Successes in beetle identification

Kidney spot ladybird, as seen in OJ16 this week. It's a beetle too. CC image by GailHampshire.

Yesterday afternoon, student B and I had a go at identifying some of her beetles. It really was a triumphant success and she kindly said she felt a lot more confident about the process. I had a very pleasant afternoon and I think we both felt the geeky satisfaction of tracking a specimen through the keys and coming out at the right answer.

However, I thought I would mention here that this was not a speedy process. I've done some beetle i.d. before and so I was able to explain the terminology as it came up, pointing out the different parts of the beetle's body and showing her the classic beetle dichotomy of Crossed vs. Uncrossed Epipleura. So this speeded things up for her. But in three hours we identified three specimens. Yes this included faffing about finding microscopes, pins, printing off keys and chatting about other things. But you should still be aware that (at least to begin with) identifying your beetle (or spider for that matter) is going to take time. Do not leave things until the last minute.

Besides, we were enjoying the process, looking at the amazing detail of the beetles down the microscopes - they were surprisingly hairy, or stripey-lined, or with massive jaws, or with crazy antennae. So it was a pleasure to spend the time looking at them. Please do come and use the microscopes to examine your species, and I am only too happy to go through the identification with you. It's really useful to have two pairs of eyes to judge some of the characteristics.

We started off each time with Unwin's guide to families:

B's first specimen was huge, so much so that we initially tried to convince ourselves that the key was taking us towards the elbow-antennaed Lucanidae (stag beetles). But reason and logic prevailed. The short elytra (wing covers) led us to the Silphidae (burying beetles).

The extremely philanthropic Mike Hackston has an illustrated key to the Silphidae. And once we had got down to the right genus, his key for Nicrophorus led us to the answer: Nicrophorus humator. Fair enough, with a common species like this one, you might have been able to pick it out of the photos in a general insect guide. But you wouldn't have gleaned useful beetle-observing skills along the way and you might not have looked closely enough at the details that distinguish it from similar species.

CC image by Laisverobotams.

You'll see this species (the Black Sexton Beetle) has short elytra that don't cover the tip of its abdomen, and they look as though they've been cut off, straight across. It's got rather distinctive clubbed antennae too, and they're orange in contrast to the rest of its black body. We were rather taken by the furriness of the beetle's underside. This wasn't mentioned in the keys but we were wondering if it had something to do with the creature's lifestyle. This isn't a sweet little beetle with genteel habits. It's called a 'sexton' beetle because these seek out dead animals and bury them, laying eggs on the corpse. Some species eat fly larvae - and B found this example in a fly trap.

Our next specimen also had short elytra, showing even more abdomen. But its antennae were quite different. We used Unwin's key to put it in the Staphilinidae family - this contains about a quarter of British beetles! but luckily this species is very distinctive and we felt justified deferring to this excellent Watford Coleoptera Group page confirming its size makes it impossible to be anything other than the Devil's Coach Horse (Ocypus olens). It does seem beetles get all the best names.

The Devil's Horse Coach gets uppity. CC image by Galway Girl.

Finally we chose another black beetle from B's collection. It had long thready antennae, elytra that covered its whole abdomen, 'trochanters' underneath, and five tarsi on its front, middle and back legs. This made it a ground beetle - within the family Carabidae. Once again the keys generously provided by Mike Hackston were invaluable.  By steadily working through questions about the shape of its various parts, counting stripes and squinting for the existence of tiny hairs, we were at last able to confidently name it Pterostichus niger.

CC image by AfroBrazilian.

To the untrained eye little black ground beetles are pretty indistinguishable from each other. There simply isn't enough detail in a general insect spotting guide to be sure you've matched a species correctly - with beetles you have to be brave and attack the keys. But (as we did) you might find you enjoy it. You might get a little buzz out of solving the puzzle. And each time you do it, you'll get more familiar with the features you'll be looking for.

Naturally we recorded all we were looking at as we went along, drawing little sketches and writing down the reference numbers of the keys. Not only will this get you some marks for your notebook, it'll be a good reminder of all your previous beetles' features when you come to your next specimen.

A little note: you're welcome to come in whenever the university's open and sit in our lab. But just to say, I'm away on an exotic field trip for two weeks and will be back after Easter. I know. It's a hard job. And then you have three weeks to finish your collections. Let me know if you'd like my assistance and when.

More snail musings

It seems that snails are my latest Thing. I hope you feel enamoured with your own choice of flora or fauna. I do hope you've found something that sparks your interest.

I've been scrabbling about in the flowerbeds again and I'm pretty confident that I've found Trochulus striolatus, the Strawberry snail.

Photo from AnimalBase, taken by Welter Schultes.

The shells are hairy when young... did you know that snail shells could be hairy? This paper suggests it's an adaptation that helps the animals cling to food plants in wet conditions when they could otherwise fall off (which would require a tiring climb back up again, that a small and hungry snail could do without). Who knows.

Also I think I have a Oxychilus draparnaudi or Draparnaud's glass snail. You can see how the last whorl gets bigger much more quickly than that of the strawberry snail. Monsieur Draparnaud was the snail man in France in the late 18th century.

also taken by Welter Schultes.

There are several more I found, but I won't go on. Suffice to say I still think it's a good choice for a collection. Though this evening when I went through the specimens one of them was really stinky.  I poured boiling water over them but it just made a sort of stinky broth. I don't remember Mr Adams mentioning stinky snails, it did put me off a bit.

Perhaps this points at the need to use fresh (alive) snails and kill them. This seems a bit mean when there are lots of empty shells around. All the shells I've collected so far have been empty, and I know it's possible to identify lots of species from these. But some identifications rely on the colour of the snail's body, or the glossiness that only a fresh shell has. Besides, at the moment it's rather early in the season to see any live snails at all. So I'm going to keep going as I am, and then at least I'll have some tentatively named empty specimens to compare with live ones later on.

I was watching Ray Mears this evening and he was talking about how marine molluscs were a popular snack for people in this country thousands of years ago. He sat in a Scottish rock shelter looking out at the rain, in a spot where Mesolithic hunter-gatherers had sat and chewed on their shellfish - a huge midden of shells had accumulated in front of it. The woman who had excavated the site showed him some of the limpets she'd unearthed - they were 9000 years old but didn't look particularly worn. It made me reflect that where you find a shell isn't necessarily an indication of where the species lives today. Found empty shells are ok as a way to practise your identification skills but they're not really a current biological record. Perhaps this distinction should be noted on a specimen's label.

A shell midden being eroded by the River Ythan near Aberdeen. Photo by Martyn Gorman.

On the other hand, environmental archaeologists (specifically, palaeomalacologists) are pleased to find ancient shells, because it helps them infer what an environment was like in the past. Archaeological reports often have a section on snails as the species present will suggest whether a location was wood or meadow, damp or dry, and perhaps so shed light on the lifestyle of the local people.

The Lapidary snail

At the weekend my sister and I went for a little stroll on one of the limestone hills around Bath. I was there for a recce for my impending MSc dissertation. That will be on the plants. But naturally I got distracted.

We were poking about amongst the boulders (the site has been much quarried for the stone that built Bath's famous architecture) and I found a strangely shaped snail. It's rather flat and has a curious trumpety opening (aperture). It also has a distinct keel (it's 'carinated'). The surface is very textured.

I used this key from BRERC to identify it (it was relatively easy, which was encouraging): it's the Lapidary snail, Helicigona lapicida. 'Lapidary' means to do with cutting rocks or precious stones. My Victorian snail guru Mr Adams says "The name stone-cutter" is due to its supposed habit of boring into rocks. The idea is, of course, erroneous, but it does ensconce itself in crevices of rocks, whence it emerges after rain."

I will be using the word 'ensconce' wherever possible today.

Other theorists (the author of the eminently tattooable title 'Shell Life') have it that the species looks like a grinding wheel for polishing precious stones (like this one). Also pretty believable. But why should you care about etymology? I can only suggest that knowing all this might help in remembering the creature's Latin name. Which is essential if you're to impress fellow naturalists.

Something seems to have made a home in the central 'umbilicus'.

The species belongs to the family Helicidae, which includes the more rounded and familiar species like the Garden snail Helix aspersa (shells of which I also found):

CC image by Sid Mosdell.

and the beautifully colourful and variably stripey Brown-lipped snail Cepaea nemoralis:

CC image by Mad Max.

There were also shells of the White-lipped snail Cepaea hortensis,  

CC image by Martin Cooper.

the very flat and tiny Rounded snails Discus rotundatus,  

CC image by FW Schultes.

 and maybe a little Vitrina pellucida, a transparent 'glass snail'.

CC image by FW Schultes

And all these from a short while poking about in the leaf litter on top of the rocks. So I think a snail shell collection could be very viable if you're still looking for something to choose. Looking back through this blog I've found and identified 11 species without too much strenuousness or pain - I wasn't searching very hard either. You could easily collect far more with a bit of application. The smaller ones benefit from a squint under the microscope, but even the larger ones are more interesting when viewed like that - you're welcome to bring yours in.

P.S. For some snail-related amusement I recommend a book I found recently: The Edible Mollusks of Great Britain and Ireland, with recipes for cooking them from 1867. The terrestrial snail recipes don't seem to have caught on in this country for some reason (mucilaginous broth, anyone?) but the book is padded out with meals made of marine molluscs, which for some reason the British seem relatively happy to eat. I'm not sure what the difference is really. This would seem to be a question for an anthropologist.

Some more spider resources

I was looking at the British Arachnological Society webpages today. They've got some friendly short leaflets about common spiders which you can download here. I thought they'd make useful reading for when you're just starting out on your arachnological journey.

They are producing a  WILDguide for British Spiders  which should be out relatively soon. I've got the equivalent book on British hoverflies and that's very good. Having been using the AIDGAP family key and the Collins guide,  I can see there's a gap for something else, so I'm looking forward to it.

I'm surprised that nobody's come in to use the microscopes yet to identify their spiders... perhaps you all have superhuman eyesight. Please do arrange to come in... the field centre is always open.

Spider webs on gorse. CC image by John Comloquoy.

Winter fungi

Autumn is of course the happiest hunting time for the mycologist. But if you want to make your collection on fungi, all is not yet lost. There are various species still out there, and they're often easier to preserve, because they're not the soft-fleshed mushroom-style fruiting bodies.

You have to raise your eyes up from the ground and start looking on tree trunks, stumps, longs and twigs.

You might see the Horse's Hoof fungus, Fomes fomentarius. You don't have to use too much imagination to see the derivation of its common name?

CC image by George Chervilensky.

Ötzi, the man who was inadvertently preserved in the ice of the Alps between Austria and Italy for 5000 years, was carrying some of this fungus. He very likely used it as tinder (you can read about this on Paul Kirtly's blog and prepare your own).

Another species you might find is Piptoporus betulinus, the birch polypore. You'll want to find a silver birch tree first though of course.

CC image by Captainpixel.

This also has a traditional use - stropping razors. Here's a clip of Ray Mears sharpening his knife on a prepared piece of the fungus. Accompanied by jolly Irish music I'm afraid.

Another species that will be useful come the impending apocalypse will be Daldinia concentrica, commonly known as crampballs, or King Alfred's cakes (as you may recall, he burnt them).

CC image by Walter Baxter.

They always look like sheep droppings to me when whole. But inside they have an interesting concentric structure.

CC image by Stu's images.

If you light this it'll burn slowly and you can therefore (as I say, following the apocalypse) carry your fire easily from one camp to another. Just to warn you, they burn quietly, and I've burnt my fingers on one thinking it was insufficiently lit. Here's someone lighting one on youtube. If you blow on a lit one the concentric rings light up most elegantly (you'll have to try it).

Finally, you might fancy something a bit more edible. Auricularia auricula-judae is also very common. You are likely to find it on elder bushes (where you find one, there will probably be lots). Its common name, Jew's Ear came from the story of Judas being hanged on an Elder tree. These days you'll probably see it called 'Jelly Ear', and when it's been raining, it's certainly very jelly-like. And very ear-like. Even to the point of being a bit freaky. The small ones certainly look like little mouse ears - they're rather clammy and slightly furry.

CC image by Svdmolen.

If you check out the ingredients of Batchelor's Woodland Mushroom Cup-a-soup, there it is providing the mushroomyness. It certainly dehydrates and rehydrates very well. If you see it in dry weather it will be much smaller and much crispier.

A winter specimen for Asteraceae collectors

I ventured out into the gloom yesterday for a little walk and found lots of Petasites fragrans (Winter Heliotrope) in flower. I realised that for years I have been ignorantly calling this 'butterbur', but that species (Petasites hybridus) is much much bigger. You'll be able to collect the latter in the spring.

CC image by Phil Sellens

It seems a funny time to flower, but Winter Heliotrope compensates for this by having a strong vanilla-y scent. I suppose if you're one of the only flowers around and you advertise well, any nectar-hungry insects still out and about are going to find you. So perhaps it's a good, if rather alternative strategy.

However, for the poor Winter Heliotrope in the UK, it's apparently all in vain. I read that it's a garden escape and actually native to Southern Europe, and only in the wild here since the 1830s - and that (curiously) it is dioecious and only male plants exist in this country.

How, in that case, can it have spread through the country, as there can't be any seeds? Apparently the plant is a perennial and has rhizomes, and a tiny piece of detached rhizome can sprout to form new plants. So the species is said to have spread through the dumping of garden waste, and spreads along water courses by the adventurous floating of rhizomey bits. It likes damp places so this is ideal (mine were in a damp uncut meadow under a big tree... suspiciously near the back of someone's garden).

The leaves are distinctively kidney-shaped and you'll normally find many plants in the same spot, smothering the ground.

CC image by Rosser1954