Agromyzid rearing

I've been in loose contact with Barry Warrington of the Agromyzid Recording Scheme this past couple of months or so. I have to say, he's quite possibly the most helpful and responsive organiser of any scheme I've ever been involved with. It doesn't matter if I email him at 2am, he'll ping me back an email within ten minutes or so. Ok, fifteen at the absolute outside. I believe he has a wife and young Agromyzid recorders in tow, quite how he does it is beyond me. 

Anyway, Barry has a team of folks across the country collecting tenanted Hogweed mines and rearing out the adults to further our understanding of the species involved and of their distributions. I merrily threw in my lot and signed up for this, Uig Wood being a rich hunting ground for Hogweed loving Agromyzids. Alas, none have survived beyond pupal stage so far, I've not even managed to hatch out any parasitoid wasps, clearly I must be doing something wrong!

Today I had a rare free day, the whole damn day. I headed into my square and came face to face with an unfamiliar mine on a Common Reed leafblade

Well it's a flymine, I can see that much at least

I whacked it in my bag and duly forgot about it in the excitement of sweeping various Mirid bugs and a suspiciously dark harvestman off nearby vegetation. Back indoors again, I found the leaf and took a closer look...

Puparium with anchor rope. Hmmm, interesting...

This, if I'm to be entirely honest, was not what I was expecting (but this is Skye where the unexpected is a daily occurrence. I should know that by now, really...) The 'common' flymine on Reed is Cerodontha (Poemyza) phragmitidis which has a wonderfully diagnostic puparium as can be seen here.

Unfortunately, this isn't quite so wonderfully diagnostically-shaped. So what am I left with? Well....Cerodontha incisa and Cerodontha pygmaea are the options. By all accounts they are indistinguishable from each other whilst puparia, so I shall have to rear it through to adulthood. Which, unfortunately, is not something I appear to be particularly proficient at doing, thus far.

Here's a quick peek at my setup for Agromyzids. I suspect ventilation/humidity may be the main factors that I need to address in order to successfully breed them through to adult stage. I already wipe off any excess condensation every couple of days or so, but maybe a mesh lid would be better than a solid one? 

Cerodontha spp with foodplant in a moist environment - what could possibly go wrong?

In other news, I found a couple of harvestman 'new' for my 2018 tally. One was also new to my PSL

Leiobunum rotundum, this is a male judging by the colour/body patterning

Female Oligolophus tridens - seemingly common and widespread yet new to me

I even went as far as extruding the ovipositor and taking pics, but nobody wants to see that. Oh, you do? Bloomin' weirdo, so you are...

Probably the first time you've looked upon the ovipositor of a Oligolophus tridens. At least I hope it is!

Dunno what this is yet, an Ophion type yes, but I can't honestly say that I've ever seen one with a black tip to the abdomen. Hopefully all will become clear once I start keying it through

It's an Ophion Jim, but not as we know it....

I'm on 1157 species for NG3963 so far this year. That's precisely 85.7% of the way towards my target of 1350 species and 82.2% of the way towards achieving Andy Muzza's 2013 score of 1407 species. I'd be seriously happy attaining either target. Tim, being Tim, is already well on his way to 2000 species this year. I have no hope of keeping up with his record-breaking yearlist. But I do have Small Autumnal Moth. Yo Tim, let's see ya claw that back from the Broads! 

I seem to be in a good place for these