New Fife beetle

On a random whim today I headed for leaf litter sieving in the woods. The ground's been a bit warmer and, honestly, I was hoping to pick up a spider or two. Of course when you start throwing leaf litter around anything's possible.

What I didn't expect, I think reasonably, was a big shiny dollop of histerid beetle to gleam from the gathering humus layer in my tray. I love these things, but I've only ever seen one species. In two places. I've been dreaming and scheming of baited pitfall traps and bottle traps, of sieving poo etc., in the hopes of seeing maybe one or two. I still am, but nt sure what may be around here. There's certainly no shortage of poo and I'm happy to provide carrion. I guess they are so shiny because they want all that, erm, stuff, to slide off them like a shiny wotsit, as the proverb says.

Anyway, that was a long way for a short cut. This is Margarinotus neglectus, The Lonely Clown (awww). There are no dots in the new Histeridae bookie, so I'm claiming it as new to county. 

2021 beetle #63, Margarinotus neglectus, new to me, new to Cullaloe, new to Fife.

Gleaming underside. Fabulous.

Gleaming upperside, with handy etching

Digging and dipteran larvae munching tools

Pygidium-sh bits (the back end)

Another beetle I grabbed from the filter beds the other day, with a minor sense horror, turned out to be Helophorus obscurus, which I actually thought it might be. However, it had the good graces to be male and to allow me to extract the necessary bits to secure the ID.

2021 beetle #64, Helophorus obscurus

Night time is the right time, incorporating Spider Update

Nocturnal visit to the reserve to stick a moth trap out meant I would inevitably scour the walls and trees for anything sneaking about. "Doing" invertebrates without going at night means shutting yourself off to a fair percentage of animals in the natural activities, catching them only when they're asleep.

You can always rely on a Tree Slug

Slightly more diurnal usually is Trichocera regelationis, its darkened x-vein not shown at all well here:

A couple of earwigs dropped off before I could photo them, naturally.

Nucteana umbratica is spider #23 for the year, following #22 Tibellus maritimus (ad.f. from earlier this week), Neither new, but keeping the numbers ticking over.

Neriene montana, spider #24. Common around footbridges and fences. Total spiders listed 86, though 4 of those have been added this year

.The moth trap turned up precious little. One fungus gnat and another fly which escaped. The light was off when I arrived, though

More water sports

Had a bit of a swish about in the water (filter beds and burn) this lunchtime and uncovered three beetle spp. and a Gammarus (?), to be determined. Somewhat unexpectedly, though I knew there were fish in there, I also snagged a Stickleback. Site first for me, though it's already on the reserve list.

This is Hydroporus palustris, a diving beetle which I found in abundance and which I earlier recorded from another part of the reserve (the spillway). Pretty little thing, although here it had a distinct preference for jamming itself against the side of the dish.

2021 beetle #61

And Agabus bipustulatus, 2021 beetle #62

Thaw

Mercifully, the snow is disappearing to be replaced by a spring-like, exuberant sound of twittering, happy birds, though the pond remains solid. A return to Cullaloe allowed me to follow deer tracks around the place and see that they were the ones digging up the woodland floor, and not badgers, as I previously supposed. Wonder what they were after.

A Dactylis tussock coughed up Mecinus pascuorum, a weevil fond of Ribwort Plantain. Well, there's more than enough of that. Also a Cyphon variabilis, which I found before but didn't identify, and two species - Sepedophilus nigripennis and Tachyporus obtusus - already recorded on the reserve.

2021 Beetle #56 for this year and the 170th beetle on the reserve list.

2021 Beetle #57, 171st beetle Cyphon variabilis

2021 Beetle #58, Sepedophilus nigripennis

2021 beetle #59,  Tachyporus obtusus

Jump up, jump up and get down (Dasypsyllus gallinulae)

The other day, before the ice queen waved her wand over the county, I snatched a plug of moss from underneath the hide, which I fondly imagined might host various tiny beetles and maybe a pupa or two. I shoved it in a yoghurt pot I had in my bag. This was no small yoghurt pot, but neither was it full on Turkish sixe 5L yoghurt pot. It is 500g Tesco Finest Greek Yoghurt. As if! "Yoghurt" is a Turkish word. no such thing as Greek yoghurt! Anyway, enough of that.

I did extract one pupae, which waits patiently to reveal its secrets. Or not. However, when I tipped out the moss ball onto a white tray and began to peruse at close quarters I observed multiple jumping critters, laterally flattened and I ... moved back a bit. Siphonaptera! Whoop! My first attempt at keying a flea since my old buddy Gordon gave me his RES key (and inside that his very own personal key).

When I recalled Seth's struggles I settled in for the long haul, but it quickly ran to Ceratophyllidae and then with the number of spines in its pronotal fringe (loads) to a bird dwelling species. The scientific name for this beast is Dasypsyllus gallinulae, and the English name is Moorhen Flea. It was beside the water so maybe ... however, like many uncommented-on useless scientific names (people only care about bad English names, even if they're directly translated) it really doesn't care. It prefers, actually, "passerines that build nests in low positions" - maybe Wren in this case. The bird species list of hosts is as long as your arm.Anyway, I was delighted to see it, one way or another.

Laterally compressed

Habitus

Heed

5 pr of lateral plantar setae, 3rd pr shifted to plantar surface

Grass Pile

One of the wonders of the reserve in January is any kind of pile of litter that's lying around as a refuge. Sometimes the crew clear away all the cuttings but on this marvellous occasion the grass pile that's left is down beside the burn on a small piece of grassland. On the list of 135 species of invertebrate so far the grass pile has contributed 25 species. 

There have also been lots of other species which were recorded first in other places (tussocks, flood refuse), but which are also in the grass pile. There are others again that have been taken from the grass pile but not determined, and a good many springtails which I haven't even lifted. Add to that all the immatures that are "un-doable" - many spiders, soldier beetle larvae, other larvae of various kinds. There is probably over 100 species just in this pile. I've barely looked at 30% of it and never got to the damp bottom. Maybe an interesting project for another year would be to catalogue just a grass pile.

One thing I've done to see if I can extend its value is to acquire a 20cm bucket and a chip fryer basket. It's currently filled with a clump of mid-level grass and I'm eagerly anticipating what may be in the bottom by now. 

There's usually an inspiration for such ideas and in this case it was Clive Washington's youtube video of a similar method:

And here's the list of species which were first recorded from the grass pile. Other species which were in the grass pile but recorded first elsewhere would probably double this list.

annelid	Satchellius mammalis
coleoptera	Psylliodes napi
coleoptera	Altica palustris
coleoptera	Omalium excavatum
coleoptera	Sciaphilus asperatus
coleoptera	Quedius cinctus
coleoptera	Quedius maurorufus
coleoptera	Philonthus carbonarius
coleoptera	Phratora laticollis
coleoptera	Rhinoncus leucostigma
coleoptera	Coelositona cambricus
coleoptera	Anacaena globulus
coleoptera	Sitona sulcifrons
coleoptera	Sitona suturalis
collembola	Neanura muscorum
diptera	Schwenckfeldina carbonaria
diptera	Leptocera fontinalis
millipede	Tachypodoiulus niger
mollusc	Vitrina pellucida
mollusc	Cochlicopa cf. lubrica
mollusc	Trochulus hispidus
spider	Tenuiphantes cristatus
spider	Centromerita bicolor
spider	Gnathonarium dentatum
tick	Ixodes ricinus

1000 words

 A graphic presentation of how the Cullaloe species list has grown over the last 7 years (and one month).  It's pretty clear to see that invertebrates have made up a good percentage of the species listed, and where the effort's been in certain years. Of course fungi have also barely begun, and will be several times the plant list. Not only do several fungi grow on any given host plant, but they also grow on everything else! Of two fungal species new to Scotland from the reserve one was on a beetle. The most notably lacking groups in numbers are Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. Both should be able to join the other larger groups on over 300, although with Hymenoptera that may take a bit of doing.