennsylvania that discharged from acidic mine drainage and had, along with high levels of sulfates and heavy metals, a pH of 2.5 to 3.2 (vinegar) (black coffee has a pH of 5, and 7 is neutral).

Adults in the genus are daytime flyers with colorful, patterned wings that contribute to their . Says researcher Glenn Wiggins, “In an evolutionary context, these are the butterflies of the Trichoptera” (in both color and behavior, females are more cryptic than males). Scientists speculate about whether the “bright” patterns might be aposematic (warning) coloration. Wiggins, in The Caddisfly family Phryganeidae (Trichoptera), tells us that

Aposematic coloration could be related to a distinct odor emitted by male and female phryganeids when disturbed. The source of this odor seems to be drops of a viscous fluid emitted from the anal opening. It is possible that the odor could deter predators such as birds, or the fluid could provoke an avoidance reaction if tasted. Wiggins describes the odor of one genus as “burnt marshmallows” and another as “reminiscent of old cheese;” he admits that he has handled too few Oligostomis to generalize but concludes that “if the bright, contrasting colour patterns of the wings is part of a warning system directed at predators of day-flying species, offensive secretions could be involved.

A few family members use Plan B—irritating/urticating hairs on the thorax and base of the wings.

 
The BugLady

The post Giant Casemaker Caddisfly (Family Phryganeidae) appeared first on Field Station.

Today we feature three bugs about whom not too much information is circulating, other than their presence in museum collections and on state/regional biodiversity lists. If they have anything in common, it’s that all three are odd little insects.

Long-Horned Caddisfly

The soft-bodied, aquatic larvae of caddisflies famously make beautifully-engineered portable homes from vegetable or mineral materials that they find (and glue together) underwater, or they spin webs/nets that attach them to rocks in running water. The moth-like adults can be found nectaring on flowers, perched on vegetation, or coming to the BugLady’s porch light, far from water. This caddisfly is in the family Leptoceridae, the Long-Horned Caddisflies/Long-horned sedges/Long-horned case-makers (leptos is Greek for thin or narrow, and keras means a horn), and they’re probably in the genus Oecetis. Long-horned, it turns out, refers not to the bizarre, furry appendages sticking out in front of the insect’s face like an extra pair of legs (those are maxillary palps) but to the antennae, which, in the Leptoceridae, are considerably longer than the insect’s body (the far-away shot shows the full length of the antennae). Maxillary palps are structures that branch off of the paired maxilla (half of the mandible-maxilla mouthpart team), and they often have a sensory function.

Oecetis larvae begin life in a mass of jelly-covered eggs deposited on underwater plants or stones, and they are bottom-dwelling predators in still-to-very-slowly-moving waters.

For more information about caddisflies and to find out the origin of the caddisfly’s name, check in the “Bug of the Week: Caddisfly” entry. To view a strange application of the caddisfly larva’s industry, Google “caddisfly case jewelry” and see what happens when larvae are provided with gemstones for their case-making. Art imitating life.

Large Lace Border Moth Caterpillar

OK, the BugLady has met a lot of caterpillars, but she’s never met one with the corduroy-like texture of this Large Lace Border Moth caterpillar (probably). There are six species in the genus east of the Great Plains, and identification of caterpillars can be iffy, but the BugLady is always (a little too) comfortable out on a limb. Sogaard, in Moths and Caterpillars of the North Woods describes the texture as “many fine annular rings;” “as many as 30 annulations on some abdominal segments” says Wagner in Caterpillars of Eastern North America.

The Large Lace Border (Scopula limboundata) is a member of the moth family Geometridae (the inch-worms or earth measurers) whose caterpillars’ gait illustrates their name. The absence of several pairs of prolegs in their mid-section causes them to have what the BugLady’s mother called “a hitch in their get-along;” instead of undulating across the landscape, they grip with the back legs and stretch out the front, then pull the rear legs forward. Repeat. Geometrid caterpillars are twig-mimics, camouflaging themselves by grabbing the substrate with their back feet and stretching out rigidly. are quite variable.

Scopula is a huge genus with more than 800 species worldwide. Sogaard also tells us that Asian members of the genus “visit vertebrate eyes, feeding on tears and mucous, perhaps for sodium or protein. (Wagner adds that moths feed on blood and sweat). At least 30 species of eye-frequenting moths are suspects in the transmission of diseases that affect humans, and others that affect livestock,” (and the BugLady wishes she didn’t have that picture in her head now).

The Large lace border is found in woodlands, wetlands, and edges, where the caterpillars feed on the leaves of shrubs, trees, and herbs including black cherry, apple, blueberry, elm, cinquefoil, bedstraw, dandelion, and clover. They overwinter as partially-grown caterpillars.

Sumatrosis inequalis

The BugLady found this Sumatrosis inequalis (no common name) beetle in the woods at the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust’s Huiras Lake property (well worth a visit; read more about it on the ) website. She was attracted by the beetle’s odd posture and wondered if maybe it was a victim of one of those parasites that get into an insect’s brain and cause it to climb high and act weird. But when she looked at the collection of Sumatrosis pictures on , she noticed that at least a quarter of the pictures show tilted beetles. One contributor even commented on it: “Every single time I’ve seen these things, it looks like they’re bowing. Sumitrosis inaequalis? What’s the point of the kneel?” The response was “It’s not bowing down to you…it’s mooning you! :).” Science is so classy. (and no—the BugLady did not find an alternate explanation for it).

[metaslider id=1800]

The tiny (4 mm, plus-or-minus) Sumitrosis inaequalis is in the Leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae, a huge family of varied and often-colorful beetles. Chrysomelids eat plants, both as adults and larvae (larvae may bore in roots or mine leaves), and many species are linked with only one or a few plant species. There are four species of Sumitrosis in North America; Sumitrosis inaequalis is found from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico, but it’s uncommon in the far West. Most sources agree that larvae mine the leaves of various species of the Aster family (the outliers say members of the Nettle and/or Pea families), and adults are found on leaves of a variety of herbaceous and woody plants. The BugLady loves its little white spats.

 
The BugLady

The post Bugs Without Bios VIII appeared first on Field Station.

The BugLady has been hanging out at her local ephemeral pond again, looking at small things in the water. She loves the cycles of ephemeral ponds and the critters they contain (they’re also called vernal/spring ponds, but because some hold water in fall instead of spring, “ephemeral” is a more inclusive term). Ephemeral ponds are (most years) just that—ephemeral. These are here-today-and-gone-tomorrow ponds, gather-ye-rosebuds-while-ye-may wetlands. The wonder of EPs is that they are populated by animals that take the disappearing water in stride—animals that are prepared to dry up with the pond or to get out of Dodge (timing IS everything), and therein lie many tales.

An astonishing array of animals use EPs as a place to drink, hunt, and breed, but an EP is a challenging place to call home. The still, shallow water warms quickly and contains little oxygen. As the water evaporates, its inhabitants squeeze into increasingly smaller spaces; water quality declines as waste products, including carbon dioxide, increase; and food gets harder to find. The annual drought makes EPs unsuitable for fish, which wreak havoc if they do find their way into an EP from nearby waterways in flood time. Do EP animals live there because they’ve developed adaptations that let them survive drought, or do they live there because the EP’s cycles give them something they need—a dry period? Yes.

Not every puddle that disappears seasonally is an Ephemeral Pond; the presence of certain indicator species verifies its status. Wood frogs, blue-spotted salamanders and fairy shrimp are considered obligate EP species in Wisconsin, and finding empty caddis fly cases or encysted fairy shrimp eggs in the leaf litter of a dry depression in fall also identifies it as an EP. For information about EPs and an monitoring project.

Many citizens of the EP—like damselflies, snails, marsh treaders, daphnia, water sowbugs, phantom midges, scuds, and soldier flies—are not pictured in this episode but have been featured in these pages previously and are archived. Others may star in their own episodes someday soon. Here are some of this spring’s crop, including a few “newborns.” Remember, the BugLady’s working definition of “bug” is rather catholic.

Tadpoles

EPs are magnets for breeding amphibians, which must lay their soft eggs in water. Their Tadpoles mature fast, so they can hop away when the pond disappears (these are “land frogs” as adults). Two species of Wisconsin frog (Green and Bull frogs) do not lay eggs in EPs; their tadpoles take two summers to mature and so need permanent water.

Bloodworm

The aptly-named Bloodworm is a fly larva, one of the midges. Many midge larvae live in low oxygen habitats; their color comes from a hemoglobin-like pigment that helps them hang onto oxygen.

Dragonfly

The young of some Dragonfly species develop quickly from eggs laid when adults visit the ponds in spring, their rate of development “goosed” by the warming water temperatures. They become adults before their pond disappears. Other dragonfly (and damselfly) species lay eggs in summer or fall—eggs that go through a period of diapause (suspended animation) when they dry out and that restart when the pond fills again.

Mayflies

Mayflies are famous for appearing in uncountable numbers, causing people in some river towns to call out the snowplows. This empty exoskeleton was left behind by a mayfly on its way to adulthood. Their eggs enter diapause to avoid dry conditions.

Mosquito Larvae

Mosquito larvae (“wigglers”) are food for a host of carnivorous aquatic insects and for larval salamanders. The BugLady read that some species of mosquito lay eggs on damp mud near the pond’s edge—these enter diapause and can be dormant for years until the water rises again.

Larvae of Predaceous Diving Beetles are rightly called Water Tigers. They both grab their prey and inject enzymes through their sickle-shaped mandibles. They eat lots of mosquito wigglers and will even take on tadpoles.

Predaceous Diving Beetles

Adult Predaceous Diving Beetles continue their offspring’s carnivorous ways. They are found in permanent ponds, but may overwinter within the mud and litter of the dry EP.

The BugLady loves the fierce Giant Water Bug (Handle with Care), and not just because the male of the species is caregiver for the eggs that his lady glues onto his back. Its strategy for drought is to find permanent waters until EP opens up next spring. Note the red blobs on the edge of its exoskeleton, near the legs. These are Water Mites, whose nymphs are parasites on their aquatic brethren.

Caddisflies

Caddisflies creep around the vegetation of the EP wearing shelters they make from silk and from the materials at hand. Some species are herbivores that, while feeding, break down large pieces of vegetation into bits that smaller critters can eat. Others are carnivores—the BugLady read of one species that feeds on larval salamander embryos from un-hatched egg masses. Their eggs overwinter.

Planeria

Planeria are flatworms and are not related to earthworms or leeches (which are related to each other). Most scrounge bacteria, algae, and dead stuff from the pond floor. They get through the winter as eggs, and the adults of some species can encyst themselves.

Fairy Shrimp

Fairy Shrimp like this gravid female were scarce in the EP this year due to some outlaw stickleback fish that entered the pond last summer. Fairy shrimp eggs have a thick shell that protects them from desiccation. They can withstand years of drought and must be dried and re-hydrated in order to hatch.

Seed Shrimp/Ostracide or Clam Shrimp

These tiny guys, which are either Seed Shrimp/Ostracide or ClamShrimp, do look like seeds and clams, but they are both Crustaceans, (very) distantly related to crayfish. Most are well under ¼” in length, which means they are targeted by many of the EPs predators. The eggs of both are drought-resistant.

Water Boatman

This is the tiniest Water Boatman the BugLady has ever seen, she slurped it up with an eyedropper. Some water boatmen may leave the EP in summer (they’re good fliers) to spend the winter in permanent ponds and repopulate the EP in spring. Others may dig down in the mud and wait for the snow to melt.

Water Scorpions

Elegant and predatory Water Scorpions spend the winter in nearby permanent waters and move into EPs when the water warms in spring.

Crawling Water Beetle

The oh-so-difficult to photograph Crawling Water Beetle is found in EPs and permanent waters. Some species overwinter as adults. Others as larvae that leave the water and dig into damp soil at a pond’s edge.

Larval Salamander

While their tadpole cousins are herbivores, gilled Larval Salamanders are major predators in the EP. They consume many small invertebrates, and the species of salamanders that hatch first will prey on their later-emerging cousins. Breeding salamanders are among the first to leave the land and enter the EP in spring, often when there is still ice around the edges of the pool.

The BugLady recommends the nifty booklet A Guide to the Animals of Vernal Ponds by Kenney and Burne, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Go outside—visit an ephemeral pond, the game’s afoot.

 
The BugLady

The post Ephemeral Pond Critters appeared first on Field Station.

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” What indeed? The BugLady will get back to that.

Caddisflies

Caddisflies, in the order Trichoptera (hairy wings), are famous for the cases built for protection by their soft-bodied larvae (the only natural “armor” they possess is located on their head, thorax and legs) and for the larvae’s ability to produce silk thread via a silk gland in their lower lip. They use silk to “glue” materials together to construct the case, to net some food, and to modify the case before they pupate.

[metaslider id=7301]

Caddisfly larvae live in water, both running and still; in fact, according to Elsie Klots in The New Fieldbook of Freshwater Life, they are one of four orders of insects that “have become almost wholly aquatic during their immature life” (a European species lives in wet moss). Many of the pond dwellers cut and assemble small vegetation-bits into portable homes. Some “homes” are thin tubes, some get glued together “the long way,” and some resemble Lincoln-log-like chimneys made of mini-twigs custom-trimmed by the larvae. In streams or rivers, where staying in place is a challenge, the larvae use heavier building materials like tiny pieces of gravel, or they spin a net that they glue onto a rock or into a crevice. Unlike turtles, whose shell and body are joined, caddisflies can leave their case of sticks or stones. Naked—deprived of their homes—they look like little wet caterpillars (to whom they are not-so-distantly related).

North America boasts around 1,400 species of Tri-cops (as they are known familiarly), and not surprisingly for such a large group, their larvae indulge in a wide variety of feeding methods. There are predators and there are “shredders” (performing the valuable service of turning big pieces of vegetation into little ones and thereby setting the table for even smaller organisms). Some net-spinners are “collectors” that let the current deliver their meals “carry-out,” (some net-spinners can produce a sound by rubbing a front leg against the underside of their head). Finally, there are “scrapers,” grazing on tiny organic particles stuck to underwater surfaces. As adults, with mouthparts that are described as “spongelike,” they ingest only liquids.

Adult caddisflies (a.k.a. Fish Food) resemble very long-antennaed moths; they tent their wings above their abdomens (making them look triangular from the rear), and their wings are covered with tiny hairs. Females of some species actually climb under water to lay their eggs, protected from getting soaked by a thin layer of air trapped in that dense covering of hairs. According to Eaton and Kaufman in the Field Guide to Insects of North America, fly-tiers (or tie-flyers) work hard to replicate caddisflies with their lures. Exceptionally sensitive to pollution, their presence signals good water quality. And, with a little luck, trout.

Once, after the BugLady gave a presentation about Pond Life to third graders, a child asked where the caddisfly got its name. The BugLady did not know (but loves to research the etymology of entomology) and promised to find out, and here is what she discovered: Back in the days of the first Queen Elizabeth (when Romeo and Juliet were obsessing about names), itinerant peddlers roamed the world. Those who sold ribbons, threads and yarns were called “Cadice-men” after “cadaz/caddis/caddice,” words that had come to refer to worsted yarn. Cadice-men displayed their wares by attaching samples of threads and yarns to their coats. In his wonderful A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America, J. Reese Voshell, Jr. says that the larva’s ability to glue pieces of material together to make its case was reminiscent of how a Cadice-man covered his jacket with pieces of textile. Was the person who named caddisflies, like the BugLady, a bug-loving history-geek?

 
The BugLady

The post Caddisfly appeared first on Field Station.