Biology – Page 30 – David Bradley

Floral colour schemes in the garden pond

UPDATE: Two bio friends on Facebook came back with two different answers when I posed this question there. Grace Baynes pointed to a paper about genetic changes in stems from the same specimen of Mimulus (monkeyflower) plants here. The keyphrase in the paper “monkeyflowers mutate as they grow”.

Julie Webb posted: tranposable elements and pointed to a paper suggesting that this can occur because of viral infection, here.

I planted up some aquatic plants in #PondLife as regular readers will know. Among them a few Mimulus in a pot. They’re in full bloom right now. Big, buttery yellow horn-shaped flowers with patches of burgundy red and ruddy spots leading into the flower.

Mimulus flower pond — Original mimulus bloom

Now, at some point early in Covid lockdown, I plucked some of the shoots protruding from the basket of Mimulus and planted them in another basket-pot in the pond with some nutrient-depleted aquatic compost (as I had with the initial bunch).

The new shoots took well and one of them bloomed a week or so ago. Same horn-shaped flowers, same colours, but a lot smaller than the make crop.

However, this morning more of the offshoots have bloomed and they have produced similar small flowers but with a very different pattern and colour scheme. Now, if these had been grown from seeds from the original plant I’d have invoked Mendelian genetics to explain the colour variation. But, these offshoots are as the name would suggest shoots off the original plant. They’re genetically identical, they’re not even clones, they’re simply bits of the original plant…

Pine Hawk-moth in the garden

I have written about the Hawk-moths (Sphingidadae) several times during my short time mothing with an actinic lure in our back garden. We have seen a fair selection of the species present in the British Isles. My photos are in the HM section of my Mothematical Gallery.

So far in 2020, Lime HM, Eyed HM, and Poplar HM have made appearances. Morning of 19 May 2020, a new one for the garden – Pine Hawk-moth, Sphinx pinastri (Linnaeus, 1758).

Grey/Dark Dagger agg with Pine HM. The Dagger is about 18mm long

Bombus pratorum on Cynoglossum officinale

This is an “Early Bumblebee”, Bombus pratorum, feeding on a kind of borage (Boraginaceae) but with puce flowers, Cynoglossum officinale, on the flood plain of the Old West River, a couple of miles North of Cottenham. It’s growing wild and free and in abundance there.

The plant has several common, folk, or vernacular, names among them houndstongue, houndstooth, dog’s tongue, gypsy flower, and “rats and mice” due to its odour).

Also sighted there this morning, first Common Blue butterfly of the year for me, a male Polyommatus icarus. Lots of the white-flowered wildflower around, but not entirely sure of the ID on that, yarrow? Saxifrage? Other…

Friends of mine had mentioned seeing a particular wildflower, Scarlet Pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, recently (poor man’s barometer, it’s sometimes known, presumably it’s a folksy indicator of changeable weather). I hadn’t realised which species they mean until I happened to photograph some this morning and looking it up in colour-coded Collins Wildflowers, Lippert and Podlech.

Then there were the Kingfishers, Alcedo atthis, which were the primary target of my photographic trip.

Another night’s mothing in time of covfefevirus

Not quite as active a night in nor around the actinic lure as it gradually got windier. But, still a reasonable number of specimens seen and a couple more NFYs.

Of interest a leucistic male Muslin, Tawn/Marbled Minor agg (NFY), Willow Beauty (NFY).

Also showing up Flame Shoulder, Common Pug(2), Bee Moth, Waved Umber, H&D, SSD, and non-aberrant male Muslin.

I tried to get an open-wing shot of the Pale Prominent sat on my stone staging, but it hopped off quickly and disappeared. Saw it on my office carpet a couple of hours later, let it fly to the window…got a sort of open-wing shot, but it was too flitty for focus.

Mothing in the time of Covid

Thank goodness for mothing…it’s certainly a distraction from the bleak outlook and political bullshine of the coronavirus, Covid-19 debacle. Thing is for much of this year, there haven’t been many moths drawn to actinic light lures that I’ve heard off. Lepidopterists on the various lep Facebook groups and around our county here have been reporting low number and low diversity.

However, that changed somewhat for my lure on the night of the 75th Anniversary of VE-Day. I’d spent much of the time handling virtual online events, such as my #FEVEG20, but by the evening, just after dark and after a couple of celebrater sherbets, the light lure beckoned.

It was a still, balmy evening, it had dropped from 24 degrees to around 15 Celsius at 23h00 and there was quite a bit of activity around the lure. flies, parasitic wasps, Bee Moths, Pugs, a Brimstone…a Pale Tussock, and more. There was a stunningly white with black spots, female Muslin on a California poppy stem next to the pond 5 metres away from the actinic. Intriguingly, some of the moths were more drawn to a bright LED panel I was using to have a quick look at the frogs in the pond (only one of the two has been visible this last week, #PondLife). No sign of any Box-tree Moth, the notoriously virulent beast from the East. They will emerge soon, I have warned neighbours who have planted a Box hedge that they could see it ravaged. They make nice hedges but now that this invasive species taking hold across various parts of the country, those hedges will succumb.

Anyway, the Pale Tussock had been joined by another by morning in the collecting box, there were more pugs, more Bee Moths, and a couple more Brimstone (not to be confused with the Brimstone butterfly). Here’s the full list of the Saturday morning haul; NFY = New for year:

Bee Moth (3), Brimstone (3), Common Pug (4), Cream-bordered Garden Pea (NFY), Argyrotaenia ljungiana (NFY), Eudonia angustea (NFY), Female Muslin, Flame Shoulder (NFY), Freyer’s Pug (NFY), Garden Carpet (2), Grey/Dark Dagger agg (NFY), Heart and Dart (2), Light-brown Apple Moth (2), male Muslin, Notocelia cynosbatella (NFY), Pale Tussock (2, NFY), Rustic Shoulder-knot (NFY, deceased), Shuttle-shaped Dart (12), Waved Umber.

Still hearing from others that they are hardly seeing any moths and yet some people with mercury vapour lures elsewhere in the country are seeing a whole lot more.

Purple Thorn – Selenia tetralunaria

Mrs Sciencebase spotted this fellow roosting in the garden last night…it was the moth that was roosting, not Mrs Sb. It’s a Purple Thorn. So-called because the larva (caterpillar), which is stick-like in appearance has a spiky projection and the adult has a purple hue to its wings.

Its scientific name (binomial) is Selenia tetralunaria. It has four white crescent moon shapes on its wings, hence the tetralunaria of its binomial. Selenia is the genus and there are a couple of dozen of this type of moth around the world, a fraction of the 180,000 different known moths (and butterflies, same thing)

Birds to listen out for during your exercise allowance

While we’re still allowed out of our homes for a period of exercise each day, have a listen out for some of the birds that are singing and calling right now, various migrants and others you may not have noticed above traffic noise even in the countryside previously:

Swallow

Whitethroat

Buzzard

Reed Bunting

Yellowhammer

Kingfisher

Listen to the birds in an English country garden

People often tell me they don’t know what that bird is they can hear singing or calling but cannot see. There’s an international crowd-sourced project called Xeno Canto that has the calls and songs of almost every bird around the world. But, for local friends and family who might want to know what they can hear in the gardens, here’s a small selection of some of the more likely in England:

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Robin

Blackbird

Great Tit

Blue Tit

Dunnock

Wood Pigeon

Collared Dove

Starling

House Sparrow

Most of these birds will have a song and a call, some of them seem to improvise or do abbreviated versions of their songs and calls. The sound files you can listen to above are just a starting point for learning how to identify birds you might hear in your garden and then associate them with a visual ID.

Adela reaumurella – Green Long-horn Moth

Day-flying moths among the tops of the sycamores today

Adela reaumurella, the Green Long-horn Moth, is a species of moth belonging to the family Adelidae. It is a small moth with a wingspan of around 12-15 mm. The forewings are metallic green, the hindwings slightly darker. The most distinctive feature of this moth is the long antennae that can be twice as long as the wingspan. The Green Long-horn Moth is widely distributed throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It can be found in a variety of habitats, including woodlands, heathlands, and grasslands.

The species typically has two generations per year. The first generation emerges in May or June, and the second generation emerges in August or September. The larvae feed on leaf litter.

The species is not considered to be a threatened species. However, like many moth species, it is under-recorded and little is known about its population status. As with many Lepidoptera, it plays an important role in the ecosystem as a pollinator of flowers. It is also a valuable indicator species for monitoring the health of woodland habitats.

The Emperor returns

I have a pheromone lure to attract the male of the lepidopteral species Saturnia pavonia, also known as the Emperor moth. It’s a beautiful creature. The male flies during the day drawn to the sex attractant exuded by the night-flying and less brightly coloured female. I’ve photographed them on the wing in the garden previously and also on a stage with a macro lens, as regular Sciencebase readers will know.

I only put the lure out for a few moments once a week or so, but it never fails. A couple of males turned up today within 20 minutes of the pheromones being released. One of them ended up in the conservatory, frantically flapping on a curtain for a few moments, so I got some fast shutterspeed (1/4000s) shots of him before giving the curtain a bit of a gentle flick to send him on his way and putting the lure back in the freezer until next week. It’s wonderful to know that these beautiful creatures are going about their lives with no care for our human woes.