Please Welcome Tender Corporation as a New Sponsor

I am happy to announce a formal partnership with, and sponsorship by, Tender Corporation, makers of After Bite® and other quality products for outdoorsmen (and outdoorswomen) everywhere.

From NHPR.org

My relationship with this company dates back to last year when I was asked to contribute posts to their Insectlopedia educational blog. This year I was promoted to the primary expert there. Special thanks to Emily Snayd and Kristin Hathaway at HFS Communications for being such consummate professionals who make my job easier.

Tender Corporation is perhaps most unique in valuing an educated consumer. They go the extra mile to inform their patrons and website visitors via the Insectlopedia. They are a small enough company so as to be responsive to customer feedback and requests, yet large enough to provide quality merchandise at reasonable prices.

Based in Littleton, New Hampshire, Tender Corporation does much more than manufacture products. They sponsor fundraisers for local charities, and created a permanent endowment in 1992 that provides scholarships for New Hampshire undergraduates who choose to pursue studies in environmental science including forestry, biology, botany, and ocean sciences.

I find it ironic that the impetus for the founding of Tender Corporation stemmed from the owner's epic torment from black flies, the subject on one of last week's posts here. Please visit the Tender Corporation website to learn more, and/or click on the After Bite ad in the sidebar of this blog page. Thank you, Tender Corp!

Colorado Gall Insects

I am happy to announce that I have an article on gall insects in the latest issue of Colorado Gardener magazine. Many thanks to editor and publisher Jane Shellenberger for her appreciation of contributing writers and photographers.

This is a free publication, but you can read this issue and back issues online, at their website. You may also want to "like" their Facebook page, here. Thank you.

Don't Dig Those Dandelions?!

Many of us conduct certain rituals in our yards and gardens without questioning why; not the least of these is "weeding." We are taught to despise any plant that volunteers itself in the flowerbed or the lawn. We are conditioned to uphold certain standards, and look to the marketplace for products to help us with that. Fortunately, the tide may be changing. Take dandelions for example.

© Marc Keelan-Bishop

I was surprised and delighted to see this meme pop up in Facebook recently, daring to suggest that we should be lazy(?!) in our approach to the inevitable blooming of dandelions.

Jewel beetle, Anthaxia sp.

In my own experience, especially in the western United States, I can vouch for the fact that a startling variety of insects exploit dandelions in early spring when few other flowers are in bloom. Birders will be pleased to know that Lesser Goldfinches and House Sparrows, at the least, feed on the seeds.

Checkered Skipper

Variegated Fritillary

Painted Lady

Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, is an introduced species in North America, presumably brought here by European settlers in the 1600s as a food crop. Indeed, the Common Dandelion has much to recommend it in nutritional value, and herbal medicine. The greens can be eaten raw, while older leaves are best if cooked. You can brew dandelion wine; and the roots, when baked and ground, make a decent coffee substitute. The diuretic properties of the plant are well-known.

Andrena mining bee, © Elaine Mansfield

Sweat bee, Lasioglossum sp.

Sweat bee, Halictus sp.

Meanwhile, bees of all stripes take advantage of the dandelion's robust nectar and pollen supplies, and early-blooming schedule when few native plants are yet in flower. Indeed, dandelions bloom throughout the warmer months, filling voids in natural bloom cycles between spring, summer, and fall peaks.

Celery Looper Moth

Melipotis moth, Melipotis sp.

Our disdain for dandelions seems to be of a cosmetic nature, and a reminder that we are not the masters of Nature, even in our own backyard. Consequently, we turn to herbicides, which only compound our problems by killing other, desirable plants, and contaminating groundwater and streams, rivers, and lakes.

Cutworm Hunter wasp, Podalonia sp.

European Paper Wasp

Ironically, it has been demonstrated that even if you mow dandelions, they will "learn" to grow shorter, flowering at a height just beneath the lawnmower blades. Might as well learn to live with them. Just tell your guests that you still have a green thumb, but you are also promoting biodiversity.

Sources: Bradbury, Kate. 2015. "Let dandelions Grow. Bees, beetles, and birds need them," The Guardian.
Wunder, Michael. 2015. "City spares dandelions to help pollinators," The Waverly News (Nebraska, USA).
IDÉOmedia

Flower fly, family Syrphidae

Yellow Dung Fly, a predator

Tachinid fly, a parasite of pest caterpillars

Bite of the Black Fly

It happened at the zoo. I was parked innocently opposite the African Elephant yard, with the window rolled down on this nice late afternoon of September 19, 2015, waiting for Heidi to get off work. I noticed a tiny fly had flown into the car, but was truly shocked to see it was a female black fly, likely a species of Simulium....and she wanted my blood.

She got it, too, because I so rarely see members of the family Simuliidae, let alone adult females. I was able to get some respectable images of the 3-4 millimeter vampire precisely because she was occupied pumping blood out of my knuckle. What was she doing here, though?

I was under the mistaken impression that black flies, also known as "buffalo gnats" and, here in Colorado at least, "turkey gnats," seldom venture far from fast-flowing streams and rivers. That is because they spend the egg, larva, and pupa stage of their lives in aquatic torrents. It occurred to me that the elephant yard does have a waterfall, and I would bet that black fly larvae live on the very edge of that artificial cataract.

Well, I have since learned that female black flies are perfectly capable of flying miles in search of a blood meal. There are some records in Canada of black flies migrating over ninety (90) miles from where they grew up as larvae.

Only the female black fly bites. Like mosquitoes, she needs the protein for the proper development of her eggs; and she can lay several hundred eggs in her two- or three-week adult lifespan. Unlike mosquitoes, black flies do not have beak-like mouthparts to extract blood from our capillaries. Black flies slice you open with knife-like mouthparts, then lap up what spills out.

Depending on the species, the black flies lay their eggs on vegetation or other objects in the water, under the water, or scatter them on the water's surface. Interestingly, freshly-laid eggs apparently produce a pheromone (scent) that attracts other adult female flies of the same species, and stimulates them to lay their eggs in the vicinity.

The larvae that hatch spin silken pads on the surface of stones or vegetation in the middle of flowing water. They then anchor themselves to the silk pads with special hooks on the rear of the abdomen. The larvae feed in a unique manner, by deploying a pair of "cephalic fans" that intercept organic particulates from the current. Larvae molt 7-11 times.

Black fly larvae in Arizona

At the end of its larval life, the creature spins a silken bag in which it will pupate. The tapered rear of the bag points upstream into the current, while the wider, open portion projects downstream. The larva molts one final time to reveal a resting stage with branching gills that may reach beyond the lip of the silken bag.

Black fly pupae in Arizona © Tony Palmer

The adult fly emerges in a few days or so, rising to the water surface in an air bubble and floating to an emergent object it can climb onto and finish expanding its wings and hard its exoskeleton. The total time from egg to adult takes roughly 3-4 weeks and is heavily influenced by water temperature. The colder the water, the longer the life cycle. There can be three or four generations per year; winter is typically spent in a dormant larva stage.

Male black fly (note huge eyes meeting at top of head)

There are about forty species of black flies in Colorado, in three genera: Simulium, Prosimulium, and Metacnephia. Different species live at different elevations, and on different sides of the Continental Divide. Surprisingly, the majority are not pests of people or livestock, preferring to feed on birds and other wildlife.

The species that do afflict horses, cattle, poultry, and people can cause severe distress, and may carry diseases. I will spare you the agonizing details of suffering incurred by victims of black fly attacks, as there is no end to the resources where you can learn such information if you are so inclined.

Suffice it to say that it pays to be prepared with an excellent insect repellent if you plan to be in black fly territory. Prevention is always the best tactic for battling *any* bloodsuckers. Take care.

Female black fly on Feb. 24, 2014

Sources: Bechinski, Edward John, and Marc J. Klowden. 2005. Black Flies - Biology and Control. Division of Entomology, University of Idaho (available online as a PDF).
Cranshaw, W.S., F.B. Pearis, and B. Kondratieff. 2013. Biting Flies. Colorado State University Extension. Fact Sheet 5.582.
Kuhn, Dwight. "Black Flies - Life Cycle," Kuhn Photo.