It’s a short clip, and you’ll have to check out the end to see this little beetle take flight. I fished this one out of the pool and it’s the 2nd one I’ve seen this week, albeit a new one for me to observe. I believe this is Hylastes macer, but hoping a friend will take a look for me to confirm. I have tentatively based my ID on size (approx 5mm) and locale being under our Shore Pine trees, but I wasn’t confident using Wood’s key with only my photo and video in lieu of an actual specimen under the microscope. At minimum, Hylastes should be correct for Genus. These beetles are in the family Curculionidae and subfamily Scolytinae, one of the Bark and Ambrosia beetle species.
As to their life history, they construct galleries in phloem tissues of roots and stumps of Pinus or Pine trees and occasionally Picea or Spruce trees. According to Atkinson (2024), there are six species of Hylastes known in Washington State. Some of the species in this genus range from BC to CA. For more on distribution, take a look at Wood, 1982.
While identifying a bug is part of the process, the most fun for me is observing their behaviors. I knew when I saw the march of those little front feet, that the launch was about to take place.
Evans, A. 2021. Beetles of Western North America. Princeton University Press.
Wood, S.L. 1982. The bark and ambrosia beetles of North and Central America (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), a taxonomic monograph. Great Basin Nat. Mem. 6: 1-1356.
What do they eat? While they are indeed visiting our suet blocks during their reproductive season and will also come by in the winter when food is scarce, the actual diets of a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) or other species of woodpeckers are comprised of many of the wood-boring, tunneling, and wood-eating invertebrates that help forests stay healthy.
How could an insect (or an insect-eating bird) that bores into trees be good for a tree? As the saying goes, “sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees.” While this is complicated due to climate change, our narrow views tend to see herbivory or holes in a tree, and even a dying tree as a bad thing.
We have to step back to understand the whole picture – which is – a dynamic process. A healthy ecosystem is not static, but one of renewal and regeneration, always changing. The wood boring bugs that are eating inside a tree are (typically) part of the early breakdown stages of a tree that is already dying. As they tunnel and bore though the dying tree, they help decompose the dying parts, releasing nutrients back into the system for new trees and other organisms to grow.
Compared to a human lifespan, this is not a rapid process, but an ongoing, multi-generational one that sustains many other organisms over a vast period of time. In a nutshell, the birds, like these woodpeckers, take advantage of the dying trees hosting wood boring beetle larvae and other wood-eating or wood-tunneling bugs. As the beetles, and ants, or termites tunnel, chew, or eat through a tree, they attract and feeds other organisms that feed on the insects. The insects and the birds leave behind sawdust and frass which is, in turn, broken down by other organisms – earthworms, millipedes, centipedes, etc. In actuality, the processes at hand are far more complicated, but in a nutshell, healthy ecosystems include death.
When you walk out onto your property and see a dying tree, don’t necessarily see it as a bad thing. Watch for a while. Are the woodpeckers pecking holes? The tree may not fall over for many, many years. As it dies, it will host so many various lives: from spiders in tiny crevices, beautiful moths (often unseen, but important pollinators), iridescent beetles that will emerge from some of those tunnels, woodpeckers, cavity nesting birds, including owls that need a sheltered place to rest and rear young. Just maybe, if you consider these things, you will refrain from taking down and chipping or burning that “dying” or “dead” tree and leave it to stand many years instead. When it does finally fall, perhaps you will consider leaving it to decompose on the forest floor where it will continue to host the lives of many organisms that are necessary and good for a healthy and balanced ecosystem. Nature will thank you. The San Juan Islands are a special place. Let’s not turn our home into a mainland suburbia.
*Fun fact: The diets of Pileated Woodpeckers are known to be comprised of 85% carpenter ants. Re-think your decision to put insecticidal baits out around your property. Those stumps are the equivalent of a grocery store or local co-op for these birds. Leave them to decompose naturally.
References
Bull, E. L. (1987). Ecology of the pileated woodpecker in northeastern Oregon. The Journal of wildlife management, 472-481.
Hmmm, I was trying to think of a catchy title. “Louse in the House” made you look, right? Well, indeed one did escape and I can’t find it. Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? I thought I saw it flying around the dining room.
Here’s how it happened. Yesterday afternoon, a bird hit the window. It was a hard strike on a window where we haven’t had many bird collisions. I suppose I’ll have to make more Acopian Bird Blinds to put up. They’ve sure help mitigate the bird strikes. Link to DIY instructions here: https://www.birdsavers.com/make-your-own/
Back to the bird. I went out to see if the poor bird was still alive. It was, but died in my hands soon after I picked it up and carried it into the house to assess for injuries. I took the bird into the bathroom so I could shut out my ever-curious indoor cats, Herman and Nimbus. After realizing I was holding a lifeless body, I set the bird down in the bathtub. Right away, I noticed a fly crawling through the bird’s feathers. Hurriedly, I left the bathroom, grabbed my camera, and went back to examine my specimen more closely.
Hippoboscid Fly (Icosta americana)
As I bent over to look through the feathers, a fly zoomed up and nearly entered my nostril. I backed away, rubbing my nose. Wouldn’t be my first strange experience with a fly. There was that incident with the botfly that could have been a medical ophthalmological emergency. Don’t ask. You truly don’t want to know.
Leaning back over the tub, I started to look through the feathers again, but thought better. I went out of the bathroom again. This time to retrieve a large plastic bag and a collection vial for specimens. The bird went into the clear plastic bag. Now, I could look while containing the flies in the bag if there were others to be found.
I found two more.
These are Louse Flies in the family Hippoboscidae. The ID for this particular species is Icosta americana. Also, my husband identified the bird as a juvenile Brown Headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). Strangely, this species is known to be chiefly associated with the bird families Accipitridae (birds of prey – hawks), Phasianidae (pheasants), and Strigidae (owls). So, why might it be on a cowbird? The bizarre exception. Maybe the cowbird parents laid their egg in the nest of one of the above? I suppose it will be a mystery.
Hippoboscid louse flies are pretty interesting. First off, don’t they look weird? Trust me when I tell you they are one of the most bizarre families of flies out there. They are obligate ectoparasites that feed on the blood of their host, nothing else. Unlike other fly groups, both male and female flies in this family feed exclusively on blood.
There are more than 200 species of Hippoboscid flies, and each species is particular about what sort of host it feeds on. Some feed on sheep, some on deer, others on bats, but the ones I found feed on birds. In fact, approximately 75% of species of Hippoboscid flies are bird parasites. Of these 75%, some are so picky, they only prefer a particular species of bird.
Another interesting thing about these flies is the fact they vector diseases like Avian Malaria, West Nile virus, and various Trypanosomes among the host species they parasitize. Unlike some other Hippoboscid species which have deciduous wings (wings that are quickly lost when reaching a host), the ones that parasitize birds can fly during their entire adult life. This means if their host dies, like my bird that hit the window, the flies are able to leave the bird’s body and fly off to parasitize another bird host.
While one fly may have attempted to target my nose, these flies are not known to parasitize humans, although incidental bites have been recorded. Some species of female Hippoboscid flies are actually known to only be able to develop their eggs from the blood of their particular host species.
While on a host, Hippoboscid flies move about with ease. They have bodies that are dorso-ventrally flattened, somewhat like an unfed tick body or a squished bug body. In fact, the Hippoboscid flies that parasitize deer are often mistaken for ticks. Because of the flattened body, sometimes these flies are referred to as flat flies. This shape makes it easy for them to glide between fur or feathers, and it also makes it hard for the host to groom them off.
The most remarkable thing about Hippoboscid flies is their reproductive biology. It is known by the term, Adenotrophic viviparity. Adenotrophic viviparity is where eggs hatch inside the female, and the larvae are fed internally until they are mature enough to pupate. In layman lingo, the female fly gives birth to a single live larva just as it is ready to pupate. She has invested all her resources into producing a single offspring.
This is unique as most fly species cast eggs onto a substrate and the eggs hatch into larvae, feed independently of the parent, pupate, and emerge as adults. With Hippoboscid flies, the female parent retains the single egg inside her uterus, the egg hatches into a larva, and she feeds it with special milk glands until the larva reaches the last stage of larval development or “prepuparium.” Finally, the adult fly “births” her offspring larva enclosed in a shell that quickly hardens into a true pupa. With Hippoboscid species that parasitize birds, the adult fly will leave her pupa in a bird’s nest or roosting site where it can easily find a host when emerges as an adult. For more on the life cycle of Hippoboscidae, you can view one of my YouTube videos here – https://youtu.be/zCD1B2GjCxU
*** In case you’re sitting here scratching your head and I wasn’t clear in the text, ALL of the collective names for Hippoboscid Flies include the following: Flat Fly, Louse Fly, Ked Fly, or just plain ole Ked. And yes, they ARE known to have a painful bite!
References and Further Reading
Coatney, G. R. (1931). On the Biology of the Pigeon Fly, Pseudolynchia maura Bigot (Diptera, Hippoboscidae). Parasitology, 23(04), 525.
Dick, C.W. 2006. Checklist of world Hippoboscidae (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea); Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History: Chicago, IL, USA, pp. 1–7.
Levesque-Beaudin, V. Sinclair, B.J. 2021. Louse fly (Diptera, Hippoboscidae) associations with raptors in southern Canada, with new North American and European records. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, 16: 168-174. ISSN 2213-2244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2021.09.007
Maa, T. C. 1969. a Revised Checklist & Concise Host Index of Hippoboscidae (Diptera). Pacific Insects Monog., Honolulu: Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. 20: 261–299. http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/fiji/pdf/maa1969b.pdf
Santolíková,A.;Brzonˇová, J.;Cˇepicˇka,I.;Svobodová,M. 2022. Avian Louse Flies and Their Trypanosomes: New Vectors, New Lineages and Host–Parasite Associations. Microorganisms. 10, 584. https://doi.org/10.3390/ microorganisms10030584
Last night I tried out a black light tube instead of my UVB light or the miserable fail of the switched-off porch light I wrote about yesterday. My thoughts on the black light? Not effective. Either the light was the issue or there just weren’t many moths flying about last night at all. I did find a few moths. Mostly, I found small micro-moths. Some are hardly noticeable at all. At first glance, you could mistake them for a drop of bird poo on the bucket. In a tree or shrub, you might miss them entirely. It takes magnification to see them clearly.
Tonight, I’m going to go back to the UVB tube light. Hopefully with better results. If you’re interested in knowing more about MOTHING or finding out about National Moth Week, feel free to reach out or check out the link here – https://nationalmothweek.org
Here’s my Gallery for Day FIVE. Thanks for stopping by!
Pero mizonBrown lined Looper, (Neoalcis californiaria)Possibly one of the Knot Horn Moths, Family Pyralidae, Subfamily PhycitinaeDouble Banded Carpet moth (Spargania magnoliata) I believeGenus Ephestiodes, one of the snout moths in the family PyralidaeGenus Ephestiodes, one of the snout moths in the family PyralidaeGenus EphestioidesPero mizonGenus EphestiodesTribe Archipini, one of the Tortrix mothsGenus Ephestiodes, one of the snout moths in the family Pyralidae
Last night’s mothing efforts were a giant FAIL. It rained in the San Juan’s yesterday. When I went to turn on my UV light before bed last night, I discovered it was soaking wet. I didn’t want to be the first known MOTHING casualty by electrocuting myself, so I turned on our porch light instead. 💡
What could possibly go wrong?
My husband got up at 2 AM and turned out my light. GRRRR. Hubby is in the DAWG-HOUSE! 🤣 Woof! 🐶
No moths to post today, but this gives me an opportunity to write up the first of a series of posts I’ve been meaning to work on. Stay tuned for WHAT’S BITING ME?
Thanks for reading. Hopefully, I will be back with some more moths tomorrow.
Here’s today’s grouping of moths from last night’s mothing effort. It’s raining today in the San Juans. We sure do need the rain since it’s been so dry, but I got pretty wet outside this morning trying to sort moths and take photographs. The moisture will definitely be good for insect populations and also keep my flower garden blooming a bit longer this season.
If you’re interested in learning about what species of moths (or other insects and spiders) we have in the San Juans, feel free to reach out. I am always happy to answer questions. For anyone interested in participating in National Moth Week, here’s a link to their website – https://nationalmothweek.org
Leading up to the Twelfth Annual National Moth Week, July 22-30, 2023 https://nationalmothweek.org, I am getting into moth mode with some early collecting to see what is flying about the forest near our home at night.
My first attempts at this were quite unsatisfying, save for the two awesome beetles that came to visit. The bug station I set up just wasn’t yielding much in the way of moths, at least until I discovered my station had been discovered by some thieving yellow jackets who were picking off my moths right in front of my eyes. Something had to change. I sure didn’t want to lure in these beautiful creatures to become a breakfast buffet.
I got some very helpful advice from a friend named Carl. Carl is an expert moth-er, and he recommended putting some egg cartons in my bug bucket so they would have a place to hide. I tried this last night, adding two egg cartons and some pieces of cardboard. Then, I went to hang my bucket up and turn on the light – EXCEPT, those darn yellow jackets showed up at 9 pm. They must have excellent memory. I suppose they wanted to be first in line at the moth buffet.
I moved my bug bucket and light to another location. It was a success. Here is the assortment of moths I collected last night. All were handled with gentle care and photographed. Afterwards, I moved them to hiding spots in the forest to make them less susceptible to predation.
If you’re interested in participating locally in National Moth Week, please don’t hesitate to reach out for more information. You can find me via email at cynthiabrast@icloud.com or on Facebook at Bugs of the San Juan Islands – a private group, but easy to join by answering a couple of questions and agreeing to follow the group rules to prove you aren’t a spammer and won’t be disruptive. 😉
I posted a few images last week to my iNaturalist page to see if I could get help from some experts in the butterfly community to ID this Polygonia butterfly past genus. It sparked a lively amount of conversation and I finally received a comment in the thread from West Seattle-based nature guide, ecological consultant and botanist, Stewart Wechsler, stating, “@cyndibrast Looks like you have the first confirmed Polygonia oreas iNaturalist observation for the San Juan Islands!” I would also throw out that the first person to correctly speculate the ID for this is my friend, lepidopterist David Droppers, who suggested I post in a wider audience to see what feedback I might receive.
Cool! So, I have the first Oreas Anglewing iNat. Sighting for San Juan County. 😀
Polygonia oreas – March 29, 2023, San Juan County, WA
Have there been others? Probably. Not everyone is using iNaturalist, so some sightings may not be on the radar for other bug enthusiasts. I like it to keep all my bug sightings organized and categorized and all that stuff and using iNaturalist makes it easy to find things when I want to go back to reference one. If you don’t have the iNat. app, give it a try. It makes your outdoor experiences a lot more interesting in a nerdy, scientific way. You can be a naturalist on your hike. It’s fun!
Here’s a bit of information about this interesting butterfly, now officially recorded on San Juan Island. Links to sources included below.
Oreas Anglewing (Polygonia oreas)
*From (C. LaBar 2013) and (Björklund, N.H. 2018-2022)*
SIZE: Wingspan of 40 to 50 mm (up to 2 inches)
Key ID Features: Above orange with black blotches and spots, often with very jagged wing edges, submarginal row of yellow chevrons and brown to black marginal band. HW above has yellow patches adjacent to dark marginal band. Below dark gray to black, with lighter gray striations, and prominent white flattened “v” (pointed at the bottom, often looking like a gull in flight) with no hooks in center of HW.
Similar species: Darker below than other comma species, white “v” mark on HW below lacks barbs. Other comma species either have stronger green submarginal shading below or the “comma” mark on HW below is curved (not a pointed “v”) or barbed or both.
Male: rusty orange and gold with black spots, dark brown wing margin with row of bright yellow spots. Ventral is variegated in contrasting shades of dark brown and black. White comma on VHW.
Female: slightly lighter dorsal and ventral colors and less-distinct ventral mottling.
Egg: green.
Larva: first two instars are brown and pale beige with black hairs and spines. Last three instars are mostly black with thin, white or yellowish bands around each segment and covered with rows of yellow-orange spines.
Pupa: mottled reddish brown, white and gray, with three pairs of silver spots.
Larval hostplants: currants (Ribes), primarily swamp currant (R. viscosissimum), also including R. divericatum (straggly gooseberry), and R. lacustre (swamp gooseberry).
Habitat: Forest fringes, especially in older stands, riparian areas and ravines, subalpine meadows.
Range: Coast Range, Willamette Valley, Western Cascades, east slope of Cascades, Wallowa Mtns, Blue Mtns. Season: Late February to mid-September Abundance: Uncommon
I sat outside today in the sunshine, forced convalescence if you will, exhausted and achey after getting my Covid Omicron Variant booster vaccine yesterday at the San Juan County Fairgrounds. My outdoor time was unfortunately cut short because we have been inundated with construction development noise. I’m fairly certain I will be forever challenged to have an amiable relationship with our newest neighbors. In part, because they sited their VACATION home, right in front of our view. Mind you, they could have moved over 100 feet and we would not have to look across the top of our driveway at their newly constructed 2nd home. It has definitely impacted us. We’ve lost a lot of our privacy out here in the woods. It was never my desire to have close neighbors. I am a bit of a recluse….which is what the new neighbor said about his wife, yet, it begs me to ask again, WHY DID YOU BUILD YOUR HOUSE RIGHT ON TOP OF US?
Oh, and the jackhammering! That noise is enough to make a person homicidal. We had an entire summer of jackhammering from the former owners of that property. Really, truly, that property should never have been zoned for development. Not any development. It’s partly (half) wetland, and the other half is bedrock. Imagine the task of trying to excavate enough to bury your septic lines down the hill when you have solid bedrock! Also, our house is on that same shelf of bedrock, so the hammering shakes the walls and vibrates the floors of our home in the process of all this construction. The development on this lot has gone on for multiple years. I’m really tired of the disruption.
I digress. Sorry, I just had to vent. San Juan Island would be a much friendlier place for wildlife and bugs and such if we didn’t allow anyone to build a 2nd, or 3rd home here. We are outgrowing our space and it isn’t pretty.
Here’s my bug of the day. This beauty is a Western Calligrapher Fly (Toxomerus occidentalis). I was mesmerized watching it rest on the mint leaf. The patterning on the dorsal side of the abdomen reminds me of some sort of totem design.
The adults of this fly species are pollinators. They lay eggs on plants near aphids and when larvae emerge they are predatory on the aphids. It is believed that late instar larvae overwinter, pupation takes place in the soil cavities in the spring and adults emerge later in summer. The name for this group of flies comes from Greek toxon ‘bow’ + meron ‘thigh’ (refers to the bow-shaped hind femur). You can see the curve in the first photo below, circled in red. Something else interesting pertaining to the adult coloration I found on bugguide.net: “Colors vary with overall temperature during pupation: if it was hot, the yellow/orange increases and the background becomes lighter, but if it was cold, the dark/black increases and the yellow/orange becomes darker like the background.”
Enjoy the last few days of sunshine and embrace our native pollinators. We are heading into the dark part of the year. For those of us who live here year round, you know what to expect. Lots and lots of rain.
Our native pollinators were slow to emerge this year in the San Juans because of the cool weather. Usually, we can rely on flies, solitary bees and wasps, and even moths, ants, and others to pollinate our fruit trees. I did see some species of flies out this spring, but again, weather conditions were poor.
We have PLENTY of “pollinators” out in our yard right now. So, in trying to explain to people when they ask me about a decline in native pollinators, I have a few points I like to throw out for consideration.
1) honey bees are poor pollinators to keep on the island. It has to be above 50 degrees for them to come out of the hive.
2) native flies and other insects like moths (which fly at night and we don’t typically see) are better at pollinating in cooler temperatures. While they also won’t be out if it’s rainy and super cold, they can fly in temperature ranges lower than 50 degrees F.
3) the critical importance of native pollinators may not be in their “pollination” services – but their role as pest predators and/or role in the food cycle for other organisms, and for creating biodiversity in our ecosystem, which helps keep everything healthier. I think this part is important. If you look at some of the plants we put in our gardens (native perennials), they actually do not require pollination to survive and reproduce, but do offer pollen and nectar to many insects, spiders, and hummingbirds. Looking further at the food web, we need a variety of native insects for more than pollination. Tachinid flies, syrphid flies, solitary wasps, ants, and even spiders can be pollinators, but also help regulate populations of orchard, garden, and forest pests.
My take on all of this is as humans, our focus has largely been on how to grow food over environmental conservation and maintaining balanced, functioning ecosystems. With climate change, many of our food growing operations may fail. Our fruit trees (at least none that I know of) are not native. In spite of the best intentions, conditions may decline to a point where we can’t produce great fruit here. Weather is only one limiting factor. We have poor soils or no soil in many locations, limited water resources, and the pressures of continuing development resulting in loss of natural habitats. I don’t have the answers for you when it comes to fruit production or any way to personally mitigate climate change, so we may have to figure out a substitute for growing apples, plums, and such.
Let’s go back to the importance of native pollinators though. If you think of our island as a living organism with many different functions, it is important to have all the essential pieces to keep the “body” healthy. These native pollinators (and the native plants they visit), and all the other myriad species of invertebrates, fungi, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, soil, water, etc. are all part of the “body,” a body that has to fight off occasional or repeated assaults from being thrown off balance by exposures to external forces. Just like we need a variety of foods and minerals and other things to keep our body healthy, so does an ecosystem. We need all of these pieces (and that includes our native pollinators and all the other diverse species) to keep our island home healthy.
As to the fruit trees and other food crops requiring pollination, for now, some of these issues can be mediated by planting around your orchard and garden with plenty of diverse native species and providing habitat for all of these native species to develop. Some of our practices of cleaning and sanitizing our orchards and gardens, burning yard clippings, and applying fertilizers and pesticides can adversely affect the biodiversity needed to help our food production thrive.
I imagine it can be frustrating to see an orchard fail to produce fruit. My grandparents were tenant farmers and wholly dependent on growing cotton and corn and the bit of garden and livestock they had around the home on the property they did not own. When it was a drought year, and crops failed, things were utterly miserable. Destitute would be a better adjective. I believe we may have an inherent desire to be “part of the land,” and grow our own food, but sometimes, despite our best efforts, conditions aren’t favorable. Crops fail. Historically, we have tried (and failed) to control some of these external forces – like applying pesticides in amounts that probably will poison us forever.
I’ve gone way beyond the “pollinator” topic here, but it is next to impossible for me to see a one-dimensional issue. We have a much larger and more complex picture before us. How do we either re-create or maintain a healthy functioning system, navigate the perils of climate change, and feed ourselves? I like to believe that protecting diversity in our ecosystems is an important facet of this complex, multi-layered crisis we face.
Bugging You From San Juan Island 