Some Insecta for Contemplation

Following from the last blog on animal/human a beautiful male Oedemera nobilis resting in a flower after presumably a good meal of pollen (isn’t this a species of geranium… will check?). I love the fact that it evidently thinks it is camouflaged. Striking colour co-ordination tho I’ll give it that – metallic green and purple against the ultra-violet of the flower – striking!

Now that form is entirely derived from the needs for securing a mate and nothing else (beetle and flower)! Why stop being the larva? The females have a good taste then given how much beauty they demand from the males! Yet these creatures have brains far smaller than even a spinal ganglion let alone my visual cortex how can we share the same tastes? There seems to be something objective to beauty!!!Females lack the swollen legs which means they must be something to do with either display or fighting (what males like best in most species).

I only saw this because I was walking as my bike was in for repairs. This reminded me why I must never forget the primary value of walking over other transport.

Also came across this battle zone. Unidentified ichneumon wasps were swarming around these wood worm holes. Maybe this is another reason for beetles not to stay only as larvae! (which is true because by existing in two niches they increase their food supply).

The wasps utterly decimated the population as females mated with waiting males and then search

ed hole by hole for prey, entering head first and very quickly backing out if the hole had already been exploited – I presume they leave some chemical signature.

Once found they reversed out of the hole, turned around and went back in abdomen first to sting the prey and lay the time bomb of an egg. The swarm took about 20 minutes to complete the attack. But it was not all one sided. A huge jumping spider (9mm body) with perfect camouflage was stalking the parasites too. But he was not travelling far from that crevice presumably watching out for bird strikes. Of course me being present probably altered some of the behaviours too.

For people with wood worm in their houses I wonder if releasing a vial of these wasps every so often would curtail the problem rather more efficiently and safely than the wood worm killer chemicals. Tough on the old wood worms however being thrown into a very real Aliens type scenario. Having their insides eaten out can’t be the nicest way to end one’s life – tho the parasites are clever and do their work surgically and probably painlessly – they don’t want the wood worm to curl up with stomach pains and stop eating

wood straight away! Beautiful? Striking and extraordinary at least. Parasitoids are already used for this.

P.S. who needs the Serengeti when we have this on our doorstep? I’m happy that Spring Watch on BBC is diversifying away from birds (which are wonderful creatures yes) to include other classes of animal – Insecta has to be a must for the show given the sheer diversity and

beauty of them (butterflies and moths being only the obvious example). After reptiles they have always been my favourite - interesting to see how universal the appeal of snakes is to naturalists (I’m not alone) Chris Packam saying that he had 20 grass snakes in his room once. That’s more than I have ever seen – I’m impressed and its not like I haven’t looked for them.

On another occasion a sexual lady bird and the discarded case of its previous pupal stage. I wonder as it dries its wings whether the red pigment is created later of is this a yellow 7 spot!? But the real question is what does a ladybird actually look like? It’s the same question as what shape is water, and its interesting that humans chose the sexual form to represent the creature. We have the same eyes evidently as the mates.

Below another of the vast array of parasitoid hymenoptera…Amblyteles armatorius on the prowl to infect noctuid caterpillars (under-wings and the like).

Big parasitoids have little parasitoids inside their bellies to blight them, and little parasitoids have smaller parasitoids and so ad infinitum.

This itself raises the whole issue of inside and outside. If you ever have parasitic worms or a fluke, or even a virus yourself… is that really inside “you”.

And obviously the infinite regress is because a parasite cannot prey upon itself… altho actually it could. This is what a child is!!! tho children are a bit smarter than to kill their host (most of the time). Now that is a very odd ouroboros!! and an example where the SRH doesn’t quite work. Obviously this is what the film Aliens was about. Just reading into this I find it is documented. “Occasionally, accidents can happen and the ichneumonid may miss the target host and the egg may stick on her own body, when the larva hatches it at once attacks its own parent.”

btw the ultimate field guide to Insecta of Britain and Western Europe is the Domino Field Guide. The late Sir Dick Southwood who used to be at Imperial College and I remember my tutor telling me that it was while watching the pond outside the conservatory at Silwood Park that he did a thought experiment with frogs hopping into available spaces on the edge. I forget what the resulting theory was … oops. He says of this book “…an extraordinarily fine work.” couldn’t agree more.