Friday, August 14, 2020

Pond Life, Part 4 - Insects


Everyone has a general idea of what constitutes an insect. Like in most habitats, they make up a diverse, prolific, interactive part of the wetlands at Halibut Point.




Three kinds of insects have congregated visibly at this water lily flower. The Honey Bee is visiting from some distance in a pollination bargain. Hordes of tiny lice-like creatures are probably feeding themselves at the expense of plant juices. A few flies resting perhaps innocuously on petal tips may be using them as hunting promontories. The photograph glimpses a complex, thrumming microcosm where a naturalist could wonder at pageants of creation and destruction mirroring cycles of beauty in the world at large.

Aquatic Leaf Beetles mating
The lily pads and flowers are usefully related in the life of the plant. Do these beetles with the metallic sheen fit in symbiotically as they chew holes in the floating leaves? Their larvae will spend early stages of their life under water, feeding on submerged aquatic stems and roots where they insert specialized tubes on their hind quarters into the stem for oxygen. 1 If it can be said there is an overall calculation of balance in the biosphere, we have to imagine the beetles playing an integral part.

Insects consuming floating moth corpse
Wherever energy and nourishment are concentrated life looks for a meal.

Whirligig Beetles
Among the most conspicuous pond insects are Whirligig Beetles that spin incessantly on the water surface looking for tiny morsels to consume. By trapping an air bubble within their outer wings (elytra) they are able to breathe while submerged.


For the most part adults stay at the surface with split eyes on each side of the head keeping track of activity both above and below the water line. 2


Water Strider
Water Striders maneuver on the pond surface not by swimming but by skating. Their feet are covered in thousands of microscopic hairs scored with groves that trap air, increasing water resistance and buoyancy. This allows striders to be fast, very, very fast. A National Geographic article reports striders are capable of “speeds of a hundred body lengths per second. To match them, a 6-foot-tall person would have to swim at over 400 miles an hour.” 3


As with all insects, Water Striders have three pairs of legs. The short front legs grab prey on the surface. The middle legs act as paddles. The long back legs provide additional power, and enable the strider to steer and “brake.”

Chris Leahy

Observing and studying such abilities has occupied Chris Leahy's attention from a young age. He says, "one of the things that draws me to Halibut Point frequently is the variety of different habitats, including the woodlands, the moors, and the sea of course. At the very top of the list in terms of diverse habitats would be the various wetlands, each with its own unique characteristics.

If wetlands are at the top of the list in terms of habitat, then insects are at the top of the list in terms of diversity of organisms."

A pair of Common Green Darner dragonflies ovipositing

As distinct from the lake filling the main quarry, the shallow ponds resulting from smaller mining sites at Halibut Point have been colonized by the greatest variety of vegetation. Chris attests that each one of those has its own insect communities, as in the case of these Green Darner dragonflies breeding on a lily pad. Although egg fertilization has already taken place the male continues to clasp the female in little slots in the back of her neck, while she injects the eggs into plant tissue with her two-pronged, sharp ovipositor.

Painted Skimmer dragonfly
All dragonflies breed in wetlands. Their early stages of life are totally aquatic. But many of them like the Painted Skimmer, once they emerge from the water and become adults, spend their mature lives in fields and other places, only returning to the wetlands for mating.

A Halictid Bee pollinating Loosestrife
Damp pond margins stimulate lush plant growth, so that less than a hundred years after quarrying work stopped the sterile rocky pits have been miraculously re-vegetated and begun a process of natural ecological succession. Insects have arrived mostly on wings and in mutual fulfillment.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth
In many cases the insects cross-fertilize the flowers that feed them a banquet of pollen. Even the plump ones like this Clearwing Moth are members of the great arthropod evolutionary group, along with spiders and crustaceans, that are supported by hard exoskeleton envelopes rather than vertebrae.

Robber Fly, fearsomely equipped for predation
Although he has written extensively about them both, Chris is more cautious about "nailing the species" of an insect than a bird from a field sighting or photograph. Poring over an illustrated manual I assigned this Robber Fly to the genus Proctacanthus, probably species nigriventris. Chris countered that the picture more likely shows a member of the genus Asilus. Pursuing its full identity would require a much more detailed inspection of anatomical details and sorting these through taxonomic keys, a daunting task for casual enthusiasts but meat and potatoes for entomological sleuths.

Spreadwing damselflies coupling

Chris recalls "an epiphanous moment" at six years old noticing a newly emerged gorgeous promethia silk moth in a neighborhood drug store window, followed by a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly nectaring on a flower. He was hooked on an inexhaustible pursuit of natural beauty, inquiry, and conservation.

Sources
 1. Tom Murray, Insects of New England and New York, 2012.
 2. Michael J. Raupp, "Why Four Eyes? Whirligig Beetles, Gyrinidae," University of Maryland entomology website Bug of the Week, February 3, 2020.
 3. Matthew L. Miller, Blog.nature.org, April 10, 2017.




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