Ohio Birds and Biodiversity

A "weedy" unkempt bank of the mighty Ohio River, in Adams County, Ohio. That's Kentucky on the far side. I was down in the hill country for the past four days, much of which was spent attending a fabulous workshop on the singing insects (Orthoptera), taught by Wil Hershberger and Lisa Rainsong. More on that later.

We had some time on either end of the workshop to do some exploring, and we didn't let any grass grow under our feet. Some amazing finds were made, including the animal featured in this post. John Howard and I were riding together, and when we pulled into this site and saw the habitat, one animal was on our minds: the world's greatest beetle, the amazing Amorpha Borer!

Our party fanned out onto the riverbank and began the hunt, and it wasn't long before a mighty shout went up from Laura Hughes - she had spotted an Amorpha Borer, Megacyllene decora! We rushed to the spot, and marveled over the tangerine and black beast as it ran roughshod over the flowers of Late-flowering Thoroughwort, Eupatorium serotinum. Soon Laura saw another, and before we left a third beetle had been tallied. That was a record for us. John and I, especially, have searched for these beetles for at least six or seven years, and the best we had ever done was two in a day. After stopping at another site in Scioto County, where we added two additional beetles, our day's total came to an incredible five (5) Amorpha Borers.

Laura quickly learned that these large brutish beetles are not to be trifled with. She deftly snagged one with her bare hands, and received a blood-inducing nip in the process.

The jaws of the Amorpha Borer are large and powerful, as is the case with many longhorned beetles.

The Amorpha Borer is a striking insect, and appears to be a hornet mimic. Note the bold black and yellow banding. In flight, especially, they really do look like a yellowjacket or some such stinging insect.

From our experience, and we have spent a fair bit of time seeking this beetle, the Amorpha Borer is rare and local. It does not seem to range away from the banks of the Ohio River (in Ohio), and its flight period seems to be from August into September. We have never found them far from their host plant, which is False Indigo, Amorpha fruticosa. The beetle larvae feed internally on the stems of these plants. When the adults do emerge, they seek nectar avidly, but always (?) in close proximity to the host plants. A decided favorite is the aforementioned Late-flowering Thoroughwort, but we have also found beetles on goldenrods.

So those are the ingredients for finding Amorpha Borers in Ohio: an overgrown bank of the Ohio River, plenty of False Indigo, and blooming thoroughworts and goldenrods.

As befits their good looks, the beetles are always meticulously groomed.This one is running one of its antennae through its mouthparts, to keep everything clean and in good working order.

Once the beetle had completed the task of antenna-scrubbing, it set about washing its feet. One never knows when the paparazzi might arrive on the scene, I suppose.

In order to better capture the beetle's true magnificence, we temporarily detained one and shot images on foliage affixed to that picnic table. John Howard (left) assists David Hughes (seated), while Laura Hughes (left) and Lisa Rainsong look on. Wendy Partridge is in the backdrop, and Wil Hershberger was off looking at something elsewhere.

Based on our searches, John and I believe that Megacyllene decora is probably an uncommon and local, if not downright rare, beetle in Ohio. We would love to learn of other populations, but so far no one has alerted us to any. A check of the massive Ohio State University insect collection (courtesy of George Keeney) revealed no specimens, either. Such a large flashy beetle would surely draw the attention of collectors, and if they were at all plentiful, I suspect specimens would reside in OSU's collection.

Perhaps the Amorpha Borer deserves to be state-listed as threatened or endangered.

My, what a big set of antennae you've got, Ms. Beetle! Elegant and outrageous, a Dectes texanus longhorned beetle explores a leaf in Adams County. I made this image on August 27, 2011. This rather amazing bug has no common name, rather amazingly. It and its closely related ilk are collectively known as flat-faced longhorns.

Over 20,000 species of longhorned beetles have been named worldwide, and there are probably thousands of species yet to be described. The adults are often fabulous looking creatures, with their incredibly long antennae perhaps the most distinctive feature. When a longhorn alights near someone, they're sure to notice it. The problem is, for longhorned beetle enthusiasts, they're mostly out of sight for much of the year. Nearly all of the species spend much of their life cycle as a grub, happily boring through the inner tissues of plants. You'll never, or at least hardly ever, see that stage. But for an all too brief glorious period, the adults emerge from the wood and take flight as they seek mates and sustenance from flower nectar.

Most years, I'm lucky to run across a small handful of longhorned beetles, if that. So it was with a fair bit of shock and joy that I glanced down into the snakeroot on a recent field trip in southern Ohio and saw this magnificent beast. It is a six-banded longhorn beetle, Dryobius sexnotatus, and it is said to be rather rare.

This is a big beetle, probably over an inch long, and you wouldn't have missed it. Bold yellow and black patterning certainly doesn't make it blend with its surroundings, and it seems likely that the six-banded longhorn is a hornet mimic. Lots of would-be predators will leave an insect with this sort of warning coloration and patterning well enough alone.

Our discovery of this beetle came at the conclusion of a long, very hot field day, and that feeble excuse is my rationale for not making better photos. The beetle was very active, and in dense shade, hence the lack of crispness. I should have taken the time to employ some tricks of the trade to get better images.

The six-banded longhorn rapidly scales a sugar maple, which is said to be one of its host trees, along with beech and elm. There were plenty of these trees in the immediate vicinity. Six-banded longhorns have generated more than the average interest among longhorned beetle enthusiasts because they are thought to be rare. Some authorities state that they are typically associated with older-growth forests, but this one wasn't - it was in a rather typical area of varied tree succession, with only patches of larger older woods.

A few days back, a friend posted this photo on Facebook, asking for an identification. The beetle had by turns horrified and fascinated the people who discovered it on this poolside post. Donald the Birder was first with the identification: the multisyllabic Elytrimitatrix undata, yet another spectacular longhorn with apparently no common name. By this point, I had received probably three or four other requests for information about longhorned beetles from various people, which is WAY more than a normal year.

One or two nights after the Facebook beetle post, I got in my car which had been sitting in my driveway with the windows down. Lo and behold, no sooner had I dropped behind the wheel when a suspiciously long antenna poked out from behind the sun visor, and out came a big longhorn! It was dark, and viewing was not great, but I am reasonably sure it was also the clumsy-to-say Elytrimitatrix undata. It scampered to the window and whirred off into the darkness before I could capture it for closer study and possible photos.

Then, just yesterday, Bernie Master noticed an interesting bug on his purple coneflower and managed an image before the thing got away. Voila! Yet another longhorn, this time the supposedly common and widespread banded longhorn, Typocerus velutinus.

Maybe all of these longhorned beetles coming to my attention is just coincidence, but it's way more longhorn action than I normally detect in a season. Most sources seem rather general when describing host species for the three species above; "hardwoods" is a typical but very generic descriptor. As wood-boring beetles often attack the softening tissues of dead or dying trees, I am wondering if the glut of ash trees that have succumbed to the emerald ash borer is producing a bumper crop of longhorned beetles.

If you've seen any longhorned beetles, or have insights into whether this truly is a boom year for them, let me know.

Perhaps it will also be a great year for this longhorned showstopper, the utterly amazing Amorpha borer, Megacyllene decora, which is widely considered to be the world's most spectacular insect. I think this one truly is rare, at least in these parts. The date of our 3rd annual Great Amorpher Borer Expedition will soon arrive, and I greatly look forward to that. For an account of last year's expedition, CLICK HERE. Hopefully expedition members will find many of these showy tangerine beasts.

Flash forward to the banks of the Ohio River between Portsmouth and Cincinnati, and The Great Borer Expedition II, which took place last Sunday. Eight hardcore beetle enthusiasts gathered near what we now know to be Ground Zero for Ohio amorpha borer sightings, briefings were had, and out we set.

We believe that this beetle is rather rare in Ohio, and possibly even rarer than "rather rare". Other than Eric Eaton, who first identified our beetle for us after we couldn't find it in any books, I don't know of anyone outside of our expedition members who has actually seen one of these things in the wild, in Ohio. Eric lived in the Ohio River town of Cincinnati for eleven years, yet only saw one of these beetles in that time.

Anyway, Megacyllene decora is quite host-specific, apparently, using only plants in the genus Amorpha, which are part of the pea family (Fabaceae). In Ohio, that leaves only the plant in this photo, false indigo, Amorpha fruticosa. It reaches its NATIVE northern limits along the banks of the Ohio, although it is widely introduced and established northward. So, one must look for good-sized stands of this stuff on or near the Ohio's river banks, then start searching flowering patches of late-flowering thoroughwort, Eupatorium serotinum, and early goldenrod, Solidago juncea. The adult beetles come to these plants to seek nectar.

Well, I know you've been eagerly waiting to know if we were successful. The answer is a big fat YES! After poking about for a bit, John Howard excitedly called us over, and there she was. The group was elated, and with good cause. It was a life beetle for everyone, save seasoned borer veterans John and I, but this is much more than a new tick on a list. Here our quarry peeks coyly from a wreath of tall ironweed, Vernonia gigantea, flowers. I mean, just look at that thing! What's not to like?

Despite close searches over a few hours, we could only locate this one beetle. We think that it is the females that visit the flowers for nectar, perhaps to gather an infusion of energy and nutrients to help them complete their reproductive cycle. Most of this borer's life is lived as a grub, boring through the tissue of its host plant. Good luck finding one at that stage. The adults, we think, only emerge briefly in late summer, so one's search window is rather narrow.

Even the fabled Bug Guide website has but eight photos of this beauty, which is circumstantial evidence of how rare the beetle may be. If it were widespread and frequently seen, I can about guarantee that there would be plenty of other photos. And of those eight photos, one is mine, and two are of pinned specimens.

As the amazing amorpha borer clambered about, allowing the paparazzi some photo ops, I was able to make this photo showing the prominent tigerlike striping of the abdomen. This beetle is apparently yet another wasp mimic, and even resembles a big wasp or hornet when in flight.

At one point, the beetle got all up in my grill, letting me see its formidable mandibles. We didn't handle it, but had we, whoever was doing the holding would have felt the power of the incredible amorpha borer's jaws as it would have certainly put the pinch on them.

A great many photos were made of the bug, and there may be other images emerging on the Internet that are better than mine. Megacyllene decora is particularly appealing aesthetically in part, I think, because its dominant color is a very interesting shade of tangerine. I am hard pressed to cite another beast, bird or otherwise, that matches this hue. The black markings provide fascinating and artistic contrast, and the overall effect is quite striking. Couple the beetle's showiness with its apparent rarity and you've got an animal that captivates people. At least strange people such as myself and some of the company that I keep.

Expedition members display their elation at discovering this chitinous pot of gold at the end of the Amorpha rainbow. From left, we've got the always searching John Howard, David Hughes, Laura Stalder, Heather Aubke, Derek Hennen, John's son Andy who has had his fill with the beetle-hunting by this time, and Nina Harfmann.

I appreciate everyone who participated in this year's Borer Expedition. And of course, we didn't just see the borer - scads of other interesting life forms were noted and photographed. I could probably make 20 blog posts from trips like this and all of the stuff that we find.

If you know anything, anything at all, about Megacyllene decora the amorpha borer, especially based on firsthand field experience, please let me know.

The marina at Shawnee State Park, Scioto County, Ohio. May not look like the most exotic locale in the world, but as we shall see, there are some very interesting critters to be found here. This is Ohio's Deep South; as far as one can move towards the equator and not dip their toes into the Ohio River. In fact, the marina is on our mightiest stream; the one that separates us from neighboring Kentucky. And a number of plants and animals reach the northern limits of their ranges in the Ohio River Valley.