Speculation - Yellow Aphids Disappear Over Night
All righty. What has happened to the yellow aphids? Right before this latest cool spell blew in, the yellow aphids were all over the Cynanchum unifarium and the Asclepias oenotherioides. Now those aphids have disappeared. Where'd they go?
We are not talking like just a few yellow aphids either. There were a tousand or maybe two tousand just on the Cynanchum. Then, next day, poof, gone.
Now maybe with the high traffic one sees on the Asclepias, those yellow aphids could have been pushed off by the larger herbivores. Maybe the beetles ate them. But no such large herbivores or beetles visited the Cynanchum. Which quite frankly, pisses me off. Why don't those caterpillars and beetles visit the Cynanchum?
The Asclepias oenotherioides is having a good year in these parts. Some of them actually didn't get mowed and have been producing seed pods. The reason they didn't get mowed is because the grass didn't grow. No the grass didn't grow and the mowers didn't mow. Tra-la. So the milkweeds were spared. Naturally I have been able to collect some seed.
Earlier I also did up some seed flats of Asclepias asperula. They germinated all righty but then most of the seedlings died right between cotyledon and two leaf stage. I don't know why. But after about six weeks in 50s only about six are still alive. Even so, those survivors are poorly or stunted. So I need some more seed to experiment with. Somebody needs to get me some more seed.
Here's something missing from the landscape, Agalinis heterophylla. Normally, this agalinis is the most common fall Scrophulariaceae. The Cow Barn always had plenty. But not now. Where'd it go? What shall the poor little bees that relied on the agalinis do now? Mercy!
We are not talking like just a few yellow aphids either. There were a tousand or maybe two tousand just on the Cynanchum. Then, next day, poof, gone.
Now maybe with the high traffic one sees on the Asclepias, those yellow aphids could have been pushed off by the larger herbivores. Maybe the beetles ate them. But no such large herbivores or beetles visited the Cynanchum. Which quite frankly, pisses me off. Why don't those caterpillars and beetles visit the Cynanchum?
The Asclepias oenotherioides is having a good year in these parts. Some of them actually didn't get mowed and have been producing seed pods. The reason they didn't get mowed is because the grass didn't grow. No the grass didn't grow and the mowers didn't mow. Tra-la. So the milkweeds were spared. Naturally I have been able to collect some seed.
Earlier I also did up some seed flats of Asclepias asperula. They germinated all righty but then most of the seedlings died right between cotyledon and two leaf stage. I don't know why. But after about six weeks in 50s only about six are still alive. Even so, those survivors are poorly or stunted. So I need some more seed to experiment with. Somebody needs to get me some more seed.
Here's something missing from the landscape, Agalinis heterophylla. Normally, this agalinis is the most common fall Scrophulariaceae. The Cow Barn always had plenty. But not now. Where'd it go? What shall the poor little bees that relied on the agalinis do now? Mercy!
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, October 11, 2009
5 Comments:
In an old book "The Natural History of Flies" by Harold Oldroyd there is a drawing of the tarsal segments of a dolichopodid fly (Hercostomus staelemi) from Uganda with a fringe of hair. However, your “shoofly” looks more like the flies from the family Emididae, which (according to an even older book: MANUAL OF NORTH AMERICAN DIPTERA BY SAMUEL W. WILLISTON) sometimes has “femora or tibiae thickened and spinose, or with projections or fringes of scales” and has a “proboscis short or long, usually rigid, projecting downward, forward or backward”.
So maybe your fly is in the family Empididae. (I don’t know anything about any of this; I just happened to see the drawing in Harold Oldroyd’s book.) The second book is available online.
TPLR
I just checked out some of the Empididae on bugguide. Except for the hairy feet they are very similar. Thanks for the clue.
The 1908 fly book is hard to navigate on line. But it looks like a very good book about flies.
Thanks again.
After reading your comment I had another look and found that there are two pdf files of the book. One is at Google books and the other is at www.archive.org. The second one is searchable and you might find it to be a little easier to use in case you haven’t seen it yet. They are about the same file size.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ei8oAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=samuel+williston+manual+diptera&source=bl&ots=bEdfznPRdO&sig=xIIRe3-DJv9wcTjkN46cL74X4JE&hl=en&ei=5FzSSuuvNIWQtgeD_tCBBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBUQ6AEwBA#
http://www.archive.org/download/manualofnorthame00will/manualofnorthame00will_bw.pdf
Who knows? Maybe you have discovered a new kind of fly.
TPLR
Turns out that first e copy is easy once you figure it out.
There must be a resurgence of interest in flies because there is a 2009 paperback reprint of the Manual available. It sells for 25-30. Also, on Alibris, old editions are for sale fairly cheap.
Every household needs a good fly manual.
I don't think this fly is new to science. It's too big, 3-4mm, and has too many outlandish characters. But I bet there are some insects at the Cow Barn that would be new to science if somebody discovered them.
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