The Bee and the Wasp

Back in November 2012, the bird-banding at our regular site at The Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve, not far from West Wyalong in central-west New South Wales, was keeping us occupied if not busy, and I had time to follow the activities of several solitary bees that I was not aware of having noticed on any previous trips.

Throughout the Saturday (3 Nov 2012), single bees were seen hovering low over the bare dry ground around our banding station. After what seemed to me a fairly prolonged inspection, the bees would decide that one spot that looked pretty much like any other spot was a good place to initiate a burrow. I don’t now recall how long they spent excavating these burrows, but by the end of the day there were probably 5 or 6 burrows scattered about in the immediate vicinity of our banding tables.

A solitary bee hovering just above the ground, looking to excavate a burrow.

When seen from above, the inspecting bees were clean and attractively patterned with white banding on the abdomen, a buff furriness to the thorax, and a yellowish face. It was this colour scheme, and their persistent hovering behaviour just a few inches above the ground, that drew my attention to them.

A solitary bee relocating its burrow.

As their burrowing continued the bees became progressively drab and dusty.

A solitary bee in the early stages of burrow excavation.

A solitary bee in action excavating its burrow

The bees became more and more dusty as the burrowing progressed.

The following day, the bees had essentially disappeared (though there was at least one still finishing off an excavation), and instead a brightly coloured wasp was seen hovering about in their place (there may have been more than one – I can’t clearly recall).

But it was clear to me from the general shape of these wasps that they were a type of parasitic wasp of the Evanioidea superfamily, and it didn’t take long to realise they were interested in the bees’ burrows. The implication being that these wasps parasitise the bees by laying their own eggs in the bees' burrows, to hatch and avail themselves of the food store provided by the bee for its larvae, or to feed on the growing bee larva itself. The host specificity of such interactions can sometimes be quite tight.

This parasitic wasp was hovering about in the same area the solitary bees had been the day before.
(Pseudofoenus sp. Hyptiogastrinae, Gasteruptiidae)

I spent several minutes watching and photographing one of these wasps sussing out one of the burrows, but then had to leave to check the mist nets for birds and didn’t pursue the vaguely Aesopian story of the bee and the wasp any further.

The wasp homed in on one of the solitary bee's burrows...
 (Pseudofoenus sp. Hyptiogastrinae, Gasteruptiidae)

... landed, and spent quite a while "smelling" the burrow entrance with its antennae...
(Pseudofoenus sp. Hyptiogastrinae, Gasteruptiidae)

... before finally entering head-first into the burrow.
(Pseudofoenus sp. Hyptiogastrinae, Gasteruptiidae)

But more recently, and since starting this blog, I’ve been inspired to do a bit of research on these two and their interaction (ain’t the web a wonderful thing).

It turns out that the wasp is a species of Pseudofoenus, which is one of two genera (the other being Hyptiogaster) in the subfamily Hyptiogastrinae of the family Gasteruptiidae (which is indeed in the superfamily Evanioidea).

According to the CSIRO website (http://anic.ento.csiro.au/insectfamilies/biota_details.aspx?OrderID=27447&BiotaID=29799&PageID=families ) the “Gasteruptiidae are one on the most easily recognised families of parasitic wasps. They are particularly distinctive because of their slender subclavate metasoma, the dorsal articulation of the metasoma to the propodeum, the elongate neck-like propleura, and expanded hind tibia.” - I think this means they have a thin machete-shaped abdomen that hinges out from near the top of the thorax rather than lower down, and have fat hind legs.

Pseudofoenus sp. (Hyptiogastrinae, Gasteruptiidae) at Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve, NSW.

Pseudofoenus sp. (Hyptiogastrinae, Gasteruptiidae) at Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve, NSW.

My Google-searching led me not only to Pseudofoenus, but also to a guy called John Jennings at the University of Adelaide who is a specialist on these wasps and has done a fairly comprehensive review of the genus. I got in touch with John and he kindly confirmed that my photos were of a Pseudofoenus species, but that “there are still many undescribed species”, and that he’d be happy to receive a specimen in alcohol if I was to see them again. Not sure what this means with respect to my wasp, but I certainly couldn’t find any images on the web that looked anywhere near as bright or with as much yellow as this one. Most are a dark reddish-brown in colour.

It seems the genus Pseudofoenus has a fairly restricted Gondwanan distribution with the majority of species being endemic to Australia (66 described so far), particularly the south-west, with others found in New Guinea and New Britain (5 species), New Caledonia, New Hebrides and Fiji (2), New Zealand (4), and South America (2 species).

So much for the wasp; what about the bees?

Despite a fair bit of effort, I haven’t really been able to narrow down the options at all well. I haven’t found anything that looks specifically like these bees, but did find lots of images of lots of bees, even from different families, that looked sort of similar. And my inexperience precludes me from being able to discriminate between or weight the possibilities. L

A solitary bee, most likely from either Stenotritidae or Colletidae families. 
(Postscript: this is most likely a species of Stenotritus - see below.)

John Jennings and Andrew Austin, in their 2002 review in Invertebrate Systematics (http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=IT01048.pdf ), state that “The hosts of very few species have been determined, but the few available records indicate that members of Pseudofoenus s.l. are predator-inquilines of colletid, halictid, masarine, and stenotritid bees.”

I think I can eliminate Halictidae, and Masarinae (which are the pollen wasps, a subfamily of Vespidae rather than bees), but Colletidae and Stenotritidae are still options. On balance, I’d like to think my bees are stenotritids (giving the option of either Stenotritus or Ctenocolletes), but I’d love to hear from anyone who might be able to give me a more definitive identification.

So this story doesn't really have an end, but I do wonder how tight the specificity these wasps might have for these particular bees is?

POSTSCRIPT (September 2014)

Subsequent to posting this article I made contact with Associate Professor Michael Schwarz from Flinders University in South Australia (a bee expert suggested by Dr David Yeates, Director of the Australian National Insect Collection - thanks David), as well as Dr Remko Leijs, Honourary Research Fellow at the South Australian Museum (thanks to John Jennings for this suggestion). Both were of the opinion that the bee in question is a species of Stenotritus. Specimens would need to be taken to attempt a more detailed ID, but both also made the point that there are likely many species that remain undescribed. 

So there is certainly a possibility that both the wasp and the bee are as yet undescribed species. I’ll certainly bee keeping (groan - sorry!) an eye out when bird banding at Charcoal Tank over the coming season...


POSTSCRIPT 2 (November 2014)

On the weekend of 14 -16 November I was back out at Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve for bird banding. The weather was rather extreme – 42 degrees when we arrived about 1:30 pm on Friday, dropping to 22 degrees by the following evening, and rain all Saturday night.

The rainfall patterns over the three months leading up to this weekend were very dry and quite different to those of two years previously when I last saw the bees, so I wasn’t overly optimistic of seeing them again. Nevertheless, after no sign of them in the heat of Friday afternoon, on the Saturday afternoon, about 2 pm, we did see a single stenotritid bee hovering over the same area where I’d seen them before. A bit later a second bee was seen. They seemed a bit more wary than last time, but perhaps that was because there were more people about and we were stationed slightly closer to where they were hovering.

Anyway, the short of it is I managed to collect one of these bees. I was reluctant to try for the other one as they don’t appear to be very numerous.

The bee is currently at home in the freezer in ethanol, but will be sent to Michael Schwarz to be included in some bee sequencing work by a past honours student over the coming months. Stay tuned...

Portraits & Profiles - Buller's Albatross

The Southern Ocean, including around New Zealand and southern Australia, is blessed with a plethora of pelagic (oceanic) seabirds. And there are ample opportunities for sea-birders, either hard-core (they’re a weird bunch!) to indulge their obsession; or itinerants and dabblers, to whet/appease their interest and, usually, add a few birds to swell their life lists. I fall essentially into the latter group, though I am a member of the Australasian Seabird Group (ASG), a member of the Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association (SOSSA), and am coming up for my tenth trip on their renowned/notorious pelagic trips out of Wollongong on the redoubtable Sandra K.

Last year, I participated in the “SOSSA pelagic” on 7 July, my first pelagic since 2002, and my first Sandra K trip with a decent (digital) camera.

My bird of the trip was without doubt the Buller’s Albatross Thalassarche bulleri, of which there were probably up to three or four following the boat at times. Not just because it was my only ‘new’ bird for the trip (number 589 on my Australian List), but simply because it is such a beautiful bird. 

Buller's Albatross is a stunning bird!

Buller’s Albatross is essentially a bird of the seas around New Zealand, though it forages into south-eastern Australian waters and there are seasonal movements by some birds across the southern Pacific to the Humboldt Current off the coasts of Chile and Peru in western South America.

The breeding grounds are located on isolated islets in several of New Zealand’s offshore island groups. These include the Snares (latitude 48.03 S) and Solander Islands (46.57 S) off South Island, the Sisters and Forty-fours of the Chatham Island group to the east of New Zealand (43.75 S), and a small number of pairs breed on a tiny islet, Rosemary Rock, in the Three Kings Islands group off the north-western tip of the North Island (34.18 S). 

The broad yellow bill stripes, top and bottom, are characteristic of the Buller's Albatross.

Birds of the southern population (from the Snares and Solander Islands) lay eggs in January with the chicks fledging in August-September. The more northerly population (Chatham and Three Kings Islands) however, starts earlier, laying in October-November with fledglings in June-July. 

Because of this, the two populations have long been considered sub-species, but recent trends mean they are sometimes considered as separate species – Buller’s Albatross in the south, and Pacific Albatross Thalassarche platei in the north.

Buller's Albatross off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013.

Whatever their specific status, they are very similar morphologically and distinguishing them at sea is probably unreliable, despite the Pacific form being attributed with a larger/wider bill, a silver-grey rather than silver-white cap, and darker hood and feet. Further genetic, morphological and behavioural data may help sort things out. 

Buller's Albatross following the Sandra K - off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013.

The diet of Buller’s Albatross is mainly fish, cephalopods (squid etc), crustaceans and salps (weird barrel-shaped planktonic tunicates - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salp ).

Buller's Albatross scrambling for berley off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013.

There are probably somewhere in the order of 60,000 Buller’s Albatross (approximately 45% bulleri and 55% platei). Young birds may start returning to the breeding islands three years after fledging, but probably don’t start breeding until 10 to 11 years of age. 

Sleek, beautiful lines of the Buller's Albatross.

The Buller’s Albatross is sometimes called Buller’s Mollymawk, and if distinguishing between the two sub-species/species, bulleri is also known as the Southern Buller’s Albatross, while platei might be referred to as Northern Buller’s Albatross, Pacific Albatross or Pacific Mollymawk. If you were French or Spanish it would be Albatros de Buller, and Herr Schmidt would know it as the Bulleralbatros.

Buller's Albatross off the stern of the Sandra K - off Wollongong, NSW, July 2013.

So Mr Buller’s name is firmly attached to this bird, it being given by Walter Rothschild* when naming the bird Diomedea bulleri in 1893 (Diomedea platei was described five years later, in 1898, by Reichenow*).

Diomedea was the original genus name for albatrosses, conferred by Linneaus in 1758, and refers to Diomedes, King of Thrace of Iliad fame, though the connection to albatrosses is a little convoluted and might possibly not have been the best choice. The genus Thalassarche was first raised by Reichenbach* in 1852, when he split the albatrosses into four genera, with Thalassarche encompassing the smaller southern albatrosses or mollymawks. Thalassarche means leader or ruler of the sea from Greek thalassa = sea, and arkhos, -archy = leader or ruler.

But getting back to bulleri, the name honours Sir Walter Lawry Buller*, a New Zealand lawyer and naturalist who dominated the field of New Zealand ornithology. Born in 1838, the son of a Wesleyan missionary, he is best known in ornithological circles for his book, A history of the birds of New Zealand, initially published in 1873, and later expanded and republished in 1888 with chromolithographic plates by J. G. Keulemans.

*  References and links for further reading:

http://www.acap.aq/en/acap-species (and go to the Buller’s Albatross pdf link)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buller's_albatross

Albatrosses. WLN Tickell, 2000. Yale University Press.

Australian Bird Names – a complete guide. Ian Fraser & Jeannie Gray, 2013. CSIRO Publishing.

Whose Bird? Bo Beolens and Michael Watkins, 2003. Yale University Press.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Buller

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1b46/buller-walter-lawry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rothschild,_2nd_Baron_Rothschild

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Reichenow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Reichenbach

Missy

On a brief trip to Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands earlier this month, I held hopes of seeking out several species of bird I had not yet seen, and that had eluded me on two previous trips to the region over the past decade. These included the Southern Cassowary, Chowchilla, and White-browed Robin as good to reasonable chances; and Great-billed Heron, Pale-vented Bush-hen, and Lesser Sooty Owl as less likely targets.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't live up to expectations of beautiful one day and perfect the next, and indeed, once the rain set in at the end of our first day it didn't stop until well after we were on the plane back to an only slightly more wintery Canberra.

This meant the Chowchillas that are resident in the rainforests around the accommodation we had in Kuranda went to ground (pun intended, sadly) and were not heard at all so could not be tracked down; nor was the local Lesser Sooty Owl calling; and I wasn't prepared to subject the hire car to the dirt (mud?) roads I had in mind for searching for the White-browed Robins. 

The end result was that I ended up getting to see only one of my key target birds. But it is a magnificent bird! 

So because there aren't many photos to show for my efforts, I've resorted, rather pathetically, to showing several bits of photos in a kind of jigsaw puzzle build-up to the finale. And even that is still only part of the bird - the conditions were so dark and wet that only flash photography was possible and this presented its own problems.

Scaly,

massive feet.

Exposed and hairy...

ear hole in an unlikely pale blue face.

Flaccid, pendulous...

Wattles hanging grotesquely from a neck...

itself carunculated in gaudy orange, crimson and cobalt.

This is Missy, the people-habituated female cassowary that visits Cassowary House just outside of Kuranda in Far North Queensland.

Although well accustomed to people, and expectant of daily handouts of fruit, Missy is a wild bird who comes and goes as she pleases. She approached me to within about 1 metre on occasion, a slightly daunting prospect given their reputed aggressive nature and ability to disembowel with a single rake of their massive claws. 

But she was ever the 'lady' and it was a privilege to see such an amazing and endangered bird up so close and personal. And my apologies for calling her 'Mama Cass' until I discovered the name Missy had nomenclatural precedence. 

Magnificent Mushroom

Way, way back in 1976, in my A-Level biology class at school in Singapore, I first heard of a peculiar type of fungus, the name of which, Phallus impudicus, says it all (Phallus, well…; and impudicus meaning shameless or immodest). Its common name is somewhat less explicit but just as appropriate - the Common Stinkhorn.

A few years later, while an undergrad at university in Canberra, I bought a book titled The Sex Life of Plants, by Alec Bristow (Cassell Australia, 1978) for which the frontispiece (if not the dust-jacket!) is a very suggestive drawing of Phallus impudicus below the flower of a species from the pea family called Clitoria ternatea.

 

The frontispiece from The Sex Life of Plants by Alec Bristow.

Ever since, I have wanted to see in the wild any of the Phallus species. Not purely for any puerile titillative reasons you understand, but because of their remarkable structure, and because I have a general interest in fungi along with so many other things in nature.

Well, it has finally happened! While in Cairns last weekend, I saw two specimens of a related species, Phallus indusiatus, which if anything is more incredible in structure than P. impudicus. [indusiatus is from the Latin meaning 'wearing an undergarment'.] They were thrusting from the mulch around the bushes in the immaculately manicured gardens of the motel/resort we were staying at, just metres from the door of our unit.

Phallus indusiatus, the Bridal Veil Mushroom, is also known variously as the Veiled Lady, Long Net Stinkhorn, Crinoline Stinkhorn, Basket Stinkhorn, and Bamboo Mushroom.

P. indusiatus is one of around 30 species in the genus Phallus, the stinkhorns, in the family Phallaceae. They are generally of tropical distribution, with several species occurring in Australia. P. indusiatus is widely distributed and has been found in Africa (Zaire, Congo, Nigeria and Uganda), South and Central America (Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, Tobago, Costa Rica), Mexico, Asia (Japan, southern China, Taiwan, India, Malaysia and Indonesia), and in Australia. Most species, however, are more restricted in range than this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_(fungus)

They are called stinkhorns because, unlike most mushrooms that shed spores into the air for dispersal, these produce a sticky spore mass on their conical tip which produces a strong carrion-like odor. This attracts insects, particularly flies, which then help disperse the mushroom’s spores.

 

Flies, in this case a sarcophagid fly, are attracted by the putrescent odor produced by the slimy spore mass of Phallus indusiatus.

And for anyone wondering – yes they are edible! And no, I didn’t try it. They are apparently rich in protein, carbohydrates and dietary fibre, and are used in Chinese cuisine, particularly stir-fries and chicken soup. They are now grown commercially and are also used in Chinese medicine, containing various bioactive compounds as well as having antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

Wikipedia has lots of interesting information, including on culinary aspects, folklore, chemistry and so on, and is well worth a  read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_indusiatus

Capricornia's Terns

During my trip to the Capricornia cays of the Great Barrier Reef earlier this year, one group of birds in particular stood out for me – the terns.

Perhaps this is partly because the only new bird I got for the entire trip was a Roseate Tern, but also because they were prominent both in numbers and species. And they’re beautiful! In all, I saw eight different species of tern. 

The gulls and noddies are closely related to the terns, and though the details of their relationships are still being disputed and resolved, they are currently all included under a single family, the Laridae. It seems the noddies represent the oldest lineage of the group, followed by the gulls, and the terns are the most recently evolved, but even so, we are talking about 40-50 million years ago.

So I'll start with the noddies. The Black Noddy Anous minutus is one of the key species we were surveying on the trip, and we counted many thousands of them (see previous posts). They are beautiful birds, but very noisy at their breeding colonies and one could be forgiven for thinking they lived up to their name - anous means having no nous, i.e. "stupid bird". I also saw a single Brown Noddy Anous stolidus - which essentially means "stupid stupid bird" - but didn't manage a photo. It was too smart and flew away!

Black Noddy amongst the pisonia foliage on Northwest Island.

Black Noddies are very vocal, making a range of clicks, churrs, and rattles day and night.

Black Noddies build a nest of pisonia leaves glued together with faeces.

Black Noddy chick on its nest. It's not uncommon for them to fall, or be blown off. Anous?

During the day, Black Noddies will sunbathe, often in sociable groups.

This pair of Black Noddies is in pair-bonding flight: rapid synchronised flying with clicking contact calls.

Silver Gulls Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae are Australia's most common and familiar gull, and are often taken for granted. But they are exquisitely beautiful birds. They generally breed in less accessible locations, often on offshore islands, so it was wonderful to be able to see the various stages of breeding on Heron Island, from eggs through to adolescents, all together. 

Silver Gull eggs hatching - the 'star cracking' is obvious and the egg tooth is visible on the chick's bill.

Silver Gull chick, probably just a day old, waiting for its siblings.

Juvenile Silver Gull - still got a little growing up to do, particularly its tail.

Adult Silver Gull - parent of the juvenile in the previous photo, telling me to keep my distance.

A slightly older juvenile Silver Gull in flight.

Of the terns, I saw a Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia first (in Gladstone), Crested Terns Thalasseus bergii were around but less common on the islands than they often are in coastal towns and harbours, and it was good to see a group of eight Lesser Crested Terns Thalasseus bengalensis which I don't see in my more usual southern haunts. And a flock of 20 Little Terns Sternula albifrons, together with the lesser cresteds, were part of an amazing mixed species high tide roost on Northwest Island.

A young Crested Tern at Heron Island.

One of a group of eight Lesser Crested Terns at a high tide roost on Northwest Island.

Scattered amongst the other birds of the high tide roost were 20 Little Terns - they're the grey and white birds with the black bills and caps, and are much smaller than the Lesser Crested Terns.

A Common Tern Sterna hirundo, which aren't really all that common in Australia, had commandeered a buoy just off from the jetty on Heron Island, and another was seen briefly on Lady Musgrave Island.

Common Tern on buoy at Heron Island.

As I mentioned, the Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii was the only new bird I came across on the trip - my 590th bird for Australia. 

A small group of Roseate Terns at Heron Island, though I saw my first a few days earlier on Northwest Island. Three of these are in breeding plumage - red bills and legs, full dark caps; but one looks like a young bird with dark bill, patchy forehead, and black legs.

Reversed colour schemes of a Black Noddy and Roseate Tern - Lady Musgrave Island.

Roseate Tern in partial breeding plumage - full black cap but black rather than red bill. 

But perhaps my favourites were the Black-naped Terns Sterna sumatrana and Bridled Terns Onychoprion anaethetus.  I had previously only seen these species in small numbers and usually from quite a distance, so to see so many so close was very special. 

A Black-naped Tern, still ruffled from a bout of preening.

Black-naped Terns ready to take flight on Heron Island.

Black-naped Terns, Heron Island.

Black-naped Terns over the jetty at Heron Island.

Bridled Tern, Heron Island.

The bold colour scheme of an adult Bridled Tern. The white leading edge to the forewing is distinctive, even in flight.

Bridled Tern chick on Northwest Island.

Juvenile Bridled Tern on Lady Musgrave Island.

Bridled Tern, Heron Island.

Bridled Terns are distinctive and graceful in flight.

A little birdie flying high, dropped a message from the sky...