The first new insect type in 100 years...

It's probably about  a month since I was here last. But just because I have been away from the blog does not mean I have been idle. Oh no! Far from it. Where have I been, what have I been doing?

Let's start with where I have been: it used to be bear, now it's golden. Its motto is 'Eureka'. 'General Sherman' is almost certainly its oldest inhabitant  estimated to be 4,650 years old!  A well known valley here set  the hottest temperature ever recorded in the world- 134 degrees Fahrenheit. One visual clue? Okay here it is...

                  

Nope, I don't really understand that graph either; but it is supposed to represent the vowel shifts associated with 'California-English'. And so just in case you missed the not-so-subtle clue there: yes, I have been in California again.

Did I take my macro camera gear with me? You betcha!

Do I have photographs to share? You bet your sweet bippy I do...

Now I am no expert on North American insects but I think this might be Hylephila phyleus - The Fiery Skipper.

Not too sure about this darker one though. I spent way too long trying to research an identity for this little skipper and the closest I could get was Poanes melane - The Umber Skipper: hope that's right.

I do have more skipper photographs, plenty more to be exact as unlike here in the UK, there were still lots around: but let's skip those for now and move on to one of my favourite tiny creatures...

These  jumping spiders are pretty commonplace it seems, but a real challenge to photograph. I kinda wish I had taken the extreme macro lens, but was trying to travel as light as possible.

Then again, I wish I hadn't just invented an excuse as to why these photos aren't sharper. How about if I said that I was enjoying being in America, and in particular the Californian sunshine, so much, that I  was possibly not giving photography my fullest attention? 

Let's move on shall we. I know you don't all appreciate the beauty that I see in spiders. I cannot claim that I found this next creature myself, because, well, I didn't. But...I did manage to sneak a couple of pictures of what turned out to be a pretty impressive shieldbug, or stinkbug as they like to call them ...

Brochymena arborea, otherwise known as the Rough Stink Bug would be my guess for this one. Rough stink bugs are very well camouflaged and closely resemble the colour and texture of the tree bark on which they live. And in case you are looking at my photo and thinking to yourself 'It doesn't look well camouflaged to me', this one was underneath the bark, the other side was very similar in appearance to the bug.

There are a couple of other Bronchymena species that it might be, but I plumped for this one after much consideration. Frankly I was starting to get bug-eyed and losing the will to live anyway, so settled on it being Bronchy-thingy-wotsit...whatever I said at the start of this ramble.

Well if attempting to identify the last critter tried my patience, then this one, at least for a while, completely banjaxed it! At first sight I thought it might be Plectoptera (Stonefly) but that didn't seem to fit perfectly. Snakefly? Nope. Flying ant? Nope. Have a look at my photograph, see what you think...

While you are contemplating that image, did I mention that there was an earthquake during the second week of my visit? Yes, 4.5 or 4.7 depending on which report you read. It was surreal: it was about 10.30 at night and I was already in bed. You don't expect to be lying in bed and then the earth suddenly moves do you! Not in my bed you don't.

                                                     😂

Anyhow, back to the story; after doin' me 'ead in trying to  find out just what kind of creature this was, I had a lightbulb moment. Doesn't happen very often, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I recalled reading something on the BBC website that might be pertinent, and sure enough, a quick Google revealed this...

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! A webspinner eh, and we now have them here in parts of the UK. But what is a webspinner? Here's the official word:

The order Embioptera, commonly known as webspinners or footspinners, are a small group of mostly tropical and subtropical insects, classified under the subclass Pterygota. The order has also been called Embiodea or Embiidina. Webspinners have up to 2.5cm long brown bodies and are the only insects that produce a silk webbing from their front legs, living in tunnels constructed from it to protect themselves from the elements and predators.

And so this actually turned out to be quite an intriguing find for me.

The story even made the Telegraph newspaper who ran this headline:

Britain gets first new insect type in 100 years, as webspinner from the Tropics found to have migrated to Surrey.

Too much excitement is bad for your ulcer, and so let's calm things down a little here; there was one particular insect that I had on my wish list for this visit, not going to reveal it just yet, but here's an anagram to tide you over...'tis a man'. C'mon, I may as well have told you outright huh?

This photograph (above) is 'Asclepias speciosa' the Showy Milkweed. It belongs to the Acanthus family of plants and seems to be well suited to the Californian growing conditions. It has these rather large (about 3 inches or so) fruit pods and attracts many insects, including aphids by the thousand, and a superb looking bug called a Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus). 

The large amount of aphids is of no consequence to the milkweed bugs as far as being a source of food. Milkweed bugs are herbivores and consume milkweed seeds. Compared to here in the Uk it seemed very late for nymphs to be still around, but not in California: in favourable conditions reproduction occurs all year round. 

An adult male and lower photo shows two nymphs.

Many fruit pods were alive with both adults and juveniles.

Apparently studies have show that northern populations of these bugs will migrate, whereas southern ones remain sedentary.

Well this blog update that began as a leisurely stroll through Californian wildlife, has already become something of a behemoth. I guess I should get to my exciting 'tis a man' finds; or MANTIS as I like to call them. Yes, I am sayin mantis rather than 'a mantis' for a very good reason.

Yes, the one thing I was hoping to find this visit was a mantis: timing seemed good and so I was hopeful that by the end of my stay  I'd be able to cross it off my bucket list.

Wednesday October 9th was my first day out with the camera searching for these amazing insects. Did I find one? No I did not.

What I did find though was FIVE! Yes...F-I-V-E !!

Well...paint me green and call me a cucumber!

I took squillions of photos, but somehow managed to keep the total to just six for this update - although I may get tempted to add more to future updates.

I was SO excited to see these that I almost had an accident! On the very first day as well: in their natural environment too. Fabulous insects full of intrigue and wonder for this English country boy. 

Now you are not going to ask me to identify these to species level are you? Oh, you are... bugger...erm... Arizona Mantis (Stagmomantis limbata) was one possibility, with European mantis (Mantis religiosa) being another. Or even possibly California Mantis (Stagmomantis californica)  for the green ones. Perhaps the darker/slimmer one might be something like Japanese (Tenodera aridifolia) or Chinese (Tenodera sinensis) Mantis?

What I do know is that they are stunning insects for me and after finding and photographing them, I was on a high for the rest of that day. I had several more encounters over the next days and weeks which I may get to share sometime soon.

Alright, time to call an end to all this indulgence for now. A couple of final thoughts to share: I discovered that I do not like dill pickles! Euwwww! I don't even like the look of corn dogs, let alone the thought of eating all that batter. As for the corn cob pipe, which looks like this...

No thanks friend. 

What did I enjoy? Well I now have a penchant for brownies and the root beer I tried was pleasant enough. 

Thanks for wading through this rather long update: I am most grateful to you -

A very quick postscript?

Okay, I will be concise: when I got to San Francisco airport to board a plane home, I was amazed, and more than a little excited, to find that INSECTS were on display throughout the part of the airport I was in...

Shame nobody spell-checked the text!