Leader for today's Ramble, Dale
Number of Ramblers today: 25
Don's Facebook album with today's photos is here. All the photos in this post are compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.
Number of Ramblers today: 25
Don's Facebook album with today's photos is here. All the photos in this post are compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=don.hunter.56&set=a.5052896818060176
Show and Tell:
Show and Tell:
Kathy showed us her Joro spider killing apparatus, a heavy duty cleaning glove, used to grab and squish the spiders. She initially thought the Joros were squeaking when she squished them but later discovered, much to her relief, it was just air moving around inside the gloves.
Gary told of his efforts at removing the Joro spiders from a two to three acre area of the Garden. He has killed the spiders, or most of them, and there have been no new webs created to replace the ones he has taken out. Any new spiders seem to be smaller examples.
Heather told us the Garden has now endorsed and is encouraging the killing/removal of Joro spiders from areas where they are found at the Garden. Before killing any spider you should be certain of its identification. No guesses tolerated!
Carla brought a Sicklepod plant (Senna obtusifolia) from her garden.
Reading: Catherine read an excerpt from Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman. It described their journey to Stonehenge, where Charles was eager to observe the worms in the soil around the giant stones and Emma was interested in the giant stones themselves, (To get to Stonehenge)
"It would be a two-hour train ride and a 24 mile ride in a coach. Emma was eager to see the stone monuments and the cathedral church at nearby Salisbury Plains. But Charles was bent on going, chiefly for the worms. He like the action of worms in different types of soils. When they arrived at Stonehenge, the guard allowed him to dig as much as he wanted. Charles was probably the only tourist, adult anyway, that paid more attention to the ground at Stonehenge than the monoliths"
Announcements:
hybrid event
TUESDAY: September 14
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS SEMINAR SERIES
Darrel Morrison, CED Dean (1983-1991) and Professor emeritus
Designed Landscapes Inspired by Native Plant Communities
- IN-PERSON: September 14, 5:30 p.m., Jackson Street Building, Room 125
- VIRTUAL OPTION: Max. 500 attendees, free registration below.
*Register in advance for this webinar:
https://uga-ced.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SPT_qbb0TcSdTor-QYGcIQ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about
joining the webinar.
Here is the link for the First Friday Friends of the Garden video of the ZOOM meeting about Plant Records at the Garden. The presenter is Emily James, Assistant Curator & Plant Records Manager. Don highly recommends this presentation.
https://kaltura.uga.edu/media/t/1_svey7vys
https://kaltura.uga.edu/media/t/1_svey7vys
Today's Route: We left the arbor and headed into the Lower Shade Garden via the sidewalk adjacent to the new Children's Garden comfort station. We left the sidewalk and took the mulched path (White Trail Spur) below the Children's Garden and headed down to the ROW. After exiting the woods, we continued to the ROW, where we took a left and headed to the river. At the river, we looked briefly down the Orange Trail to the left and up the White Trail along the river to the right. We eventually headed back up the ROW to the road, stopping at the Passionflower vines on the deer fence at the Dunson Garden before we returned, via the road, to the Visitor Center.
LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:
Pergola (aka Arbor):
LIST OF OBSERVATIONS:
Pergola (aka Arbor):
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| Spinyback Orbweaver closeup |
This closeup of a Spinyback Orbweaver shows you where it gets its name. It and the photo below show some of the color variation in the species. Also seen in both photos are two textures of silk: the thin silk and the fuzzier sections. This more conspicuous is called a stabilamentum, the same as the less scattered silk structures of other orbweavers. Its function is not known for sure. Many orb-weaving spiders "decorate" their webs with patches of different silk, but others leave their webs unadorned. One hypothesis is that the stabilimentum makes the web more obvious so that birds will avoid flying into it. It's a win-win situation. The bird avoids entangling its feathers with sticky silk and the spider doesn't have to replace its web. This idea has some experimental support. Webs decorated with artificial stabilimenta were less frequently damaged than undecorated webs.
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| Spinyback Orbweaver with stabilimentum |
Nearby the Spinyback web, at the edge of the Children's Garden, is the web of a Joro spider, a species not seen in the USA until a few years ago. Since that time it has spread rapidly and the ecological consequences are as yet unknown.
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| Joro spider on web A male Joro is just above the female. |
Like most spiders, the Joro females are much larger than the males and are often eaten during the act of mating. Speaking of which, reproduction in orbweavers is pretty bizarre. Male spiders have a pair of short, leg-like appendages, called pedipalps, located near their fangs. Females have these, too, but they are smaller. The ends of the male pedipalps are swollen and contain complex coiled tubes. When a male is ready to mate he spins a special, small web of silk and deposits as drop of semen on it. It then dips the ends of the pedipalps into the drop and the seminal fluid is sucked up into the pedipalps. Now he is ready to go a'courting. He has located a female on her web and approaches her very carefully. She is much, much larger and, if she is hungry, is likely to make a meal of him. If he is lucky he will be able to insert the bulbous end of his pedipalps into her genital tract and break off the end of the palp. The complex structures within the palp end pump the seminal fluid into the female's reproductive tract. It is during this process that the female often seizes the male and begins to eat him. Some relatives of the Joro spider are known to break off one of their legs and offer it to the female. She enjoys the leg while he breaks off his pedipalp and escapes with his life and one pedipalp left for a future tryst.
White Trail Spur:
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| Shaggy-stalked Bolete |
Bolete mushrooms generally appear from the ground. They have a distinct stalk and cap.The underside of the cap is where the spores are produced. Unlike the common grocery store mushrooms, this surface is not composed of gills in boletes. Instead, the spores are produced from the inner wall of thousands of tubes that make up the cap. All the tubes are oriented vertically, so when a spore is released it falls downward and exits the tube into the atmosphere. This dense packing of tubes gives the cap of a bolete mushroom a spongy feeling. Many boletes, including the Shaggy-stalked bolete, have a mycorrhizal relationship with tree roots.
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| A Snake worm, Crazy worm, Jumping worm, or what? |
Here is a link to an excellent NYT article on the ecological effect of Jumping worms: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/realestate/invasive-jumping-worm-garden-summer.html
Why I'm not sure this is a Jumping worm. In a true Jumping worm the clitellum is not raised, milky white in color and completely rings the body of the worm. In the worm we found the clitellum is not milky white.
I've handled only two Jumping worms, 1 adult, about 6 to 7 inches in length and one smaller, about 3 inches long. Both were stout and muscular to feel as they struggled to escape. It's a subjective experience, ordinary worms feel somewhat flaccid when you grip them. They don't thrash much and their body feels like it is squeezing through your fingers. With the Jumping worm you're surprised. It's muscular and it's trying to pry open an escape route, not just squeeze through an opening. I know this is a subjective description, but it's the major reason that I don't think this worm is the Jumping worm. It's something else.
What is a clitellum? Most earthworms have a structure called a clitellum toward the front end of the worm. It is a swelling that encircles the worm's body, as in the Jumping worm, or is just a saddle-like swelling. In either case, it produces the earthworm's "cocoon." This cocoon is secreted by the clitellum and slips foreward, like a toe-less sock, until it falls off the head end of the worm. In its journey foreward it passes the segments of the worm where the oviducts open. As the cocoon passes these segments the worm's egg are discharged into the cocoon. When it slips off the head end the openings close and the cocoon is fully formed. It is a resistant structure, able to survive in the soil for a variable length of time. When conditions are right the eggs develop and the tiny worms escape into the soil. This is how worms can be easily dispersed when cocoon infested potting soil is transported to a new locality.
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| Violet-toothed Polypore fruiting bodies. |
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| Violet-toothed Polypore Showing the underside of the fruiting body, the pore surface. |
Violet-toothed Polypore fruiting bodies grow on dead wood. The spore-producing surface is porous. But the polypores are not mycorrhizal. Instead they rot the wood they grow on.
No violet color is apparent at this time but the pore surface on the undersides of the brackets look appropriately "toothy" with maybe a faint hint of purple on the thin edge
ROW, including short section of in-the-open White Trail Spur exiting the woods:
Don introduced Dr. Carmen Blubaugh and her student, Avery Ryan. Dr. Blubaugh is an Assistant Professor in UGA's Entomology department. Avery described the project they are working on. It will involve creating four planters in the ROW prairie, each with a single pollinator friendly plant. Each planter will have signage bearing information about the plants and their native habitat in the prairie.
Some of the candidate plants are currently blooming:
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| Verbesena virginica Frostweed (white flowers) |
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| Verbesina occidentalis |
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| Verbesina alternafolia |
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| Helianthus strumosus Roughleaf Sunflower |
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| Tall Thistle |
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| Tall Ironweed |
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| Tall Goldenrod |
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| Goldenrod Soldier Beetle |
Soldier beetles are commonly found feeding on pollen this time of year. Their wing covers are not hard, like many beetles, but leathery, like those of Fireflies, to which they are closely related, even though they lack a light organ.
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| Diamondback spittlebug |
Heather noticed there were quite a few Diamondback spittlebugs in the tall vegetation.
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| Clavate Tortoise beetle larva |
In the photo above the
larva is holding the brown object iver uts bacj, The brown object is a collection of dried fecal
material. The larva has a fork-shaped projection attached to its rear that
collects feces. This fork, with its load of poo, is held over the larva's
back as either camouflage or a deterrent.
The adult beetle is just as strange.. Adult Tortoise beetles resemble their namesakes. Their body is surrounded by a carapace, an extension of the exoskeleton that extends outward enough to cover the legs and feet of the beetle. If it the beetle is disturbed its feet grip the surface and pull the carapace down until it's snugly held against the leaf. It's almost impossible to pry it off. The beetle sits tight until danger is past. Foe more information and great illustrations about this tortoise beetle visit this website.
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| Small White Morning Glory |
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| Small White Morning Glory (It comes in pink, too.) |
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| Velvet Ant female (Note: a wasp, not an ant.) (Perhaps a better mascot for UGA?) |
Heather found a black and red Velvet Ant near the river bank. Velvet Ants are not ants -- they are parasitic wasps. Only the female wasps are wingless, the males have wings and, in many species, are colored so differently from the females that they were assumed to be different species. Females search the ground for the burrows of solitary wasps and, finding one, they enter the burrow and lay an egg on the pupa of the host wasp. After the egg hatches the larva devours the host insect and then pupates. The adult wasp appears the following year.
The exoskeleton of Velvet Ants is extra thick and strong, able to resist penetration by the sting of its prey if they should be encountered in their nest. Entomologists learn how thick the armor is when they bend their insect pins attempting to mount penetrate the body of a Velvet Ant. The sting is also very long, compared to other wasps. The sting is also quite painful. Justin Schmidt, author of The Sting of the Wild, describes it like this: "Explosive and long lasting, you sound insane as you scream. Hot oil from the deep fryer spilling over your entire hand." Perhaps a little hyperbolic?
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| Orange Jewelweed Growing in the ditch next to the Canebreak |
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| Short-wing Green Grasshopper Notice that the antennae are about as long as the face is high. This is typical of the true grasshoppers, family Acrididae. |
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| Long-legged Fly |
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| Root maggot Fly?? |
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| Spittlebug nymph |
Avery discovered what he fondly called a "trashbug" on the vegetation. This is the larval form of a "nerve winged" insect, in the order Neuroptera. It was either a Green Lacewing or Brown Lacewing, (I didn't hear the decision.)
Lacewings are predators, both as larvae and adults. In addition to "trashbugs" the larvae are also known as "aphid lions." These names reference two aspect of their behavior: they kill and consume aphids and they decorate their back with the exoskeletons of their prey.
Lacewings are predators, both as larvae and adults. In addition to "trashbugs" the larvae are also known as "aphid lions." These names reference two aspect of their behavior: they kill and consume aphids and they decorate their back with the exoskeletons of their prey.
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| A "trashbug" with its aphid victims on its back. The head with its sickle-shaped mandibles is at the bottom, center of the photograph. |
The photo above shows the head of the Lacewing larva with its sickle-like mandibles that inject the aphid prey with digestive enzymes
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| Wolf Spider |
Wolf spiders do not build webs. Instead, like their namesake, they actively hunt for their prey, running it down and catching it. Silk does play a role in their life -- females make a spherical egg sac and carry it around attached to the spinnerets at the end of their abdomen. When the eggs hatch the young spiders ride around on their mothers back until they can fend for themselves. Their mother does not survive the winter; her offspring hibernate in leaf litter until the next spring.
Road, vicinity of split rail fence and deer fence at Dunson Garden:
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| Fruits of Virgin's Bower |
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| Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Spinyback Orbweaver Gasteracantha cancriformis
Joro Spider Trichonephila clavata
Shaggy-stalked Bolete Heimioporus betula
Asian Jumping Worm Amynthas sp.??
Jack-in-the-Pulpit Arisaema triphyllum
Violet-toothed Polypore mushroom Trichaptum biforme
White Crownbeard Verbesina virginica
Yellow Crownbeard Verbesina occidentalis
Rough Sunflower Helianthus strumosus
Tall Thistle Cirsium altissimum
Tall Ironweed Vernonia gigantea
Common Wingstem Verbesina alternifolia
Tall Goldenrod Solidago altissima
Goldenrod Soldier Beetle Chauliognathus pensylvanicus
Diamondback Spittlebug Lepyronia quadrangularis
Clavate Tortoise Beetle Plagiometriona clavata
Small White Morning Glory Ipomoea lacunosa
White-lip Globe Snail Mesodon thyroidus
Red Velvet/Cow Killer Ant Dasymutilla occidentalis
Orange Jewelweed Impatiens capensis
Short-wing Green Grasshopper Dichromorpha viridis
Root-maggot Fly (tentative ID) Pegomya sp. ??
Long-legged Fly Diptera: Dolichopodidae
Two-lined Spittlebug (nymph) Prosapia bicincta
Lacewing (Aphid lion) Neuroptera: Chrysopidae
Wolf Spider Family Lycosidae
Virgin's Bower Clematis Clematis virginiana
Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver Neoscona domiciliorum
