Book Review: The Social Wasps of North America

Chris Alice Kratzer’s new guide to The Social Wasps of North America stands to revolutionize the future of field guides. It certainly sets a new standard in many ways, through methodology, organization, and sheer honesty. It is my pleasure to recommend this wonderful reference without reservation.

This is a self-published book from Owlfly Publishing, one arm of Kratzer’s company, Owlfly, LLC. The other branch is an engineering firm. Kratzer has not only avoided all the usual pitfalls of self-publishing, she has taken great pains to make every aspect of that enterprise respectful and sustainable, right down to her choice in the packaging vendor she uses.

Why is this book so unique and important? Perhaps the most obvious feature is the geographic coverage. Kratzer rightly defines North America as everything north of South America. Most natural history publishers, and authors, would consider that to be overly ambitious, confusing, and impossible to execute given the increased biodiversity south of the Mexican border. It helps to choose a taxon that has relatively limited diversity, and social wasps in the family Vespidae do fit the bill nicely. However, one should not overlook the statement this book makes about inclusiveness. This book is useful to indigenous peoples in those other nations, as well as people traveling from other places. A Spanish translation, in digital format, will be available by the end of 2021, but if a publishing house is interested in producing a hard copy, please contact Kratzer at Owlfly Publishing.

This book also marks a return to illustrations, rather than photographs, as the best means to visually communicate each species. Kratzer is a master of digital renderings. Social wasps are maddeningly variable in color pattern, so she ingeniously fused the most common xanthic (mostly yellow) and melanic (mostly black/dark) forms of each species into a single drawing, capitalizing on the bilateral symmetry of her subjects to do so. Brilliant. Kratzer essentially crowdsourced her references by utilizing pinned specimens from many curated collections, and images of living specimens from the iNaturalist web portal. She gives credit to every single individual who furnished the material. Unheard of. Each species account includes female and male examples, plus queens, where relevant. Range maps are included. Photos of living specimens, and their nests, are featured under descriptions of the genera.

© Owlfly LLC

The first seventy or so pages of the book serve as an introduction and overview of social wasps, their biology, role within ecosystems, and how they impact humanity. This alone is worth the price of the book. The writing is outstanding in accuracy and honesty:

“All of the information in this book is wrong. All of it. Wasps are an appallingly understudied group of organisms, to the point that even this book – the most complete visual guide of social wasp to date – is built precariously upon the edge of a vast, unsolved jigsaw puzzle.”

The grammar is impeccable, and the tone is exceptionally friendly and empathetic, even to those readers who want nothing to do with wasps. It is easy for someone with an affinity for maligned animals to be unintentionally hostile towards those who do not share the same perspective and opinions. Kratzer is going to make many more “friends of wasps” with this book. Did I mention that there is also a glossary and extensive bibliography with links to online versions of actual scientific papers?

Overall, Kratzer’s embrace and navigation of the scientific ecosystem, inclusive of both academic professionals and well-informed non-professionals, is admirable and even ground-breaking. Rarely does one find a reference or author/illustrator so worthy of emulating. Maybe David Sibley and Kenn Kaufman, but add Chris Alice Kratzer to the list.

Are wasps not your thing at all? Stay tuned for Kratzer’s next effort, a guide to North American cicadas, in the works as I write this. Meanwhile, order The Social Wasps of North America for a friend, directly from Owlfly Publishing.

Save A Spider (Every) Day

Every day should be “Save A Spider Day,” considering all that these arachnids do for us as people, and ecosystems around the globe. Alas, March 14 is the only day officially designated for their respect, admiration and, at the least, tolerance. The timing this year is pretty good, though, given hysteria surrounding some sensational journalism, and a forthcoming field guide to spiders in North America.

Lucas the spider, © Joshua Slice, furnished by Sayles & Winnikoff Communications

I was prompted to write this post by Kelly Cleary of Sayles and Winnikoff Communications, the marketing company promoting a new Cartoon Network series starring “Lucas,” the fluffy, adorable animated jumping spider that took the internet by storm a few years ago. This is a wonderful, positive milestone for arachnid appreciation, and I am honored to be asked to be a messenger for something innovative and excellent.

There is the fictional, lovable Lucas, and then there is the Joro Spider, a real species that is getting the polar opposite treatment in the press. Eight years ago, a large orb weaver was discovered in the state of Georgia, USA, and determined to be Trichonephila clavata, a species native to most of Asia. This was considered something of a novelty at the time, but soon more individual specimens were turning up in nearby locations. Since then, the Joro Spider has expanded its range to include most of northern Georgia, and parts of northwest South Carolina and adjacent North Carolina. Single specimens have turned up in Alabama, and even Oklahoma, likely a result of someone unwittingly moving them on an object or vehicle.

Adult female Joro Spider © Kim Fleming via Bugguide.net

Recently, scientists have extrapolated the potential expansion to eventually include most of the Atlantic coast of the U.S., plus Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, Indiana, and other states. This is based on latitudes where the spider is found in its native Asia, plus the warmer maritime influence along the coast. This is what scientists are supposed to do when confronted with an alien species in a new territory: make predictions and then inform the public accordingly.

Unfortunately, journalists are prone to sensationalize this kind of information and, in this instance everything is, literally, being blown out of proportion. When they are young and small, spiders disperse themselves by “ballooning,” climbing to the top of tall objects, standing on tiptoe, and issuing long strands of silk to catch the wind. Someone forgot to properly explain this to reporters, so now we have the expectation of very large spiders raining down on us come springtime. Relax, it is not going to happen.

© Wikimedia Commons

Whether the Joro Spider is going to have a negative impact on native spiders, temporarily or permanently, will not be determined for some time. Any effort to control, or eradicate the Joro Spider is likely to have more dire ecological consequences than the spider itself. Do report your sightings with at least clear photos, if you cannot present an entomologist or arachnologist with the specimen itself. Otherwise, there is no need for overreaction.

Need help identifying the Joro, or any other spider? I have good news. My friend and scholar Sarah Rose has written Spiders of North America, in the Princeton Field Guide series. I will have a review here eventually, but suffice that I have intimate knowledge of the scope of this reference, its design and presentation, and can speak highly of the expertise and communication skills of the author. You will want to put in your pre-order soon.

Not everyone is a fan of spiders, likely not even everyone reading this post, but we can at least learn about their place in the natural order of things, and welcome them in our yards and gardens as free pest control, and architects of marvelous silken webs. Meanwhile, until journalism is more responsible, please help us spread correct information via social media and our in-person interactions with others. To paraphrase Smoky the Bear, “only you can save spiders.”

The End of an Era

This past week BioQuip Products announced to their customers that the company will be closing its doors permanently as of March 11, 2022, after more than 75 years of service to museums and universities, individual entomologists, botanists, naturalists, teachers, and many others. BioQuip, located in the Greater Los Angeles area, California, USA, employed scores of individuals skilled in the craftsmanship necessary to produce high quality goods like insect drawers and cabinets. The loss to the local community, as well as to clients, is nearly unfathomable.

My relationship with BioQuip dates farther than I can recall, but it was certainly the company I dealt with exclusively for decades, beginning when I learned how to make a proper insect collection. Back in Portland, Oregon where I grew up in the 1970s, we had our own biological equipment dealer, Carolina Biological Supply, in Gladstone, Oregon, but their selection of products for entomology was limited, and the quality was nothing to crow about. BioQuip always came highly recommended by my mentors, and I returned the favor by suggesting the company to students I mentored myself in later years.

When I struggled financially, I went to the owners of BioQuip and asked if they might be interested in sponsoring this blog. Without hesitation they agreed, and the revenue generated from their ads helped to keep me afloat. When the pandemic hit, I kept the ads up for no charge. It was the least I could do. The company has carried my books ever since their publication, and last year even invited me to do a virtual signing at an annual conference in Arizona.

BioQuip was a major exhibitor at the annual Bug Fair at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, and their presence there will be sorely missed. They were regular exhibitors at the national meetings of the Entomological Society of America as well, even when the convention crossed the border into Canada for a joint international meeting. BioQuip's offices were also the site for monthly meetings of the local Lorquin Entomological Society. These are the activities I know about personally, but no doubt the company was a major fixture in many other organizations and events.

I am personal friends with the owners of Bioquip, and I know it pains them deeply to have reached the decision to close. My understanding is that they did entertain offers to buy the company, but that nothing materialized in a timely manner. Managing a company in the best of times is stressful enough, but in our ongoing health and economic crisis, it is borderline impossible, especially when your major clients are public institutions that understandably had to make their own hard choices.

It is my wish for BioQuip owners, employees, and customers to find renewed success in every facet of their lives, with minimal hardship along the way. Thank you to all who have been affiliated with the company, you have had a far greater impact than you know.

Looking Ahead to 2022

The end of this year has brought a clearer focus for the new year ahead. I have projects to complete, and travel plans already. What else materializes will be dependent on my health, my initiative, what my wife has planned, and how the ongoing pandemic plays out.

My office

In November I received forty-five (45) boxes of pinned insect specimens from Colorado that I am under contract to identify to the best of my ability. They are currently stacked around my office in the spare bedroom of our house. I am grateful for the work, and always find it exciting and challenging. Nearly every insect order is represented in this particular project, save butterflies, moths, and aquatic insects.

Daunting, but thrilling, too

An assortment of flies in this box

I am beginning with the flies, which is one of the orders I struggle with. One of the first specimens I looked at was the male dance fly, family Empididae, shown below. I am working with a dichotomous key, the usual method for identifying specimens. Each couplet in the key describes contrasting conditions in one or more physical characters. You follow the option that matches to get to the next couplet and repeat the process until it dumps out a genus name in this case. It is easy to get this wrong, and sure enough I kind of bogged down at one of the couplets.

Mr. Empis dance fly

I did happen to notice that this specimen had a highly obvious character that was not in the key: an opposing pair of huge teeth on each side of the "knee" joint on the hind leg. You'd think the authors of the key could maybe lead with that? I went to an online resource to look at various images of relevant genera and quickly deduced that I had a male Empis, in the subgenus Enolempis no less. The female fly does not have those impressive leg modifications. There are over fifty species in this subgenus, so I am not taking these any farther, even if I could find a key.

Mrs. Empis

The insect identification project is going to take much time, but I have additional work. I am enrolled in a virtual course, Wildlife Conservation Photography 101, from the Conservation Visual Storytellers Academy. Our instructor is the acclaimed wildlife photographer, and academy founder, Jaymi Heimbuch. This has been surprisingly challenging because it requires me to think visually when my mind thinks in words first. I am behind, but Jaymi, her colleagues, and other students, are owverwhelmingly supportive and empathetic. It is a multigenerational cohort, and I love that. Brainstorming potential stories alone has led me to possibly another book idea.

Immediately after the new year I start attending a wasp identification course, also virtual, sponsored in part by Pennsylvania State University. This will at least dovetail perfectly with the Colorado specimen project I have to work on. If wasps interest you, too, consider entrolling.

Ringed Paper Wasp, Polistes annularis, from Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma, on our way back from Texas in November

A friend from social media land invited my wife and I to meet them in southeast Texas this spring, so hoping I can finally find certain insects, spiders, and reptiles that only occur along the gulf coast. We went to the annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in November, but Harlingen, Mission, and Brownsville are in an entirely different ecosystem. We did get some "lifer" birds on that trip, though, as did a third person in our party. Where else will we go in 2022? Who knows. We are unlikely to fly, due to both pandemic and carbon footprint considerations.

I am available for virtual group and individual consultations, conversations, or presentations, so please feel free to reach out to me via e-mail. I will post links to archived podcasts and meetings when I have permission from the individual or organization hosting the event.

Lastly, I do plan to continue posting here, and working harder to recruit diverse voices for guest blog posts or interviews. Have a non-profit initiative or organization you would like to advertise here? Please let me know. Keep up your own great work, and thank you as always for following this blog.