天网恢恢，疏而不漏

a disguised wolf

Since I got back from California, all my time at work has been spent preparing the lecture materials for my upcoming course. It was fun 'relearning' entomology but I really dislike sitting in the office. After a week, I was beginning to feel deflated.

I needed something else.
I looked at the books in the cabinet across from my desk. Excellent selection--animal behaviour, R, philosophy of science, teaching methods, environmental history, parasite ecology, insect mythology etc. I would love to read them, yet I really needed to get my lecture materials set up first.

I thought of the two undergraduate students whom I will be mentoring for their final year projects. Sadly for them, I have no funding for any projects. In fact I wouldn't even say I have any solid project in hand for them. I had to think of something. That something needs to fulfill only four criteria:
1. It is of interest to both them and me
2. It is publishable in a journal of good standing.
3. It fits within their schedule
4. It will lead to further studies (my future work)

My mind began to do the waggle dance, from cabbage to diamondback moth to competition to beet armyworm to... to... you know, this and that. Scribbled lines on a piece of paper and happily inserted it into the same envelope with the rest of the final year project information.

Boost!

The best boost of the day has yet to come.

We have a scale insect problem on of our plants in the garden. Out of the blue, scale insects infested the plant, literally covering it in white fluff. As the scale insects stay protected and hidden under their white fluff cover, they sap the plant vigour away. Some ants tend to the scale insects too, getting paid in honeydew excreted from the scale insects in return for their bodyguard services. Mom and dad (and grandma recently) were complaining about these scale insects. I told them I don't know what to do because I couldn't find a single ladybug in our garden to eat those scale insects.

Lo and behold, guess what I found today on the plant? Small white beads on stalks on the plant. Like the picture below.

My first thought? Lacewing eggs! I know that lacewings lay their eggs on stalks, a strategy that protects their eggs from predators by preventing easy access. Lacewings are known predators of scale insects, vicious ones too. Excitedly, I began to scan the plant for lacewings.

I found more eggs. Even if I didn't find any lacewing larvae, I knew that there would be some a few days later when the eggs hatch.

I wondered how would the lacewing larvae look like? How big? I needed a search image. I recalled that some lacewing larvae have a cool strategy to prey on the scale insects while avoiding the nasty attention of the protective ants--the larvae cover themselves in a layer of white fluff too. The title of the article was "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing". So aptly named :).  It was mentioned in Thomas Eisner's book "For Love of Insects" too.

Could these lacewing larvae be utilizing the same strategy, and that I needed to look for disguised lacewing larvae?

Wait..that scale insect was moving faster than the usual scale insect! Hmm...I scrutinized it, and yes, it was behaving weirdly for a scale insect--moving a lot instead of staying put and feeding. I grabbed my small microscope-eyepiece (kept it from Davis...knew it would come in handy one day!) and checked the suspicious scale insect.

Ha! Oligopod larvae, body form like that of a typical lacewing larva. Without doubt I must be looking at a lacewing larva with white fluff on its back.

 The insect on the center of the fruit was a scale insect, whereas the white fluff to its upper right corner was the lacewing larva (hidden under the white fluff).

The scale insect was on the center of the fruit, with the lacewing larva to its lower left (white fluff). You can see a lacewing egg on a stalk on the fruit (lower left).

Lacewing larva hidden under the white fluff. You can see that it's radically different from the scale insect. This was the 'wolf' in a sheep's clothing!

I never thought that I would see one of these disguised lacewing larva, and yet here they were, in my garden! I was very excited. Eager to check on the population dynamics of the scale insects and the lacewing larvae on the plant over the next two weeks.

Such is the wonder and beauty of nature--you can see it as long as you care to look.

Reunited with assassin bugs!

In two posts ago, I mentioned that I found assassin bugs in a rosemary bush outside my favourite Chinese restaurant in Davis, right? I was very excited then. Today I finally had time and the good opportunity to collect them. I had dinner at the restaurant again, and I excused myself for like 4 minutes, taking leave from my friends to head out to the bush and find them assassin bugs.

There were quite a handful of them two weeks ago. Today I only found two after 4 minutes. Not bad, I am sure I could have found more with more time, but it wasn't nice to keep my friends waiting...certainly rude to forsake them for some insects!

Fondly fed them fruit flies back in the lab. I collected a nymph and an adult. Couldn't really tell if it was a female or male...I would lean toward female though, based on the curve of her ventral side of the abdomen. In any case, she wasn't pregnant...at least not yet. Perhaps she has already mated and will develop eggs soon. I can only hope. Perhaps sometime this weekend (Monday is a holiday, July 4, Independence Day in the USA) I will go collect more of them.

3 nice conversations make a nice day

Today was an interesting day.
It was a very nice day, for a guy.

I had lunch with a colleague, and he invited his friend. His friend turned out to be a common friend of ours...somewhat. Okay, I was stretching it a bit. She worked as a waitress at a restaurant that my close friend and I used to go often, even after we broke up. So she knew me and my close friend. She had a lively adorable personality with an adorable face to match. Lunch was very enjoyable, with my colleague sharing with us his immense knowledge on different cultures, and she and I sharing our travel stories and experiences of migrating/living overseas. Lunch took like 1.5 hours longer than I expected, also because my colleague took us to check out the decor of Tower Cafe, quite a unique cafe in Sacramento, but I very much enjoyed the time spent with them.

Back at work, I was tending to my insects (oh, united again with my beloved bigeyed-bugs...this is awesome joy itself!!) in lab and started chatting with an undergrad assistant. She worked with me last year, so we knew each other very well. In other words, we understand each other's sarcasm and way of speech well. It was after 5.30pm, and we were the only ones left in the lab. I stayed back because I had insects work, and I had a dinner appointment later at 6.30pm downtown anyway. She stayed back because she was a workaholic. I asked her about her boyfriend, started boring into the details of their relationship, and we got some funny lines going. She shot back at my own romance stories, congratulating me on a new adventure, and suggested that perhaps a girl liked me because 'you played smart in badminton, you had a strategy...'. That was her way of trying to cheer somebody up. It was just a 20-30 minute long conversation that carried on as we both slaved away on our insects, but it was very enjoyable too. I definitely missed such conversations with them. Them being my research team members of several summers. Oh, those long drives up and down I-5 filled with unbelievable romance stories and discussions of 'what if...'!

6.30pm rolled by and I biked over to downtown, to my favourite Chinese restaurant in Davis. I tried to control the number of visits by limiting it to at most twice per week, but days before I go, I already knew what I want to order. Red bean black tea is definitely on the list. Waiting in front of the restaurant, I was very surprised to find at least 5 Zelus renardii nymphs on the plants outside the restaurant, and was so keen on finding more that I didn't notice my dinner companion had showed up behind me. Well, she was 3 minutes late! After ~8 months absence, the waitress recognized me immediately. She asked where had I gone, and said 'hey, you still like our red bean black tea!' No kidding. On my way flying across the Pacific Ocean, that red bean milk tea was on my mind. This friend with whom I had dinner with was a relatively new friend. Very new friend actually--we haven't spoken for more than 5 minutes before this, but I guess we do share some common background and we never lacked topics for good conversation. There were two very cool things that I found out over dinner. 1) She speaks my dialect, and that is rare among young people, even in Malaysia, not to mention here in Davis; 2) She actually has quite some similar views/thoughts with me. One thing that surprised me was when she asked me how did I finish my Ph.D. in 4 years instead of 5, she listed some possible reasons: fast-track program, easy program, hardworking etc...but she never said 'smart'. Most people always say 'wow, you must be very smart'. When I asked her why she left out 'smart' (yeah, I am so egoistic) , she said it was because she doesn't give much credit to intelligence, that she believed that hardwork can compensate for lack of intelligence, that hardwork will eventually lead one to success. I definitely share the same idea, and personally, I am not so happy when people praised me for my intelligent instead of my hardwork, especially because I lack the former and I do have some of the latter. After listening to her answer, I regarded this friend in a new light.

So I had enjoyed three conversations with three very different girls (and interestingly, of increasing age in the same order too). It was a nice day.

Oh, should add that my research started today, finally! And I got to practice some Tamil with my close friend and her Indian housemate. Life is good.

An assassin bug adult found in my garden, Malaysia. Not the species I studied, but heck did they look alike (other than coloration)! And this assassin bug preyed on the adult of the beetle I plan to study. Promising!

Timak -solo

timak and bowie (2)

 

 Timak is slowly gaining the upper hand in their jovial jousting. When she first arrived, Timak was still small and had to be submissive most of the time. Even then Timak loved to cari gaduh with Bowie who's like at least 11 years her senior. Nowadays I see Timak climbing on top of Bowie often haha. I think Bowie also malas nak layan Timak but Timak's playful nature is very persistent.

 Snapshots can be misleading! In this picture one would have bet that Timak is a done deal.

 Then sometimes they become nice pals again and start licking each other. I have seen Bowie helped Timak groomed her fur with his teeth before (that's what dogs do, though I can't describe it properly), but never seen Timak do it for Bowie. Perhaps Timak is too young to know the trick yet? Hmmm....

I was surprised that Timak didn't pounce on my camera right after this picture.

But she ran over to the palm branch and began to fight it. What a worthy challenge!

Timak & Bowie

While I was traveling in India, my dad brought home a puppy. The puppy was stranded in the middle of traffic and he saved her I guess.

The vet suggested that we named her "Lucky Girl" as she was lucky to have been adopted. So for the first few weeks my family has been calling her LG (also intended to be similar to that electronic company that makes good monitors!).

All this while I was traveling in Tamil Nadu. My mom told me over the phone that
"There's a new bug in our house"
"Really? How is it?"
"I will send you a picture"
"Okay"

Imagine my surprise when the picture loaded and it was a dog, not a bug. Hahaha. Miscommunication leh.

LG was cute, apparently cuter when she was younger. When I returned home a few weeks after we adopted her, she has already grown up a bit. You know, young animals grow geometrically! She's awfully playful, and likes to bite our shoes.

Actually Timak's teeth are sharper than Bowie's and her bite hurts much more than his.

From the moment she joined us, she's found a friend. A friend who's also a bully and a jealous mentor I guess--old resident dog, Bowie (nothing to do with David Bowie). Whenever we play with Timak, Bowie would growl and clamp Timak down with his jaw. Timak would either roll over or play along with Bowie and bite back, push back. Soon Timak learned to crawl under the car, where she has more space to maneuver than Bowie has.

"Ahh-wooo~~~~~"

Timak also learned quickly to jump onto our swing, an act which Bowie can't do now. Bowie has always been really superb with his jumps--a very agile fellow--but now old age has caught up with him. He's like 11 years old at least, and definitely not so active as he was just last year. So when Timak gets onto the swing, Bowie becomes less commanding, but doesn't stop trying to exert his authority.

I think Timak will learn quite some stuff from Bowie over the next few months or years. I am not sure however that Bowie makes the best role model....haha....Bowie's afraid of thunder and firecrackers! And worse, he runs away when we call him on the street haha...always an embarrassing situation.

'Show me the ropes, uncle!'--Timak

I also wonder how long Timak will survive alongside the vicious Bowie who doesn't shy away from cannibalism.

J/k.

the Jaws of the canine world

By the way, know the meaning for Timak?

bye bye for now, and a shitty hero.

I will be gone for the next few weeks and very unlikely to update this blog.

During my travels, I hope to avoid the internet and computers, and use the internet only sparingly to check emails in case there are urgent matters (these are so rare). If the internet connection is good, I will try to upload one or two pictures.

It was my birthday. Birthdays have ceased to be a big deal for me LONG TIME ago. Nevertheless I did give a call and when it ended, I realised that the person didn't wish me happy birthday. That was disappointing, maybe because I expected something. Guess I was foolish to start.

Unexpectedly, I will start my journey with a heavy heart. This may be a blessing in disguise, as the next few weeks can only become better, no?


And now for something completely different..........a caterpillar with a club at its end.

Eh, no it's not a club, is it?

It's a wet blob. Hahaha...a wet blob does not a club make.
I believe it's fecal matter (i.e., shit and pee) excreted by the caterpillar and used to defend itself or to camouflage as a piece of useless, awful bird poop.
When I expose the caterpillar to ants, our shitty hero pushed its glistening blob towards the incoming intruder and lo' and behold, the ants backed off.

I mean...look at our shitty hero! Even without that wet blob, he/she has yellow spines protruding from the sides. You wanna mess with our hero?
Guess not.

Do you know what leaves our caterpillar was feeding on with the other 15++ of his/her comrades? Our curry leaf plant in the garden. I couldn't find other herbivores on the said plant other than these caterpillars. I suspect that the caterpillar uses some of the nasty compounds in the curry leaves and secretes them into its fecal matter, and then use it as a wet club. Such strategies are no longer alien to ecologists. Some caterpillars use fecal matter as shield.

Once I get back, hopefully these guys are still around, then I can commence a proper study on them.

Drama !

Last week, I stumbled upon a spider web without a spider in it. I followed the thread of the web to a leaf wrapped up in silk. There within a silk chamber was the spider. I don't know the species or even the family, but I will pretend that it's an orb spider (and I am likely correct).

To entice it out of its chamber for a better picture, I needed........a sacrifice.

Sorry to say there were some ants nearby foraging on nectar, so I took one lucky fellow up and cast her into the web. I admit that I felt a tinge of remorse.

 Poor ant.

A few days later, I tried to check on the orb spider again. Let's call her Spidee for we all love naming spiders, no?

I found Spidee not in her chamber. Instead, I found another web nearby with traces of Spidee's activities.

Spidee's web claimed more lives.

Then I found Spidee...or what was part of her.

Spidee has grown into a new outfit, leaving behind her old, pale former outfit.

(technically, this meant that the spider has molted, breaking off its former exoskeleton and replacing it with a new one. Here was its former exoskeleton.)

But WHERE WAS SPIDEE?!


Oh there she is! On a nearby branch.

Wait...that ain't right!

No~~!! Spidee has fallen to another spider, this one a jumping spider if I am not mistaken. When I arrived at the murder scene, Spidee was firmly clasped in the jumping spider's fangs and legs. Spidee might have given a struggle, as a small part of her legs has broken off.

How did Jumpie actually claim Spidee's life? Did Jumpie break into Spidee's silk chamber, or lured Spidee out by faking a prey caught on Spidee's web? Spidee was just as huge as Jumpie, so I find it hard to imagine Jumpie having an easy time if the attack wasn't facilitated by an ambush or toxin.
K, toxins are guaranteed.


Trying to get a better view, I tried to pester Jumpie into moving to a nice spot. Obviously offended, Jumpie released Spidee and jumped off!

So I managed to get close up pics of Spidee after she has passed on, but I was very sorry.
If Spidee was killed, the best thing was to at least have her eaten by Jumpie! Now her death was truly in vain.

Wasn't Spidee beautiful? She carried what looked like a "Tree of Life" on her back! or a "Rising Phoenix".

What was eating was then eaten.
Life.
Too bad I wasn't there to record the whole drama., only what was left of it.

valiant moms

人为财死，鸟为食亡。

"People die for money, birds for food."

Now that I am back in Malaysia and that it's raining 4 days a week, mosquitoes are rampant.
They bite and they make me itch; they hum beside my ears and irritate me.
However, I still try my best not to kill them, particularly if they aren't black with white stripes.
The black with white stripes ones may be Aedes and can transmit Dengue virus--they are much more deadly.

Every morning, below my windows equipped with insect netting, a sprinkle of dead mosquitoes decorate my desk.
I wasn't the murderer.
These mosquitoes spent the whole night banging against the insect netting, trying in vain to find a way out.
From the picture, you can see that they were females.
Why do I say they were females?
--their antenna were thin. Male mosquitoes typically have plume-like (featherduster-like) antenna to facilitate their detection of female wingbeats. Yeap, males got to seek out the females in this insect, as is the case with most other animals.   (not in my case however.  j/k)
Because they were females, I believe that these ladies spent the night trying to squeeze through the netting for one reason. They wished to find a source of clear, still water to lay their eggs.
This is also meant that they had already acquired their blood meal from....me, most likely =).

Poor them.
Having survived the perils of sucking blood from humans,
heartless humans stingy of that teenie-weenie bit of blood,
'em mothers are beaten by a thin sheet of plastic
that doom them to early deaths as failures
whilst showing them the watery paradise that lies beyond.

I seldom head out to parties with my camera nowadays. Seems like everyone has camera, be it a phone-camera, a compact digital camera or a once rare but now very common DSLR. I'd rather not risk my camera if others are more than happy to snap away.

And truth be told, I really like insects more than people as my photo subjects anyway. No offense, personal preference.

Weather in Kuala Lumpur is a mix of sun and rain, daily. The sun may start with a temper for the better half of the day only to skitter away with the incoming onslaught of heavy downpour; sometimes it's the exact opposite or just overcast throughout.

When the clouds are amassed, and the sun peeks through spaces between the shifting clouds, it's an excellent time to dish out my camera and start hunting for insects in my garden.

Or my dog, if he's in the mood.

Today's pictures.

 Can you tell if this was a fly or a bee?

 One of the praying mantis that hatched in our bathroom and that we released into our garden last week. Mom and I check on them almost daily! So far we have been seeing 4 of the 17. Tried to look them up online--can't get the scientific name, only 'Malaysian mantis' haha.

 Arh...common.

 One of the crawlers on our brick wall.

 Chinese call this 富贵花, 'Prosperity Flower'.

 Our rambutan tree has been fruiting since I got back. I think our rambutans are pretty good, except that the flesh sticks to the seed. Lots of ants stay on this tree, a major issue for my parents.

 Bowie was quite moody today. Here he was foraging for grass to munch on. Guess his digestion ain't doing so well--needed the extra fiber?

 Bowie looking slightly alert and more lively when Mom called his name.

And this was what I cooked for my lunch today.

Ladyfingers, cherry tomatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, onion, fried with rice noodles. Some soy sauce and black pepper to taste. I like!

Exciting 28th Dec

Several events made today an exciting one.


1. I cooked my first meal since I returned to Malaysia. Grandma is staying with aunt now hence I am cooking lunches for myself. I cook vegetarian only, so I looked through the fridge and salvaged what I could find and voila~

A healthy mixture of pumpkin, carrots, garlic, shallots and kiwi fruit! 

no salt, little bit of sugar, fried with little bit of oil.

tastes sour (kiwi) with some sweet (pumpkin).

I like! though I may be the only one hahaha.

2.  My boxes arrived from California! All eight of them. I quickly unpacked them and within an hour, the boxes are flattened and the stuff....stuffed away into my room. My books are here! My desktop computer is here! And my bed companions are back!

RM1027...from Port Klang to ma house. The company who did my custom clearance and transport was good...if you need such service, ask me. I bagi contact. Thanks Mas for the recommendation.

Together again~

(hahaha...so girlish)

Unluckily, as I was unpacking my plates and cups, I dropped the spoon/ladle that my friend gave me. SO SAD. My heart broke on the spot too. It survived the journey across the Pacific, survived the rough handling at the ports, only to be broken by the person who was waiting for its arrival. I am going to try to mend it.

3. The praying mantis in mom's bathroom hatched! We both witnessed the female laying them about a month ago on the underside of the sink. 

Now her offspring have hatched, and an active lot they were. Glistening dark dark blue, forearms up with sharp sawtooth ready, these guys were cute!

Of course a bathroom ain't a proper place for 17+ praying mantises so I transferred them to our garden, just before a heavy rainstorm hit. Hopefully these guys will do well and help us suppress some pests =).

4. I asked a girl out, and she said she would call me when she's free. Hahaha. I am so excited!!