Morning-glory plume moth

While gardening this afternoon in the lovely spring weather I disturbed this plume moth, Emmelina monodactyla. She fluttered slowly and settled on the wall adopting its usual T-shape position with folded wings protecting their feathery divisions. The first moth of the year for me.

More information
UKmoths page for Emmelina monodactyla

A little collection of litter springtails

I have been gathering leaves from the garden and bringing them inside to look for springtails. I was enticed to give them some more attention after spending some time checking the awesome photographs of Eddy Nurcombe in Flickr. They transport you to a strange and tantalising world where everything is relative. Apparently gigantic millimetre long beasts with dark stern eyes tower over other bugs as big as a speck of dust. I wanted to have a glimpse by myself so, armed with the hand held digital microscope I set up to explore the leaf litter. Springtails are a group of hexapods - as are insects - but, unlike insects, they are primarily flightless. They still have six legs and a pair of antennae, like insects, but lack long cerci on their rear ends, like diplurans. Most springtails have a forked spring folded under their abdome, the furcula, which they can released when disturbed, and gives them their name. Despite this, some springtails are springless, and many soil living ones have lost all pigment and eyes. Surface dwelling springtails may be covered on iridescent scales, or be hairy and can be surprisingly colourful.
 Springtails are important part of soil ecosystems and feed on decomposing plants and animals, excrement, fungi, algae, and bacteria, others are predators of smaller animals. They are predated by many organisms, including small birds, spiders, harvestmen, centipedes
 There are over 250 sp of British springtails, and at first, that seems a bit discouraging as to trying to identify them. In addition, they can be minuscule! The largest UK springtails are around 6 mm, and the smallest are 0.2 mm, close to the limit of what is visible with the naked eye (especially if you are starting to be a little long sighted!). On the positive side, some of the common species are quite distinctive and with a little practice, identifying others to genus can be done, with a little help of macrophotography.

Lepidocyrtus cyaneus, an iridescent blue springtail

Tomocerus minor, another iridescent springtail.

I was trying to take some photos of one of these lovely Hypogastrura purpurescens. They look rubbery and matt, in contrast to the iridescent species...

...when this tiny spider jumped onto the field of vision and ate one of them - just visible at the front of the spider. I wished I had taken a video of that!

 The distinctive globular springtail Dicyrtomina ornata

Despite its name, this is one of the large springtail species, Tomocerus minor, here posing with a woodlouse

A relative of the Lion Springtail, the handsome Orchesella cincta

I like to call this species the Lion springtail, as it's got a wonderful mane (also top photo). Orchesella villosa. I often find in on fallen apples (top).

 Cyphoderus albinus, a springtail often found in ant nests.

Protaphorura sp. a large aggregation on a rotting plant. This is actually a springless springtail, as it does not have a furca. Also, as the previous one, it has no eyes or pigment, as they often live underground.

Entomobrya intermedia

Now I see springtails everywhere. Click to see the full resolution photo and you will notice that there are many springtails - and some bark lice - around these overwintering Harlequins.

More information
A photographic key to common UK springtails.
Collembola of Britain and Ireland. Steve Hopkin's site with distribution maps.
Checklist of the Collembola. With lots of info on springtail biology.

A cool harvestman

Today I came across an unmistakable harvestman species, Dicranopalpus ramosus. This species has - or is in the process of - colonising Europe from its original home in North Africa. It is unclear if this expansion has or not anything to do with human transportation, but it has been suggested that it could could have been introduced with garden plants or horticultural produce, and the species has carried on expanding. It was first noted in the UK in 1957, and reported in Scotland in 2000.

 This is the second time I spot this harvestman. The first time (07/11/2009), was in the same location and also on a headstone (above). They have a typical resting posture, close to the substrate, with their long legs outstretched to the sides, and they often rest alongside leaves or branches this way. When resting on walls - or in this case on headstones - they are easy to spot. The second distinctive feature is that, their palps are forked. Males have a dark mask across the eyes and plain bodies about 4 mm in length, females have pale eye region and dark patterns in their body, palps and legs. 

Adults are found from the end of July onwards, peaking in September, apparently happy to live until February or March if the frosts don't kill them. 

A female

Male showing the usual stretched posture.

Close up of the same male.

No records were available for East Yorkshire, so these now have been uploaded into iRecord.

More information
Page in the British Spiders site.

House spider with egg sac

Under the lid of the water butt in the garden I found this small Tegenaria, guarding its curious egg sac. I had never seen a Tegenaria egg sac before, the reason being that, according to W.S. Bristowe, their egg sacs are normally attached inside the spider's funnel, where they would be hard to see. In this case I probably broke the funnel when opening the lid and the egg sac seems to hang from the plastic by a few threads of silk. This peculiarity and its small size compared to other Tegenaria specimens make me think it is T. domestica, a species found in or outside houses. I hope I didn't disturb the spider too much, as I plan to follow the development of her spiderlings, which stay with their mums for a few molts inside her funnel.

UPDATE 9/06/2014. I now believe the egg sac belongs to a spider of the genus Ero. See this BugGuide thread for more info.

Longtailed mealybugs

A few years ago I bought a house plant, Clivia miniata, and soon after I realised it was infested with Longtailed mealybugs, Pseudococcus longispinus. These are pests of many agricultural plants in warm regions and greenhouse or house plants in colder areas. I was reluctant to get rid of the plant, since has flowered nicely every winter, so I keep the infestation in check by regularly wiping the leaves. Today I checked the plant and realised it had quite a few visible mealybugs so I gave them a quick photographic session, experimenting with a little 400x Veho microscope.
At first sight, infested plants appear to have small powdery patches on their leaves, especially on the underside. On close inspection, weird whitish bugs become apparent, and these are actually insects, with sucking mouthparts. This species has 17 pairs of lateral projections, four of them are long filaments on their rear ends. Under the microscope, their six legs are visible under their bodies, although they are hidden under their lateral projections when looked from above. Mealybugs are covered on a waxy white substance that looks like desiccated coconut, and hair-like fibers. They are soft insects and this is  their protection against predators, although lacewings, ladybirds can predate them, and they are also parasitised by wasps.

The lateral projections and fibers of an adult mealybug

Individuals of different sizes cluster together. The larger ones are adult females. They are wingless and have little mobility and they can reproduce parthenogenetically. The smaller individuals are nymphs, and have shorter lateral projections.

They are quite mobile, as you can see in this video.



The first stage nymphs - just visible with the naked eye - are called crawlers. They are yellowish, and have little wax. I found it impossible to take a photo of them under the microscope, as they walk surprisingly quickly. They appear to be a dispersal stage in the wild, as they are easily blown away by the wind and thus transported to nearby plants. Males do exist, although they are quite rare, and they look completely different. They are winged and lack the waxy coating of females.

More information
Mealybug info.