Prepare for National Insect Week 2012.......

25th June to 1st July 2012

All this mild weather is making me start to think about spring. I have a daffodil flowering in the garden and I watched Brown Hares boxing in the fields today. I have to keep pinching myself that it is still only January and a real Artic chill could sweep in on us at anytime. There is however a good reason to be looking ahead - National Insect Week! www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk It is organised by the Royal Entomological Society www.royensoc.co.uk  and a whole host of partner organisations. The website is just bursting with information. There are simply loads of surveys you, your school and your family can get involved with. Hundreds of events being listed up and down the country, excellent educational resources you can download, a photography competition, a writing competition and a great deal more. National Insect Week is all about celebrating our Great British Insects and encouraging you to get involved. Get out there, discover what really is living in your back garden, playground or local park. As soon as those evenings start to draw out, the sun starts warm the ground and as the first Swallow arrives, its time to discover more about the insect world in all its fascinating diversity! Be a part of National Insect Week 2012!

Humble beginings....

Gorgeous Chinese Oak Silk Moths, Antheraea pernyi have started to emerge from their cocoons today. Last year the tiny eggs hatched into very hairy, little black caterpillars with outstandingly strong mandibles,(jaws). They need to be because, as its name suggests, the Chinese Oak Silk Moth caterpillar eats rather tough oak leaves. After about five days the little caterpillars shed their black skins to reveal fantastic yellowish green bodies underneath. These then grow at an incredible rate, ( up to 9cm long), and become a brighter shade of green as they do. The cocoon they spin is a silvery white colour and in China was the source of wild or tussah silk. (For more information on cocoons and silk, please look in archived blogs). Now finally, after waiting patiently, they are just starting to emerge as adults. With an impressive wing span of 15cm they really are a truly hairy moth! Close up their banded legs, creamy body and superb wings are covered in soft hairs. What I however, think is best of all, is the translucent as well as highly reflective, spots on their wings. Held up to a back light, these moths look like they have actual holes in their wings. Incredible as well as beautiful!

Banishing the winter blues.....

Our Giant Floridan Katydids, Stilpnochlora couloniana, are brushing aside the winter blues and are busy egg laying! These stunning, lush green insects belong to the Orthoptera Order along with crickets and grasshoppers.Whats cool about these gorgeous invertebrates is that they have evolved to live their entire life cycle up in the trees. They are mainly nocturnal, feeding at night, (on Buddleia, Bramble and Rose in captivity), and the males make a wonderful short, sharp, rasp with their legs, which they rub along their wings. The adults wings also give them the most amazing leaf camouflage and they can cover quite a distance with a quick jump becoming a  strong flight. It is the larger of the two that is the female. She selects a twig and sticks her tiny eggs onto it in a tight batch of little rows. Their seed like camouflage yet again working wonders to protect the defenseless eggs from hungry prying eyes in the wild. The eggs need plenty of humidity and a temperature of 25 to 30C. After 40 to 60 days the wingless nymphs will hatch. They are truly exquisite, with long delicate antennae, spindly legs and beautiful body stripes. Right from day one they can put in a sizable leap when disturbed but become more docile as they age. A really stunning invertebrate.

Two adult Katydids blending in with their amazing camouflage.

    

The eggs as viewed from above. The whole cluster only 4cm in length.

The eggs viewed from the side. See how seed like they are. Very clever!

Phases of the moon.

There is a beautiful family of moths called the Silk Moths or the Saturniidae family. This family includes many very large moths from around the world. We are all excited today as we have had some fantastic emergence going on from our cocoon collection in the moth nets. The species in question is the absolutely stunning Indian Moon Moth Actias selene. These have been a real delight to rear from eggs and we have had great fun. The caterpillars fed on cherry leaves and grew enormous. They spun gorgeous golden silk cocoons wrapped in the fresh cherry leaves and although they are silk moths, the silk holds no commercial value. Now having waited patiently, they are emerging, pumping up their wings and fluttering around the house. Unfortunately they soon break those amazing swallow tails and as they can not feed in their adult state, die shortly after mating and within ten days. Such a shame, but tomorrow one lucky school will delight in having them in their classroom for the day as they will be roadshow special extra - such is the luck of the draw!

From the caterpillar to the adult moth, Actias selene, each stage a thing of beauty and perfection.

Spectacular spinning......

Winter is finally just around the corner after such a mild Autumn. The frosts are starting to become spectacular and magically transform the countryside. I love to look at the spiders webs when the frost picks each one out. They are a thing of beauty and a marvel of construction. Each web starts with a single strand thrown to a anchor point then a second thread bought back again. The second thread then sags to make a V-shape across the two points. This is the bought down into a Y-shape from the center and secured, then all the web threads begin. The first set of threads are called frame threads and these lay out the structure. Next are the radius threads and these infill. Finally the spider will lay a single thread called the auxiliary spiral from the center to the outer edge. Using this as its reference point it will then spin a sticky thread in spirals from the center, eating the auxiliary thread as it does. As it reaches the last few laps it switches to non sticky thread. This allows the center to trap insects and the outside clear for quick travel. The spider then waits for the vibrations of struggling prey. As if that is not wonderful enough, these amazing little chaps practice recyling. As the web deteriorates and is no longer useful to catch food, many spider species will eat up all the threads so they can actually recycle the precious raw silk. That's nature at its best!

   The raw beauty of frost as it brings a rather wintry feel to the Chalk Downlands- woolly jumpers advised!

Gorgeous grubs!

Just look at these gorgeous grubs! Really pleased with this little lot, although as I took this photograph I received a couple of well placed bites! Beetle grubs have powerful jaws and can deliver a good pinch but they are not harmful to us. In our beetle tank we have an assortment of African Fruit Beetles;  Pachnoda sp. Eudicella sp. Smagdethnes sp. and Coelorrhina sp. The tank is very large with a 6 inch depth of 'bug bed' substrate and a rather cosy constant temperature of 30C. A selection of fresh fruit and cucumber slices are fed every day and while half of the tank substrate is allowed to be completely dry the other half is kept slightly damp. With assorted logs on the surface and a warm bright light, the beetles are a pleasure to watch. They happily live their own life cycles, blissfully unaware of observation. What I would like to mention here is that all beetles go through complete metamorphosis just like butterflies, moths and flies. The grubs have a head, an upper body (thorax) with six legs and a large abdomen they drag around behind. ( Caterpillars also only have six legs, the other ones you see are clasper adaptations and not true legs ). The grubs will make a cocoon out of the substrate they find around themselves and inside this they will pupate. These African Beetle grubs, like all beetle grubs, dislike light and being disturbed. We know when they are about as they drag the food down and the substrate quite literally heaves with subterranean movement. They are best left alone but I am hoping one will make its cocoon against the glass side of the tank. If it does, I will keep a photographic diary of events - fingers crossed!

Not quite as beautiful as their parents but beauty is only in the eye of the beholder!

In a spot of bother....

On the subject of overwintering, ( invertebrates can not hibernate like some warm blooded mammals but instead enter a dormant state), you might start seeing aggregations or clusters of ladybirds in the corners of your rooms about now. The day length and temperatures encourage them to seek overwintering sites. Hopefully these will be the Two Spot Ladybird Adalia bipunctata but most likely it will be the infamous Harlequin Ladybird, Harmonia axyridis. We have identified 46 species of Ladybird in the UK so far and now they are under threat from this one big, brash invader. Originally from Eastern Asia, the Harlequin has been used in biological controls around the world. In 2004 it landed on our shores. Common thought is that it strayed over from North America but however it got here does not matter now. What does is the fact it is here at all, and what effect it has on our rather special native species. Harlequins are the masters of disguise. They display many colour and pattern variants but they all have brown legs. The problem is that they breed twice a year, ours only once. A large majority of our species of Ladybirds eat only aphids. Harlequins eat not only aphids, but other insects and their eggs, including our own native Ladybird eggs and larvae. They are at present not susceptible to the parasites and pathogens that infect our native species. In short, Harlequin numbers are exploding and with no checks in place they are seriously threatening our own iconic Ladybirds as well as other important insects. Record any you see this winter please and download your sitings at  www.harlequin-survey.org we need to know how they are spreading around the UK. If by chance you spot any native species then please do the same at www.ladybird-survey.org . If you disturb Ladybirds they will 'bleed' a chemical mixture from their knee joints and other places. This is their defense and it can be rather smelly. See how many spots you can spot this winter!

Harlequin Ladybirds Harmonia axyridis getting ready for winter.