100 More Species #14 Scarlet malachite beetle

Scarlet malachite beetle Malachius aeneus

When I received the identification for this beetle from bugguide.net (credit goes to Pennsylvania-based naturalist Ken Wolgemuth, who seems to ID most of mine) I wasn't surprised that it was a European native that it common in the northeast of North America--that's true of most living things that appear in a suburban Boston yard. What did surprise me was learning that the beetle is considered rare and declining in Britain. What conditions make a creature common and increasing in my back yard but disappearing and rare in the back yards of my ancestors? A similar situation exists with house sparrows. I'm all for catching and repatriating as many of both species as possible.

The group of beetles called malachite beetles includes mostly metallic green species, and some specimens of the scarlet malachite beetle are very green where this one is merely dark. Also notice the dusting of pine pollen, a feature common to everything in my yard, and indeed everything in our region at the moment. The scarlet malachite beetle is thought to feed on some combination of pollen--from grasses and "herbaceous" plants--and other insects that feed on pollen. Buttercup is mentioned as a pollen source, but those are not blooming yet. Celandine, in the buttercup family, is quite profuse, and could be drawing beetles to the yard.

One source says this: "Only one larva has ever been found, a predatory grub found under some loose tree bark." It seems like some communication between entomologists on either side of the pond is in order. Over in the UK, one could become involved in citizen science to help learn more about their numbers.

100 More species #15: Spiderwort

Spiderwort Tradescantia virginiana

Last year when I did the first 100 species in my yard, I skipped past this one (despite the kind readers of this journal identifying it for me). I simply assumed it was "just" a cultivated flower, and that it wasn't interesting as a member of the community of organisms in my yard. Since then I have come to learn that not only is it a native plant, it will run roughshod around the yard if you let it, which we kind of did.

It's not a wildflower as such: it certainly owes its ubiquity in part to the cultivated plant trade. Ours may be a hybrid developed for extra hardiness, or color variety, or some other attribute. We've dug out a bunch of them, transplanted some to along the fence lines, and basically gotten over any shyness about killing them. Despite being native, it acts like any invasive Eurasian plant--there's even a few growing from the sidewalk cracks down the street.


I'm happy to have it in some places in the yard, but I'm also happy to get rid of it in favor of variety and biodiversity in our little corner of the world. (Notice it keeping company with Japanese knotweed, in the bucket on it's way out of our land).

100 More Species #16: Small wasp-mimic hoverfly

Small wasp-mimic hover fly Toxomerus, probably T. geminatus

The genus Toxomerus contains a great many species, especially in the New World tropics. Up here in New England T. geminatus is one of the more common species. These hover flies, varying in size but almost always less than 1 cm long, mimic small wasps. Each hover fly I've covered in this project has been smaller than the one before, and I suspect this is it for that pattern unless my photographic equipment is upgraded.



It is pleasing to capture the fly in the act of feeding on pollen. It's also nice to see that spiderwort is definitely participating in the ecology of the yard.