Absent Parent bugs

Posted on July 14, 2014 by insectinside

Parent bug nymphs with not a parent in sight

Last year I wrote about Parent bugs, marvelling at the fact the mother sits with her nymphs until adulthood. This year it seems this has all changed. I have been watching 11 families of nymphs in Warwick Gardens and none of them have a mother in attendance, even early instar nymphs. I have found them laying eggs and soon after the female has gone. I would have expected a couple of females to fall by the wayside, but all of them? This has got me wondering about what is happening to them. Maybe its an early brood thing – the adults overwinter and breed in the spring so maybe they have just died off before raising their nymphs? Has it got something to do with the warm winter – did they breed too early? Or are the adults being predated – there are certainly a lot of shield bug predating wasps in the park, especially on the southside, and a juicy adult bug would be perfect for the larder. But surely not all the adults would have been taken, especially as the abandonment is happening on trees on both sides of the park?

I have even trudged around the streets of Peckham looking through every silver birch tree I come across and have found plenty of nymphs being brooded by their mothers. So it seems the abandonment is only happening in Warwick Gardens. Have our females formed a union and gone on strike after voting to rescind their parental duties? The nymphs certainly seem to be happy going it alone and not rebelling like teenagers and running amok hosting Facebook parties. They prefer to hang out as a gang on a leaf; so well-behaved that maybe the mothers are feeling unnecessary and trying out a new form of liberal parenting. If this phenomenon continues will our Parent bug have to be renamed the Absent Parent bug?

On a serious note I would be interested if anyone else has noticed Parent bug nymphs without the adult present. Many of our nymphs have reached adulthood and starting their own families so I will be watching to see if this pattern continues.

Hipster flies

Posted on July 9, 2014 by insectinside

Peckham used to be relatively free of hipsters until the Overground started to spit them onto our streets, transported from their spiritual home in Shoreditch and no doubt digging the irony of being in south London. They are a strange cultural subset, looking rather like bored lumberjacks in limbo cycling around the forest-free streets in their checked shirts, skinny jeans and large spectacles. Their beards seem to sit uncomfortably on the face as if the fashion dictat threw them a cynical reason to make us all laugh. Or is that the irony?

The dapper Gymnosoma rotundatum

To be fair, Gymnosoma rotundatum is more of a dandy than a hipster. But it does have a beard! Decked out in a dashing black shirt and bright orange pants with three black spots down its back, like large buttons, gives rise to its common name the ladybird fly. Rather than cycling it flits around Warwick Gardens, stopping on leaves and flowers and taking time to pose for photos. It belongs to the Tachinid family of flies. Tachinids are parasitic and ours has a preference for shield bugs. They lay their eggs on the bug and when the eggs hatch, the larvae bore into the body and feed off the insides. When they are ready to pupate they crawl their way back out and into soil. Rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle!

High rise living

Posted on July 5, 2014 by insectinside

The chronic need for housing in London is big news at the moment. Land is at a premium and house building has to fight for space amongst the fancy office blocks and shopping malls that are littering our city. There is talk of building on the green belt, extending suburbia, despite legislation making that impossible; our brownfield sites are being handed over to build yet more supermarkets, and soon people will be able to build in their gardens. Add to that the loss of front gardens to parking the ever increasing sales of cars, contributing to flooding and chokingly high levels of pollution. All this erodes our green spaces – valuable both to wildlife and our health and sanity. We need to utilise the thousands of houses that stand empty, heavily tax the people who buy just for investment, and build upwards. Tall housing is a win – multiple occupancy for humans and opportunities for living roofs offering high rise meadows and other wildlife friendly habitats. Couple that with some living walls and solar panelling we could start to restore the lungs of our city. Simple really!

Beetle holes, Yellow-faced hyleaus bee and Chelostoma campanularum bee

The solitary bees and wasps of Warwick Gardens have utilised the empty beetle holes in one of the tall standing totem poles. There is a whole community of tiny bees buzzing with all the fervour of living in a multiple occupancy block of nests. The main occupants – Hylaeus and Chelostoma sp – spend a lot of time out and about in the park collecting pollen to store for their young, zipping back to their nests every so often, while the parasitic wasps lurk around waiting to lays their eggs in these nests. Today as I watched a bee go into her nest a Gasteruption jaculator wasp was also watching… when the bee left the wasp stuck her oviposter in the hole and laid her eggs. On hatching they will feed on the grubs of the bee as well as on stored food. These dainty fairy-like wasps do have a dark side!

Gasteruption jaculator checking bee hole,

Gasteruption jaculator checking bee nest, preparing, and oviposting

Also living in the tower block is the tiny mason wasp Microdynerus exilis which is new to Warwick Gardens. She is nesting higher up the block. I am excited to find this wasp as it is a Notable B species and thus uncommon, only found in the south of England. I first saw one wrapped around the stamens of a buttercup in early June, so it is good to see it nesting in the park.

Microdynerus exilis

The penthouse is occupied by the wool-carder bee, Anthidium manicatum, one of our largest solitary bees. At the moment they are busy feeding on the black horehound, with a characteristic darting flight pattern – the males are fiercely terrirtorial, defending their territory vigorously against other males and insects and will fly at intruders to move them on. Nests are constructed in existing aerial cavities like beetle holes. Our bees are nesting in the top crevice of the totem pole with nests made of the shaved hairs of plant stems.

Wool-carder bee

All is good in this high rise block of hymenoptera and its great to sit and watch all the comings and goings. Though lurking in the shadows are the dark things… the walnut orb spider sits and waits for the moment a bee flies into its web. Just like a moody landlord waiting for the day you can’t pay the rent…

Walnut orb spider

Tortoise beetles, bugs and butterflies

Posted on June 30, 2014 by insectinside

Its been a while since my last post and Warwick Gardens has burst into life. It seems the warm winter and the recent hot weather has allowed certain species to flourish. The new edible hedge is doing well with the first fruit being a fine crop of fat gooseberries, the thistles are back with a vengeance and a new patch of black horehound has sprung up. The insect life is certainly abundant with record numbers of bees, beetles, bugs and butterflies. There have been new sightings of red-headed cardinal beetles, the plant bug Leptopterna ferrugata, bordered shield bug and a tiny wasp which i am trying to get an ID for… But this post is about all things tortoise!

Tortoise beetle and larva

The Green tortoise beetle is what I would call a paranoid beetle in the way it has equipped itself to avoid detection. I usually find them face down tucked between the thistle leaves but this year they have decided to hang out on the Lesser burdock. The vast leaves of this plant are a playground for these beetles – I have never seen them so active! Running across the leaves, flying, mating and, of course, when you approach them they behave just like tortoises, pulling their antennae and feet in and pulling their ‘shell’ tight down around them. They really blend into the green background, making them difficult to spot. The larvae are equally careful about being detected: these little spiky beings carry their poo on their backs!

Tortoise shield bugs

Another new sighting in the park has been the Tortoise shield bug. I have been really pleased to find these as they have been on my ‘wish list’ for a while. I spotted the first one amongst the comfrey bushes when I was photographing flower bees. Since then I have found five. They seem to differ in colouration – from a rather dull brown to wonderful pink/brown mottled ‘tortoise’ markings. They have been mating so the next challenge is to find the nymphs. I will keep you posted!

Tortoiseshell butterfly caterpillar and adult

Our best known British butterfly has to be the beautiful Tortoiseshell butterfly. One of the first butterflies out in the spring, they are the denizens of urban gardens. Their bright orange tortoiseshell markings really brighten up the day. This year they have been in abundance in Warwick Gardens, with a fine showing of caterpillars on the nettles.