Crab Spider Shows No Mercy
Seems like at the CB, crab spiders are the most efficient of all the many predators. There they sit amid the flowers, invisible. Yes. The hard work is all in the long and arduous journey to a nice feeding spot. Once socked in on the spot though, it’s all gravy. From then on, all gravy.No need to spin a web. No need to jump around like a track star. Nope. None of that. Sarcophaga sp. on Lindheimera texana
posted by ray pistrum at Tuesday, May 04, 2010
12 Comments:
Thank you for your “cuckoo wasp maybe” photo several days ago. I have seen a "cuckoo wasp maybe", also. Mine appeared from a gall at the end of a Juniperus ashei stem. I ran across a photo of such a gall if you are interested: http://www.biosci.utexas.edu/prc/DigFlora/JUAS/cedar-gall.html (not that your cuckoo wasp maybe and my cuckoo wasp maybe are necessarily the same species). I found an article about such a gall: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25081415 and another article about the fly that makes it: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25081400 which may not have any useful information for you.
I had already surmised that the wasp ate the fly who made the gall, and so the term “cuckoo” makes sense. I had no idea what kind of wasp it was before I saw your photo.
PLR
I wish you had a picture of a cuckoo looking wasp exiting a gall. I don't think that is usual behavior for a cuckoo wasp according to the literature. Normally, cuckoo wasps afflict other wasps or bees, laying eggs in their nests. Although, I reckon some cuckoo wasps could also afflict gall wasps.
I had a couple of galls in closed plastic bags, and both of them produced wasps. It is easier for me to wait for the adults rather than try to identify the larvae. By the time I found the reference to the gall, there weren’t any more galls to clarify what was going on. The galls appear about juniper pollination time and the wasps came out toward the end of February. I figure I will have to wait until next year find out more.
By the way a small Ashe juniper tree in my back yard has galls, while a larger juniper in the front yard doesn’t. The galls turn red as they enlarge so they are not too hard to spot.
But your's that came out of the juniper galls were green or looked like my cuckoo wasp maybe?
At any rate thanks for the info. There are some nearby Juniperus ashei I can check for the described phenomena.
Here are a couple of photos of the wasp.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50030091@N02/
I included a bonus photo of a fly.
Mercy! Those are great pictures. But that's not a cuckoo wasp I don't think. I bet it's some kind of micro wasp. What camera did you use?
I used a Nikon D200 with Nikon’s old zoom macro lens plus a Raynox close-up lens for the wasp pictures and a Canon G10 with a Raynox close-up lens for the fly photo. The wasp photo was cropped, and this seems to be at the limit of using close-up lenses this way. A better picture could be made with a bellows, but it takes time, energy, and aggravation to do that.
It usually takes me dozens of photographs for me to get something that I think is fun to look at. I use things like pizza seasoning containers with photographic filters taped over them as cages to temporarily hold whatever it is, since most small living things don’t like large things in their space for very long. Also, while fashion photographers seem to need expensive reflectors to get even light from flash, I find that pieces of white plastic cut from cat-litter containers work okay with bugs.
You mentioned you were considering new camera equipment. I think point and shoot digital cameras solve a lot of problems when walking around taking pictures (with the close-up lenses and pieces of cat litter containers carefully kept out of sight until I am out of sight). The digital SLR is big and I am decrepit, so I can’t leave home without a big tripod which makes things worse. Still, the big camera can take many more pictures than the little one. I think the Nikon and Canon brands of SLRs are both good, and a choice would boil down to prejudice or some other non-photographic consideration. For example, I picked a Nikon digital SLR since I had Nikon film cameras and I already had a bunch of old junk for macro photography.
In theory, your choice of a small Olympus SLR sounded like a good one to me. It is both small and has many features.
Thanks for the tips.
You know we need to figure out what those wasps of yours are at least to genera. If you don't mind I shall endeavor to discover something or other.
Yes. My main macro lenses are the Sigma 150mm and Olympus 35mm. With the 35mm the camera is almost point and shoot weight. And actually, I am very happy with the macro end of it from the lens angle even though that Sigma is a two ton Tony.
The trouble is, my old Oly E 330 needs super nova like lighting conditions to autofocus. Also, usuable ISO taps out at 400 and that's really noisy.
Course, if I didn't shoot everything in natural light without a tripod the Oly shortcomings would not be so glaring But like you say, the tripod is a real hassle.
I do have an Olympus C5060 WZ, an old timey point and shoot. It's great because in shutter priority mode the flash sync is universal at full zoom. Trouble is, full zoom doesn't get you anywhere near 1:1. (The twirler moth shot is with the 5060 and built in flash at full zoom and heavy crop).
I also tried the Raynox 150 with the 5060, but focusing is a nightmare.
Yes. The small Olympus dslrs would be a very nice solution for macro if Olympus would ever improve high ISO and autofocus performance. But apparently, the new ones are only marginally better than mine. Plus the really little one, the 620, uses a different battery than The E330 and 5060. Go figure!
That's why I am considering a Nikon D90.
I would appreciate help with identifying that wasp.
By the way, I once tried to write a book about how nature can be entertaining. It was not meant to convert, but only to make the concept plausible to those who didn’t already know. Well, I have several ways to prove it was a failure, but in the book are some pictures of my cat litter container lighting techniques. If you are interested in having a look, I edited the title of the picture wing fly and added a link to the pdf.
Huh-huh. I read a good deal of your book. It's entertaining and remarkably free of rancor.
Thanks,
I have given it to a number of really intelligent people and the only one who connected with it is the one who already knew what I was trying to say. Just what one would think I suppose, but I thought I should give enlightening my fellow humans a try.
I have really enjoyed the exploits of the Druids. They have made their own noble effort at the enlightening business.
Count Karl the Tracker Druid in as another one who likes your book. That's because Karl likes to hear how about how one may get to the same place by multiple routes.
We all do what we can.
Sometimes we may be lonely, but generally we are happy. Like Ray is presently happy because he has a pocket full of Arabis petiolaris seed. Ray shall plant that seed out in the front yard. Then, if the seed comes up, we can take pictures of all the insects that arrive on the flowers.
It's the same difference as having a Sequoia tree in the back yard, or espying M101 from the back yard. The same difference, only possible.
Hold it. Seed does not come up. Sewage does though. It's like a snake that instead of going forward, stands up.
This morning's Falangist Daily contains the best environmental related article even penned in the long history of that wretched newspaper. And one of the finest similes anyone ever thought up.
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