January totals

Triplax aenea

So January finished with much higher invertebrate totals across the board than I anticipated, despite ice, snow, hail and frost for much of the month. The baited bottle trap succumbed to wind and rain, with water ingress forcing off the bait chamber. However, there's nothing that would be there in freezing weather in January that won't be findable in February and it's a good thing I'll still have something to count. February is a hard shift in year listing because so much of what's there is already listed in January. That being said, additions haven't really slowed.

I managed to find something to fit into most of the categories, and even found new species in a good many (bold in table). Some smaller categories I have completed 100% of target, but targets are there to be exceeded. All in all, 38 species have been added to the reserve list so far, 26 of which were also new to me. I was amazed to be able to find 50 species of beetle, not counting a few I haven't identified, and just sneaked over the line on 20 spiders with Bathyphantes approximatus on the 30th (new to me but known from the reserve). New to both me and the reserve on the 30th was the beauty queen of woodlice (?), Porcellio spinicornis. I feel like I must have seen it before, but then I turned out not to have P.scaber on my list, so who knows!

The reserve total now stands at 2188.

Category	Count
mollusc	4
annelid	2
flatworm	1
harvestman	4
pseudoscorpion	1
spider	20
gall mite	0
tick	1
millipede	3
centipede	2
crustacean	5
collembola	7
odonata	0
dermaptera	0
orthoptera	0
hemiptera	10
coleoptera	50
diptera	18
lep-moth	0
lep-butterfly	0
hymenoptera	2
insect-other	1
invert-other	0
Total	131

Willow Coppicing

There's been some Willow coppicing underway at Cullaloe. This is the area that's been coppiced so far. Some of the trees that have been cut must have been pretty old. At least one stump looks like it has probably housed a few Lunar Hornet Moths in its time (now, even?). Be interesting to see what develops. This post to mark the date for future reference.

Coelositona cambricus new to reserve (and to me)(and to Fife)

Thanks to the longsuffering Mark Gurney via iRecord this botched ID was redetermined to Coelositona cambricus, which is new to the reserve, new to me, and apparently new to the county.

I failed in Duff on this because I read the "pubescence" as "scales" (isn't the "pubescence" made of scales? anyway ...). Also in Morris because I didn't think it had a pattern. With hindsight I can just about make out a degree of tessellation. Maybe when you spend months in a grass pile it's not as obvious as it might otherwise be. Yes, that's an excuse.

Drag the Waters

Today I decided to embrace the wetness and fortunately the ice near the spillway on the main pond was getting a bit thin after some thawing. I did have to give it a nudge in places and in other places it was still pretty thick. Anyway, it was thin enough for me to go after my target species, which was Asellus aquaticus (Water slater). I also hoped to nab a pond snail, which I have in the past. That was not to be this time. I might not have dug enough into the mud.

Luckily the edge waters managed to produce a good many water bugs though - happy days! Wasn't even a Notonecta, which I'll get in spades in a bottle trap in the spillway later. Wrong time of their lifecycle, maybe, I meant to snap a pic of Tom Huxley's "Water Bugs of Fife & Kinross" for this blog but apparently I didn't. I'll add it later. It's a fantastic book backed by much fieldwork and, I understand, also accompanied by an immaculately curated collection at NMS, which I must see at some point in a future, better, less pox-ridden world. 

Anyway, it was a fun time and the year invertebrate total reached 120. That's way more than I was actually expecting. I must have been predicting on a gloomy day or something.

It seems that everywhere there are new species for the reserve and the first bug I worked on - the only "larger" one - turned out to be the very-common-but-still-unlisted Corixa punctata.. One of the smaller ones was a male Sigara dorsalis, already known from the reserve as well as from my garden moth trap.

Water Hoglouse

C.punctata

On two previous slow years (2017, 2018 - what on earth could I have been doing, I wonder?) year additions were 55 and 63 respectively. That's across all taxa. This year, so far, there have been 39 additions to the list already. It'll take some going to match the best year for additions (2019, 418 spp., 1KS campaign), but another 300 will see the reserve list go to 2500. I'd be well pleased with that.

(stop press: a search through several Sigara reveal some male S.falleni, a common species new to me with their distinctive palae picking them out from the crowd)

pala

Caecilius est pater

Matella est mater et Quintus est filius et Grumio est coquus, et cetera.

I was reminded of one of the new species at Cullaloe this year when the record was verified on iRecord (yay, I didn't screw it up). Rather than stick to the standard menu of flies and beetles, which I'm going to major on, I've also taken bits and pieces of other things with varying degrees of success. This is the only psocid I have so far - Epicaecilius pilipennis. Hopefully it won't be the last. I have the tools so no excuses.

The name reminded me of 'O' Grade Latin at high school, and the very useful phrase "Caecilius is the dad", which has been invaluable in daily life. It's still hard to believe that we studied Latin at school, when I basically went to Drug Stab Comprehensive, and non-denominational into the bargain. Even more odd when the teacher used to wear a cape. He was definitely an outlier, that guy.  

Field sports

It reached a whopping 5 degrees today on the car readout as I headed to Cullaloe. A brief swish at the spruces that divide the reserve from the neighbouring cottage garden and then back to business on the grass pile - though not before snagging a Phaonia tuguriorum from the sunny fence. I dug modereately deeply into the pile under a thick layer of frost, but far from the core of this bountiful bump. I did pot a few flies from the trees, but let's see if I can ID them first! 

The delightful (non-springy) springtail Neanura muscorum showed up a few times, and oddly turned out to be new to the reserve. Also featuring in those already determined was the fat-nosed weevil Rhinoncus leucostigma, (pericarpius as was). I was delighted to add this to my list and the reserve list until I went to the spreadsheet to find that... I sieved it from a grass pile in 2019! It likes a bit of Persicaria so presumably from the abundant Redshank on the reserve.

N.muscorum

Phaonia tuguriorum

Rhinoncus leucostigma

That little bundle takes us to 112 inverts on the reserve so far this year, 31 new. Let's not mention the weevil I fumbled the ID of and didn't keep the voucher and which was turned round the post by the weevil goalie on iRecord. Dammit. Bound to happen from time to time.

Chilly

With snow on the ground and temperatures barely above zero the bottle trap had no takers thus far. With the music of coppicing chainsaw in the Willows I opted for the side of the burn and a nice fat Deschampsia tussock, with the theory being that tussocks harbour species which haven't travelled far and like that particular area. One tussock doesn't equal another. And so it seemed.

Most obvious in the mix was a selection of wasps, including Ichneumon extensorius. However, beyond that are at least two other species awaiting determination. Nice to have were three additional beetles, including one new to reserve and two which are sort of expected. Expected were Chrysolina staphylaea, a Salix specialist which I just managed to delete the photo of while trying to upload it - duh - and Tachinus rufipes, which is a very common litter species.

Also probably expected, but still surprising, was the super tiny Encephalus complicans, which at first I thought might be a bug, or even a mite, with its weird habit of pulling its abdomen over itself so it looks like a ball. Very lucky I decided to pot it as I was delighted to see it was a beetle. That leaves me on 46 beetle species with a full week and two weekends left. I knew the reserve Coleoptera list was bad, but 14 new species in 22 days. Seriously? Long may it continue. I might even not have an embarrassing beetle list myself by the time this is over.

Ichneumon extensorius, female

Encephalus complicans

Tachinus rufipes

One of the other 3 species of Ichneumonoids turns out to be Chasmias motatorius, also on the reserve list but nice for the year list.

Phase II

 With the weather turning cold again it was time to contemplate moving to phase II - trapping, There's so much water about that bottle trapping the water edge for aquatics definitely ain't happening. That will have to wait, as will any kind of pitfall trapping, except maybe in some higher and more sheltered areas.

Bottle-trapping with bait is definitely a decent way to get hold of a few January flies, though. I expect Calliphora vicina, Calliphora vomitoria, Dryomyza flaveola, Sylvicola cinctus and maybe some heleomyzids will make their way into here shortly.

Can you smell what it is, yet?

It's sea bass. And v.stinky!

A bit of tussocking with frozen fingers produced beetle #43 of the year - Crepidodera fulvicornis, a very common beetle on the willows. Phratora laticollis, another leaf beetle, was added yesterday, from a collection two days ago. If I could make it to 50 that would be 1/3rd of the total beetle list at 1st January!

End of the century

 Last night after posting I was able to determine that a dipteran larva in Centaurea nigra was, in fact, the picture-winged fly Urophora jaceana (four openings to the anterior spiracles). 

This morning a nice, small Stenus with a very triangular abdomen keyed out to be Stenus picipennis, which fortunately matched lots of pictures of the same online as it's another new Stenus for the reserve. One of my favourite genera of beetles and I could see from habitus that it was a species I didn't know.

Stenus picipennis

Lunchtime, then, was a mission to nab one more species and I set out to find Metzneria larvae in Knapweed. Metzneria proved hard to find but I did find a hiding Larioides cornutus in one flower head, which was the 100th species for 2021. I never did find Metzneria. There were a lot of tephritids, though, and I'll do a feature on Centauria nigra shortly. When a Urophora, or two, are in a flower head you know immediately because the head is hard as a hazelnut. A sideways squeeze will tell you you have flies.

Anyway, this is the spider and the breakdown of inverts which made up the "First 100" club.

Larioides cornutus

Category	Count
mollusc	4
annelid	1
harvestman	4
pseudoscorpion	1
spider	19
tick	1
millipede	3
crustacean	3
collembola	4
hemiptera	7
coleoptera	39
diptera	13
insect-other	1

The whole list for 2021 invertebrate list can be seen by clicking the tab. Remarkably in those 100 species 28 of them have been new to the reserve, including 10 new beetles, 8 new flies and 5 new bugs. That I was able to add four species for spiders has been a big surprise. Whereas the other categories are still quite poorly represented I really expected spider additions to be the occasional one or two a year by now. 

Five (three...) to go

The century beckons, but not quite there yet. Still, some nice new additions to the 2021 list and to the reserve.

A new bug was taken from tussocks in the willows, along with a new spider. The spider list is pretty good for the reserve at 86, so it has been a surprise to be able to add some in January. Maybe it's because it's January, but more likely it's because of bothering tussocks in the different habitats.

More expected were Palloptera scutellata, which I can always beat from the spruce trees in January, and Orchestis fagi, which on this occasion was obtained by battering some dead ivy on Beech in the woods. Usually it shows up in leaf litter.

Cymus glandicolor

Ozyptilus trux

Orchestes fagi

If I said this was a broad-nosed weevil beaten from Gorse you could probably still identify it from this picture. 

A.regensteinense

The Palloptera

Rush flutter fly

Recent additions

83					340	diptera	Aphanotrigonum trilineatum
84					110	mollusc	Trochulus hispidus
85			R	M	330	coleoptera	Quedius cinctus
86					330	coleoptera	Cychrus caraboides
87				M	330	coleoptera	Tachinus subterraneus
88					170	spider	Neriene clathrata
89					170	spider	Pachygnatha degeeri
90					330	coleoptera	Pterostichus nigrita
91					330	coleoptera	Orchestes fagi
92					330	coleoptera	Stenus pubescens
93			R	M	320	hemiptera	Cymus glandicolor
94			R	M	170	spider	Ozyptila trux
95					330	coleoptera	Andrion regensteinense
96					340	diptera	Palloptera scutellata
97			R		340	diptera	Tephrochlamys rufiventris

Beetles

	1			330	coleoptera	Agonum thoreyi	A ground beetle
	2	R	M	330	coleoptera	Altica palustris	A ground beetle
	3			330	coleoptera	Amara plebeja	A ground beetle
	4			330	coleoptera	Andrion regensteinense	A broad-nosed Weevil
	5			330	coleoptera	Anotylus rugosus	A rove beetle
	6			330	coleoptera	Anthobium unicolor	A rove beetle
	7			330	coleoptera	Bembidion aeneum	A ground beetle
	8			330	coleoptera	Bembidion guttula	A ground beetle
	9	R		330	coleoptera	Bembidion mannerheimi	A ground beetle
	10	R		330	coleoptera	Carabus problematicus	A ground beetle
	11			330	coleoptera	Chrysolina polita	Knot-grass Leaf Beetle
	12			330	coleoptera	Coccinella septempunctata	7-spot Ladybird
	13			330	coleoptera	Cychrus caraboides	Snail Hunter
	14			330	coleoptera	Exapion ulicis	A weevil
	15			330	coleoptera	Lathrobium brunnipes	A rove beetle
	16			330	coleoptera	Micrambe ulicis	A beetle
	17	R	M	330	coleoptera	Omalium excavatum	A rove beetle
	18			330	coleoptera	Orchestes fagi	A weevil
	19			330	coleoptera	Oulema sp.	Cereal Leaf Beetle
	20			330	coleoptera	Paradromius linearis	A ground beetle
	21	R		330	coleoptera	Phaedon tumidulus	A leaf beetle
	22	R		330	coleoptera	Philonthus decorus	A rove beetle
	23	R		330	coleoptera	Psylliodes napi	A leaf beetle
	24			330	coleoptera	Pterostichus nigrita	A ground beetle
	25			330	coleoptera	Pterostichus strenuus	A ground beetle
	26	R	M	330	coleoptera	Quedius cinctus	A rove beetle
	27	R	M	330	coleoptera	Sciaphilus asperatus	A broad-nosed weevil
	28			330	coleoptera	Silpha atrata	A carrion beetle
	29			330	coleoptera	Sitona lineatus	Pea-leaf Weevil
	30			330	coleoptera	Stenus brunnipes	A rove beetle
	31			330	coleoptera	Stenus impressus	A rove beetle
	32	R		330	coleoptera	Stenus juno	A rove beetle
	33			330	coleoptera	Stenus pubescens	A rove beetle
	34		M	330	coleoptera	Tachinus subterraneus	A rove beetle
	35			330	coleoptera	Tachyporus dispar	A rove beetle
	36			330	coleoptera	Tachyporus hypnorum	A rove beetle
	37			330	coleoptera	Trichocellus placidus	A ground beetle

Flies  

1	C	R	M	340	diptera	Aphanotrigonum trilineatum	A frit fly
2		R		340	diptera	Crumomyia roserii	A lesser dung fly
3		R		340	diptera	Hylemya nigrimana	A flower fly
4				340	diptera	Leptocera fontinalis	A lesser dung fly
5	C	R	M	340	diptera	Limnellia fallax	A shore fly
6				340	diptera	Lonchoptera lutea	Yellow spear-winged fly
7				340	diptera	Lotophila atra	A lesser dung fly
8		R	M	340	diptera	Mycetophila fungorum	A fungus gnat
9				340	diptera	Palloptera scutellata	Rush Flutter Fly
10		R	M	340	diptera	Schwenckfeldina carbonaria	A sciarid fly
11				340	diptera	Sepsis cynipsea	A sepsid fly
12		R		340	diptera	Tephrochlamys rufiventris	A heleomyzid fly

Arachnids

1				150	harvestman	Megabunus diadema
2				150	harvestman	Nemastoma bimaculatum
3				150	harvestman	Paroligolophus agrestis
4				150	harvestman	Platybunus triangularis
5				160	pseudoscorpion	Neobisium carcinoides
6		R	M	170	spider	Agroeca proxima
7				170	spider	Amaurobius fenestralis
8				170	spider	Amaurobius similis
9				170	spider	Bathyphantes nigrinus
0				170	spider	Centromerita bicolor
11				170	spider	Clubiona comta
12				170	spider	Drapetisca socialis
13			M	170	spider	Drassodes cupreus
14				170	spider	Gnathonarium dentatum
15				170	spider	Helophora insignis
16		R		170	spider	Macrargus rufus
17				170	spider	Monocephalus fuscipes
18				170	spider	Neriene clathrata
19				170	spider	Neriene peltata
10		R		170	spider	Ozyptilus trux
21				170	spider	Pachygnatha degeeri
22				170	spider	Tenuiphantes cristatus
23		R	M	170	spider	Tenuiphantes mengei
24				190	tick	Ixodes ricinus

Bugs

1			M	320	hemiptera	Balclutha punctata
2		R		320	hemiptera	Chartoscirta cincta
3		R	M	320	hemiptera	Cymus glandicolor
4		R		320	hemiptera	Dicyphus stachydis
5		R	M	320	hemiptera	Eupelix cuspidata
6				320	hemiptera	Stenodema calcarata
7				320	hemiptera	Stenodema holsata

Snail Snuffler

Cychrus caraboides , the snail hunter, is beetle #33 for 2021, with a couple of Tachinus subterraneus from some flood refuse at #34.

Spider #16 is this nice male Neriene clathrata. Like other Neriene, a big lad for a money spider.

Spider #17 is Pachygnatha degeeri

Processing continues at a year total of 89 inverts and looking for 90 by end of play, which, of all things, is likely to be an earthworm.

Drip, drip, drip

With the pitter patter of hailstones on my hood I was happy to let them bounce off as i played in the grass pile. Quedius cinctus, new to me and to the reserve, became the 32nd beetle of the year and the 24th new addition to the catalogue. It's quite a distinctive Quedius and the two parallel lines of punctures on the shiny elytrae mark it as being in its own subgenus. 

What with ice and rain and domestic duties it's been a slow couple of days. Still, like the rain there's a steady drip of new additions. When I get my act together I'll definitely try to bring back a sample for filtering semi-properly.

The brown, brown grass of home

 My new friend is a giant pile of grass cuttings, thoug hI had to go back to leaf litter on Saturday because I couldn't get to the car park (ice). Hopefully I'll be running the whole thing through a sieve in the next couple of weeks. It gives up something each time. Nothing spectacular happening, but grinding away towards triple digits.

74					330	spider	Tenuiphantes mengei	A money spider
75					330	coleoptera	Silpha atrata	A carrion Beetle
76					170	spider	Amaurobius fenestralis	A lace-webbed spider
77			R		170	spider	Macrargus rufus	A money spider
78					220	crustacean	Porcellio scaber	Rough Woodlouse
79			R		330	coleoptera	Philonthus decorus	A rove beetle
80					170	spider	Helophora insignis	A money spider
81					200	millipede	Polydesmus denticulatus	a Millipede
82			R	M	390	insect-other	Epicaecilius pilipennis	A bark-louse

Beetle #30

 is Silpha atrata. And about time, too

2021 invertebrate rampage - week 1

So the week finishes on 73 species. One species more than was my initial target for, um, January. A good week, then. Maybe I can make 100. I would have been surprised by that before I started. Furthermore the temperature hasn't been above about 3 and there's been ice and snow on the ground throughout.

There have been 29 beetles, 12 spiders, 8 flies, 6 bugs and bits and pieces of other things, including one worm (see below). A handful of species remain to be identified.

Many of the species have been pictured already, but here's one that isn't new to the reserve but is new to me - the very nice little bug Balclutha punctata.

New species to the reserve in 2021:

1			R	M	110	mollusc	Cochlicopa cf. lubrica	A snail
2			R	M	170	spider	Agroeca proxima	A spider
3			R		320	hemiptera	Chartoscirta cincta	A shore bug
4			R		320	hemiptera	Dicyphus stachydis	A mirid bug
5			R	M	320	hemiptera	Eupelix cuspidata	A leaf hopper
6			R	M	330	coleoptera	Altica palustris	A ground beetle
7			R		330	coleoptera	Bembidion mannerheimi	A ground beetle
8			R		330	coleoptera	Carabus problematicus	A ground beetle
9			R	M	330	coleoptera	Omalium excavatum	A rove beetle
10			R		330	coleoptera	Phaedon tumidulus	A leaf beetle
11			R		330	coleoptera	Psylliodes napi	A leaf beetle
12			R	M	330	coleoptera	Sciaphilus asperatus	A broad-nosed weevil
13			R		330	coleoptera	Stenus juno	A rove beetle
14			R		340	diptera	Crumomyia roserii	A lesser dung fly
15		C	R	M	340	diptera	Limnellia fallax	A shore fly
16			R	M	340	diptera	Mycetophila fungorum	A fungus gnat
17			R	M	340	diptera	Schwenckfeldina carbonaria	A sciarid fly

New 2021 species since last list:

62					110	mollusc	Vitrina pellucida	Winter semi-slug
63					130	annelid	Satchellius mammalis	An earthworm
64					170	spider	Centromerita bicolor	A money spider
65					170	spider	Gnathonarium dentatum	A money spider
66					200	millipede	Tachypodoiulus niger	White-legged Snake Millipede
67			R	M	330	coleoptera	Altica palustris	A ground beetle
68			R	M	330	coleoptera	Omalium excavatum	A rove beetle
69					330	coleoptera	Sitona lineatus	Pea-leaf Weevil
70			R	M	110	mollusc	Cochlicopa cf. lubrica	A snail
71			R	M	330	coleoptera	Sciaphilus asperatus	A broad-nosed weevil
72					340	diptera	Leptocera fontinalis	A lesser dung fly
73			R	M	340	diptera	Mycetophila fungorum	A fungus gnat

January beetle target met!

Good day for additions yesterday. At about ten to midnight I decided to have a brief poke at some sciarids that came out of a stem of Epilbium hirsutum. I expected I would discard them unidentified in the end, but miraculously they only took 5 minutes to key out to Schwenckfeldina carbonaria. If only everything was that easy.

There have been a remarkable 12 additions to the reserve list in the first five days, six of which have been new to me. On each visit I've really only been there less than an hour, so this tally is from accumulated effort of about 5 hours in the field and maybe three times that at home. I started with a beetle target of 20 for January and then revised it up to 25 when I was feeling sassy. Now I'm at 25 and I have at least two more species on sticks to do. No point in setting a new target but it looks like it will end up being 30-something. The take-home message of that is that there are plenty of inverts around, even in January when everything is freezing.

52					330	coleoptera	Tachyporus dispar	A rove beetle	05/01/2021
53					330	coleoptera	Paradromius linearis	A ground beetle	05/01/2021
54			R		330	coleoptera	Phaedon tumidulus	A leaf beetle	05/01/2021
55					330	coleoptera	Trichocellus placidus	A ground beetle	05/01/2021
56					190	tick	Ixodes ricinus	Sheep Tick	05/01/2021
57			R		330	coleoptera	Psylliodes napi	A leaf beetle	05/01/2021
58		C	R	M	340	diptera	Limnellia fallax	A shore fly	05/01/2021
59					170	spider	Tenuiphantes cristatus	A Linyphiid spider	05/01/2021
60					330	coleoptera	Stenus brunnipes	A rove beetle	05/01/2021
61			R	M	340	diptera	Schwenckfeldina carbonaria	A sciarid fly	05/01/2021

(CRM: new to C=county, R=reserve, M=me)

The shore thing ...

 Been a good day for the reserve list with some nice new things to add for the year and for the site.

First up is new-to-county Limnellia fallax, a shore fly (Ephydridae) from a Deschampsia tussock at the filter beds.

It came from this collection:

The fact that it was a mature tussock under a tree and next to water all came together for a very nice winter refuge. Many more repeats were dumped from the tray, too. I also discovered a nice grass pile, and some even older stalks of something that will all repay more scrutiny. I figured there was enough in the pots to leave them alone this time. Much of it was either repeat or difficult, but some, such as ground beetles Paradromius linearis and Trichocellus placidus were routine and known fro the site.

Also new was, I was surprised to find, Psylliodes napi, which it turned out I recorded in Dalgety Bay - hence my initial confusion.

On 24 beetles for 2021 now, which means I may try to squeeze out another before bedtime to meet the month target. I may also have to get a new target.

Wonder what my chances are of getting out this Gelis? Nice antennae.

post script ...

Stenus brunnipes, 2021 species #60, beetle #25