Guest Post: "Friend or Foe?"

by Caity Judd

Caity Judd is one of those people who I put in the category of “best friends I haven’t met in person yet.” She is curious, adventurous, and a tireless advocate for all things unsung and underappreciated, including fellow humans. The following is a post she made to a Facebook group that we both subscribe to. It is so eloquent and passionate that I asked if I could publish it here as a guest post. I am grateful that she agreed. I will have a brief postscript at the end….

Sphinx moth caterpillars, like this Manduca rustica, consume a LOT of foliage; but they turn into lovely moths which pollinate flowers that bloom at night.

”I want to take a minute to talk about how we think about our exoskeleton-wearing neighbors. People really like to label things and put things in boxes. I get it. I love labeling things and putting things in boxes. That’s part of why I like the ID/taxonomy part of entomology and arachnology so much. But sometimes the boxes we try to put things in are so black and white that they end up missing any nuance about very complicated situations.

‘Friend or foe?’ is one such example. There are very few examples of any kind of animal (including humans) that are all-beneficial or only problematic. Even if we only look at animals who have been dubbed ‘invasive’ in an area, if you look at how that animal exists within its home range ecology, things get complicated again. So, maybe it’s fair to say that spotted lanternflies or emerald ash borers are “foe” outside of their native range. But the vast majority of animals can’t be wrapped up neatly into those labels, even within a certain range.

Did you know that the particular species of ladybugs, mantises, and honey bees that most US gardeners seem to believe are “friends” aren’t from here? They all have negative impacts on local ecologies when introduced to places they don’t come from. Are they ‘friend’ just because they are useful to us? They’re really not even as useful as people seem to largely believe; adult ladybugs and mantises often don’t stick around long enough to serve their utility for the person who introduced them. The idea that honey bees are solely responsible for pollinating food crops is hogwash. Instead, these animals displace their native counterparts, throwing off the balance even further.

’Friend’ and ‘foe’ are labels that artificially limit your understanding of the interactions of plants and animals in a geographic area. There’s nothing wrong with fondly calling something you happen to like ‘friend’; that’s different than trying to smush everything into a one-or-the other category. Instead of asking ‘friend or foe,’ perhaps we should attempt better, more complete understanding, by asking ‘how does this animal interact with the environment around it?’

If you try that route, you may learn that aphids, while they do drink your plants’ juices, are also hosts for tiny little parasitoid wasps who rely on aphids to continue their own life cycles, and act as a natural control for their numbers. You may learn that while we all love ourselves a house centipede, they’re not actually native in the U.S. You may learn that termites play an immensely important role in breaking down wood fiber, and feed all sorts of insectivorous animals. You might learn that dragonfly naiads and mayfly nymphs are good indicators of unpolluted water. You might learn about ants’ incredible seed-dispersing capabilities. The natural world, even the one in your backyard, has so much richness and complexity to be discovered, if only we don’t put limits on our curiosity in the first place.”

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As I mentioned previously, Caity is a fierce protector of persecuted human demographics as well, and I think it is important to note that we too frequently extend this “friend or enemy” mindset to fellow Homo sapiens. We are told that immigrants and refugees are “pests” in a manner of speaking because “they take our jobs.” Nonsense. We do not own resources of any kind, we share them. The more we frame our lives that way, the more peacefully we can coexist and solve the larger problems of the day, like climate change and species extinctions.

Thanks again, Caity, for a wonderful summary of how we can approach the natural world in our yards, gardens, and on our doorstep.

Wasp Wednesday: Walden's Mason Wasp, Ancistrocerus waldenii

Guest post by Heather Holm

The Vespidae subfamily Eumeninae includes primarily solitary wasps that nest aboveground in pre-existing cavities (hollow stems or brambles, holes in wood) or in free-form mud nests. One morphological trait eumenines share with the social wasps also in the family Vespidae, is wings that fold longitudinally. Eumenines (potter and mason wasps) are generally black with white, rusty orange, and/or yellow markings. In the southeastern United States, some species have very prominent red markings and in some instances, these red markings replace the white or yellow markings of northern populations. Generally, eumenines hunt various families of moth larvae (caterpillars) although a minority prey on beetle larvae.

Potter and mason wasps use mud to line, partition, or construct their solitary nests. For those that nest in pre-existing cavities, partitioning the cavity with mud results in individual cells or rooms in which a single larva develops as it feeds on the cache of prey provided by their mother. Free-form mud nests are either single-celled (ex. potter wasps in the genus Eumenes) or contain multiple cells, comprised of multiple cells adjoining one another.

Video 1 caption: A female works the wet mud bolus with her mandibles to add an additional layer of mud to the edge of a partially completed cell.

For those mason or potter wasp species that construct free-form mud nests, a significant amount of time and energy is allocated toward water and soil collection to make mud. Mud is used to make one or multiple cells/enclosures that house a number of caterpillars, and eventually the developing wasp larva. To make mud, the wasp female first finds a water source, imbibes the water storing it in her crop, then searches for the perfect soil type to begin collecting soil particles. Each mason wasp can have their own unique soil preferences, some preferring sand, while others may seek out sandy loam soil. Perching on the ground, she scrapes and gathers a ball of soil particles in her mandibles and simultaneously regurgitates some water to form a mud bolus. When the bolus is sufficiently moistened and large enough, she carries it back to the nest held in her mandibles.

A female spends the night in a newly formed mud cylinder/cell. She’ll complete construction and provisioning of the cell the following day.

This month in my garden, I found a Walden's mason wasp female (Ancistrocerus waldenii) constructing a free-form mud nest on the side of a rock. This wasp species prefers to construct its nest attached to a hard surface such as a rock, concrete, or even on the side of a terra cotta flower pot! The rock in my garden that she selected has multiple concave indentations; these convenient divots helped form the back wall of the mud cells. After selecting the nest site, nest initiation begins with the construction of a single mud cylinder, and each layer of mud that forms the cylinder requires several mud-collection foraging trips. Once the cylinder-shaped cell is large enough to hold several moth caterpillars, the wasp female lays a single egg, suspended from the roof of the cell by a silken thread. Many solitary wasps lay their egg on one of the prey cached in the cell after they have fully provisioned the cell; eumenids, however, typically lay their egg in an empty cell prior to provisioning the cell with prey.

A closeup of an Ancistrocerus waldenii female peering out of an incomplete mud cylinder. This unfinished cell provides a convenient enclosure for her to spend the night, rest, or avoid inclement weather.

Providing food for her future developing larva comes next. She hunts for moth caterpillars on plant foliage, captures one, stings it to cause paralysis, then carries the caterpillar clutched beneath her. She fills the cylinder with multiple immobilized caterpillars, an average of nine, seals off the end of the cylindrical cell with mud, then begins the construction of the next, adjoining mud cylinder. Her egg, safely suspended from the roof of the cell, will hatch in the next few days and the tiny, first instar larva will drop onto the cache of caterpillars and begin feeding. The venom that paralyzed the caterpillars also keeps them alive for several days, long enough for the developing wasp to have a fresh and live supply of food while it develops.

An Ancistrocerus waldenii female returns to her nest with a bolus of mud held clasped in her mandibles. She is adding an additional layer of mud over multiple fully provisioned cells.

An Ancistrocerus waldenii nest can have multiple mud cylinders/cells, constructed adjoining or on top of one another. After all of the cylinders are complete and provisioned with prey, the female adds an additional thick layer of mud over the entire nest to help seal it off from predators and help prevent the nest from breaking down before the wasps inside emerge as adults.

Here are a few tips for identifying Ancistrocerus waldenii females although if you find a similarly-constructed mud nest attached to a hard surface, that will help narrow down your identification to a few species. Wasps in the genus Ancistrocerus have a prominent transverse carina [ridge] on the base of their first abdominal segment (T1, for tergum one, the first visible dorsal plate). Ancistrocerus waldenii has white (less often yellow) markings. The female has a spot on the top of the sixth abdominal segment (T6) and complete apical bands on the first through fifth abdominal segments (T1 to T5). The female also has entirely black antennae (many mason wasps have yellow or white markings on the underside their antennal scape [first long segment of the antenna, nearest face]).

Be sure to visit Pollination Press, LLC, Heather's publisher, and shop for her books. Her book on wasps is a fine complement to my own; and who doesn't need another guide to native bees? Thank you, Heather, for agreeing to do this guest post.

J. Drew Lanham is Why I Will Still Write This Blog

On February 4 I was prepared to sacrifice this blog in protest of the desecration about to take place at the National Butterfly Center, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, and all the refuges, sanctuaries, places of worship, private properties, sacred lands, historical lands, and current livelihoods in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

I was about to engage in an indefinite "blog-out" as my own hunger strike against the current U.S. presidential administration, the newly-elected (if democracy even applies) leaders of Brazil and Madagascar, and the announcement of a new highway that will likely spell the end of rainforests on the island of New Guinea.

When I feel like I am being punished, pummeled....bullied, as I do now watching everything I hold dear being dismantled and destroyed by our current government and those who support it, my impulse is to hit back. My desire is to make tangible the psychological anguish I feel. It is the same behavior seen in toddlers and entirely too many men who throw things, break things, inflict violence on the innocent. They want you to feel physically the emotional pain they suffer from, but their methods of doing so simply compound our collective societal problems.

So, my warped reasoning was that if I cannot have nice things like wildlife refuges, the right to the opportunity to experience wild places abroad, etc, then I will deprive you of my knowledge of entomology, my skills as a writer, and my thought-provoking ideas and opinions. You do not deserve them if you are silent about things that matter more than money.

© J.G. Lanham

Then I read the following post on Facebook, by a writer, conservationist, historian, and activist who I have come to consider a mentor. Dr. J. Drew Lanham (pictured above) is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University, and an award-winning author. He penned this on Facebook before turning in for the night:

Insomniac's Lament

For far too many in these times, the hours fall by as joyless days. We worry and fret over everything. EVERY. THING. Each word is a transgression every thought a crime waiting to be committed. I try hardest to be my best but I know at some point soon I will fail. Isn't it inevitable? What if in my earnest attempts to be human, my imperfectionz somehow mar the perfect person I never was? Who will report my wrongs and send me to ruin? Will I show up here or on the six o'clock news? We are overwrought and wrung out with angst waiting for the worst to happen because we'll be better off in some other end. It all has my head hurting and my heart sore. Is there some cure?

Hate has found its way into my soul for people I don't even know beyond what they "tweet, or what the headlines tell me to believe -- and I cannot find the switch to flip and make it stop. Perhaps if I could only learn to somehow ignore-- but then I cannot deny or turn a blind eye to so much going wrong. There are far too many "ist's" and "isms" still with us. Fighting them all at once is like an eternal career in uphill stone rolling. Just call me Sisyphus. The stress keeps me up late into the night and makes me want to sleep midday even more. Withdrawing seems the easy answer -- just closest family and a few treasured friends --sometimes; and always wildness and birds. Wildness. and Birds.

I guess tomorrow (which has just become. now) is another day.

I'll be okay. If I just read the right books and watch the right things. Somewhere some thought police will allow me clearance. Won't they?

Anyway, sleep mercifully calls. I'll wake soon from a brief nap to wren chatter and roll the rock upslope again. I'll just think of it as job security. Sanity slips in the witching hour but for a few moments soon after the sun comes up, I'll steal away --out there, where joy comes in the form of feathers -- and I can be a movement of one before the hamster wheel spins again-- for just a few moments I'll be hashtagged to a singular cause. Just Being.

Thank you, Drew, for expressing exactly how I feel, and compelling me to soldier on, resisting not just injustice and greed and arrogance and ignorance, but my own compulsions to pull the plug on what I do best.