Jerusalem Crickets

Jerusalem crickets are often imagined to be Near Eastern insects (John the Baptist is often assumed to have eaten the things) but they are not (and he didn't). They only occur in the western half of the United states and through Central America. But if diversity counts as preference (a ridiculous concept for sure) than their favorite place to live must be California. Of the 28 species listed by David Weissman (in his fascinating chapter on their communication and reproductive behavior in Laurence Field's book, The Biology of Wetas, King Crickets, and Their Allies) 19 are from California.



I'm going to call these two crickets Stenopelmatus nigrocapitatus (the dark headed Jerusalem cricket) although I have only a little confidence that this is true. This species is known from Fresno County where I found the second cricket (the first image was from just north of there in Mariposa County). The difficulty is that I don't have a recording of their nuptial drumbeats on which their taxonomy depends. Of course these insects don't beat on drums. In fact they don't even have the typical grasshopper ears (on their side) or washboard sounding mechanism (for rubbing their wings and legs together). But they do drum nonetheless - with their abdomens against the ground. They are also very good at picking up the drumming sound of other Jerusalem crickets with their forelegs.



I found the Mariposa cricket at dusk along the Merced River below Yosemite last November. With flashlight in hand, Jon, Bailey and I had just finished setting up camp and had taken our flashlights to go looking for whatever we might find. It wasn't long before we found the crickets hopping along the dirt road. It's a lot nicer to see these remarkable insects alive than in collections, where they are usually shriveled up and unidentifiable when left on pins. The second picture is of an individual I found three weeks ago along the San Joaquin River north of Fresno. Both insects are about an inch long.


The habitat shot is along the Merced River the day after I found the cricket. It had rained all night and the next day was mostly cloudy. I slept dismally inside the cab of my truck (in which I don't fit horizontally) so that the boys could stay dry in the covered bed. The next day was beautiful nonetheless. November is, after all, a bit of an unpredictable month in these parts. On the one hand it is the end of the year and most living things are asleep or dormant. On the other hand, the rains have begun and grass is starting to grow - a prelude to spring. One sort of takes one's pick on the prevailing mood. And the Merced River somehow knows all of this and tends to speak for itself. By lunchtime I think it was in a good mood.

Phloeodes diabolicus

Ironclad beetles are the tanks of the insect world. They are famous (or infamous) for walking away after being stepped on. There are even reports of species being run over by cars without apparent harm. To an entomologist, they are notorious for the challenge of getting an insect pin through their thick skin (cuticle). What usually happens is the first attempt bends the pin. The second attempt bruises the thumb and forefinger to the bone. And then with a combination of anger and grit (and with two hands gripping the shaft) the pin is forced through the reinforced exoskeleton. With luck it has gone through straight and without popping the legs off on the other side. Very often it doesn't - as verified by any number of oddly pinned specimens stuck to the bottom of unit trays in the museums of the world.



These images are of our most common ironclad beetle in the Central Valley - the diabolical ironclad beetle. How the species got its name is a mystery to me. Perhaps the shiny golden setae on a dark black background in many of the individuals reminded the author (LeConte) of fire and brimstone. Whatever the reason, it is a name (and a species) not easily forgotten.



These images were taken a couple of weeks ago near the King's River outside of Sanger (California). I found a grove of old oaks with one fallen individual cut into bathtub-sized sections. The beetles were congregated under the thick loose bark. They are about three quarters of an inch long and feign death when disturbed - making them easier to photograph. Some of the individuals are completely black and all of them have small velvety black sections on their back. The golden white setae on the shoulders and elytral apex are also very striking - especially under magnification. In the past, entomologists have thought these color differences represented different species. This is hard to maintain when individuals of both patterns are found in the same place (even on the same log as I found here). A full study of this group of ironclad beetles has recently been done by Ian Foley and Mike Ivie (at Montana State University, and published in Zootaxa, 2008). They document a geographical change in this pattern (a cline) and have confirmed that the variability represents only one species.




The habitat shot is along Byrd Slough where I found the little devils.

Aneides lugubris

The arboreal salamander (Aneides lugubris) is normally a pale creature occuring in the coastal mountains of of the Western US. The first two images here are of the juvenile stage that is quite darker than the adults. In fact when I found this one, it was hard to distinguish from the fungal growth pattern of the log it was on.

I found it at Big Sur Campground a year ago last month. We were camping in a grove of magnificent coastal redwoods. Early in the morning, while the family was still sleeping, I quietly left the campground and followed a small trail up the hill west of camp. It's easy to be completely quiet when the forest floor is covered with fallen redwood leaves in all stages of decay. It's like walking on a carpet with a two-inch pad beneath.

At first light there was still a mist in the redwood canopy and a scent of moist humus in the air. At different places along the trail there were old logs scattered in the understory. They were damp. And when fallen timber remains moist year round, as it happens in this shaded forest, it becomes an open invitation for all kinds of creatures. If a mature coastal tree is home to many kinds of animals and epiphytic plants, a fallen one in decay becomes a veritable hotel for forest creatures.

Sometimes these logs are just too big for me to move. Other times it's quite easy to find out what might be hiding underneath. With this log I happened to get lucky. There turned out to be an attractive amphibian wiling away the cool December morning just waiting for me to take its picture. It's quite an impressive creature for sure. Here is a habitat shot above the forested area where I found it.

Later in my wonderings, I came across another salamader (the third salamaner picture). I'm guessing it is the Santa Lucia Mountains slender salamander (Batrachoseps luciae) but somebody better with amphibians had better be the last word on this id. It doesn't match my field guide as well as I would like - but then again, Mother Nature doesn't always listen to field guides.

Boreus coloradensis

There aren't many insects out and about during the last week of the year - at least not in North America. A little later on you can find small black stoneflies on the snow near mountain streams. A few spiders or midges might also be out. With persistence you might even find a wingless cankerworm or two but December is not known as the best time of the year to look for bugs. Of course you can easily find over-wintering beetles, caterpillars and bugs under rocks and logs but as far as active insects go, your chances are limited. Unless, that is, you're lucky enough to find a scorpionfly. Not any scorpionfly, mind you, but a small black scorpionfly that shows up on the snow much like a tiny piece of dislodged bark or a perhaps a chipped piece of stone. We happened to be just lucky enough a few weeks ago to find some.

These first two images are of small (3-5 mm long) snow scorpionflies of the family Boreidae. They don't look much like other scorpionflies that have colorful wings and lighter-colored bodies but the long rostrum is a bit of a giveaway. The first picture is of a female with her long ovipositor. The second picture is of a male. Erik, Michael and I found these over Christmas break in Rock Canyon above Provo (Utah). It was a bit of an overcast day but once we got into the canyon, the air cleared out and the snow was beautiful. Finding the boreids was a real bonus.

There aren't that many scorpionflies around to begin with - just over 500 species worldwide. Of these only about 30 belong to the family Boreidae, or the snow scorpionflies. Norm Penny is the leading authority on these remarkable insects. His world catalogue indicates that the only species known from Utah is B. coloradensis - so that's what I'm calling these individuals, at least for now. I was a bit surprised to discover that the little creatures can jump. They can't project themselves as far as fleas (which seem to be relatives of the Mecoptera) but they did manage to jump several inches when I approached them. That's a long jump for a creature with legs that are not much bigger than the commas on this page. And to imagine that all this activity (limited though it may be) is managed on a blanket of ice crystals.

I was surprised to find that John Acorn also has a nice image of another species (I think) on the last page of the American Entomologist (Winter 2010). I'm guessing that he found it in Canada but you'll have to ask him.

Macropogon testaceipennis

Here's a beetle you don't see every day. It doesn't have a common name. In fact the family it belongs to doesn't even have a common name that many people recognize. To the scientific community this insect is known as Macropogon testaceipennis and it belongs to the family Artematopodidae. It is known primarily from the Sierra Nevada of California.


Let me put this in a little more perspective. Many common insects are known, at the species level, by a non-Latin name. The monarch butterfly comes readily to mind as does the Japanese beetle or the common green darner (a dragonfly). Many insect watchers are also familiar with the fiery searcher (a big metallic green ground beetle) or the green June beetle (a flighty scarab that likes orchards and comes to lights). Most insects, however, don't have a common name but the family they belong to does. Some examples of family group names are: lady bird beetles (family Coccinellidae), stink bugs (Pentatomidae), click beetles (Elateridae). This works, even though many of us don't recognize individual species in these groups, because we do recognize the overall category - and we have seen species that belong to these families.

But some families don't have these kinds of names. These families tend to be poorly known and have fewer species. The family Artematopodidae is one of these families. I took this picture last June above Dinkey Creek Campground (in Fresno County, California) at an elevation around 7,000 feet. I recognized the obscure beetle at the family level right away but it took me several months to figure out what species it was. The pale coloring on the "shoulders" (the elytral humeral angles) was the troubling part. It wasn't until last month while going through the California State Collection of Arthropods that I noticed a unit tray containing specimens ranging in color from completely pale elytra to completely dark elytra with several individuals having the abbreviated coloring like in this image.



I have no idea what kind of sedge it was on but the area where I found it is a spare rocky riparian landscape with scattered junipers and manzanita. To the few locals who know about it, this is the place called Granite Pools. It's not real easy to get to but hardy hikers manage just fine. The pools are great for swimming once the heavy spring run-off is over. In June when I took this picture there was too much water and swimming wasn't possible yet. If you look close you can see a faint rainbow formed in the cold mountain spray above the tumbling creek.

Lacon sparsa

Lacon sparsa is a broad black click beetle about half an inch long that lives under the bark of dead trees. I found this individual over the Thanksgiving weekend under the bark of a dead gray pine on Los Gatos Creek in western Fresno County (west of Coalinga). There wasn't much out except for lark sparrows lower down the canyon, yellow-billed magpies and darkling beetles along the road.



Lacon sparsa is easily recognizable with its predominantly black scales overlying its black body. There are a few scattered white scales intermixed but not nearly enough to confuse it with L. rorulenta which also has coppery scales (see my previous post for November 4). It's an attractive clicker.



If November isn't the most productive month to be collecting in this part of California. Los Gatos Creek isn't very productive for another reason: it's fenced almost it's entire length. There are a few places to get out and look around - even a few new campgrounds being put in - but overall, Warthon Canyon to the south is better for finding insects.


That said, the scenery is still nice - open pine oak woodland. You just have to enjoy it on the other side of a fence.

Agabus grisseipennis

Three weeks ago, in the middle of November, we had a warm spell in Fresno and the thermometer rose to the high 70's. I took a walk outside to enjoy the day and was surprised by a singular raindrop as I passed a large puddle by the road. The sky was clear and yet I was certain that something had fallen from above into the water. As I stopped to see what was going on, another drop landed on the puddle but this time I could tell that it wasn't water. It was a beetle.


To be more precise, it was a diving beetle (Agabus grisseipennis) a fairly common diving beetle of the Western US. It was obviously taking advantage of the warm day but I was curious about the temporary pool. Why would the predatory beetles be landing in a temporary puddle in November. Obviously this was no place to complete a life cycle.

Then I noticed the dragonflies - lots of them. They were variegated meadowhawks and at one point I noticed ten mating pairs in copula bobbing up and down over the water - the females dropping eggs when the pair got close enough to the puddle. Some dragonflies species are known to drop eggs in temporary ponds or by the side of streams in moist soil. The eggs can survive out of water for quite some time until water returns and covers them up and they hatch.




Then I noticed a backswimmer (a true bug of the genus Notonecta) drop into the water, and I started to figure out what was going on. Both the diving beetle and the backswimmer are predators and I suspected that they were attracted by the dragonflies - and the chance of eating their eggs.

The picture of the backswimmer is a bit out of focus but it is unusual enough that I'm posting it anyway. Backswimmers live almost all of their lives underwater with their bottom (ventral) side up. When they swim, they kick their legs somewhat like a human swimmer doing the backstroke - hence their name. I have been around ponds and puddles for about 30 years watching insects and this is the first time I ever remember seeing a backswimmer resting on top of the water with its backside up. I even found one individual resting beside the puddle on moist soil in the same position. It seemed that these insects were behaving in a peculiar way because of an opportunity - a warm autumn dragonfly fest.




These sorts of entomological spectacles have to be appreciated when you come across them. You may never see the likes of them again. Sadly, they often happen and nobody notices. I saw a couple of people pass the puddle and not notice a single insect. I left for a couple of hours and when I returned the buzz of activity was over. All I saw was a lone backswimmer resting on the muddy bottom - backside down.