Workshop Notice: Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group

Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group

Field Workshop

Those who take an interest in recording wildlife sounds be they insects, birds, frogs or environmental sounds be informed that the next field workshop will be held in north Queensland.

This is the first time the group has met in the far north. Other meetings have been held in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.

The get-together combines presentations, field recording and demonstrations of the latest recording and analytical gear.

This year the confab will be from 15-20 October 2013 at the Kingfisher Lodge, Julatten, Queensland. Bookings can be made by contacting the lodge or fred van Gessel .

The Kingfisher Lodge is an ideal place for such a meeting. It is at the gateway to Mt Lewis road which will take you through all the life zones to nearly the top of the mountain where lichen-covered and orchid laden trees make it seem like you are in a botanical garden. Accompanying all this is a magnificent fauna.

In addition, the Julatten is not far from open woodland and grassland habitats where an entirely different fauna can be observed. The Mareeba Wetlands offers opportunities to record a variety of wildlife from a very different habitat. Julatten is also the gateway to the Cape York Peninsula.

The AWSRG is composed of members mostly from Australia with a wide range of recording experience in wildlife sounds. Non-professional sound recordists are most welcome and can gain valuable tips from those that spend a lot of time making sound records of Australian wildlife.

The AWSRG publishes a journal and a CD of sound recordings at least twice a year. The journal includes latest recording and analytical gear with hints on use and costs.

So a good opportunity for locals and Aussies from the Deep South to get together and exchange ideas and techniques for nature sound recording.

A Night in the Grass

Guinea Grass, Megathyrsus maximus, preferred name Green Panic, is everywhere in the Far North of Australia. it was introduced between 1865-69 at 22 locations by the Acclimatisation Society. Those folk thought they were improving the landscape with either better plants than were there in the first place or organisms from the Old Country with which they were familiar. Nowadays, we all wish they had had a different approach. European Starlings, Indian Mynahs,English and House Sparrows are a couple of introductions that would have been better left where they came from.

Guinea Grass is a native of Africa. As a young grass it is fine fodder for cattle. But it soon grows to a height of 2-3.5 m and becomes tough and unpalatable to livestock. It quickly takes over and shades out native vegetation. It probably should be declared a weed but this is unlikely because of its use a green feed and silage for cattle.

A recent trip to the Babinda area of coastal north Queensland  provided a bit of a dilemma.
After dark an array of local insects were discovered feeding on the seeds of the grass. I suspect that a visit a few weeks prior would have found other insects feeding on the pollen and developing panicles.

So as far as the insects are concerned, is this a detrimental plant? Is it helping insect populations or keeping them at abnormally high levels or is it substituting for the native plants that have been displaced by the Guinea Grass itself?

 A young katydid (called a nymph) Tettigoniidae; Conocephalinae of the tribe Agraeciini, probably Goodangarkia prasinus (Karny) chewing on a seed.

 Same species enjoying (Buck) a grass seed after dark.

 Another member of the Conocephalinae, Conocephalus upoluensis (Karny), eating a seed.

 A native cockroach (Ectobiidae; Pseudophyllodromiinae), a nymph of Balta quadricaudata Hebard seeking a grass seed.

Adult male Balta quadricaudata Hebard in search of food. Many native cockroach species can be found, both day and night, atop grass stems feeding on pollen and seeds.

 An undescribed species of Johnrehnia (Ectobiidae; Blattellinae) feeding on the same grass. This species spends the day in leaf litter under trees and shrubs.

 Lophops saccharida (Kirkaldy), family Lophopidae, is a pest of sugarcane but it occurs in numbers on Guinea Grass.

 A caterpillar, probably Geometridae, feeding on Guinea Grass at night.

 An Evening Brown caterpillar, Melanatis leda bankia, usually hidden during the day, emerges  to feed under the cover of darkness.

 Many insects find Guinea Grass the place to spend the night. This is the Dingy Bush-brown, Mycalesis perseus.

 This braconid wasp was found in a folded leaf.

And the predators find the grass to their advantage. This spider is feeding on an alydid bug. These bugs are abundant in Guinea Grass.

There is a project here for an enterprising student. What  effect is Guinea Grass having on the abundance of native and introduced insects? How important are native insects in keeping the grass under control?

[Thanks to Gary Wilson and John Nielsen for help with this blog.]

An Art Event of Note

I recently met Lorraine Lemothe- an artist who uses insects in her work and who has used cockroaches in her artistic renderings. As luck would have it, she is about to have an exhibition. So if you want to see how cockroaches fit into the world or art, come along.

The exhibition lasts for a month beginning in early July at the Tablelands Art Gallery, Atherton.

Monteith's Leaf Insect, Phyllium monteithi Brock and Hasenpusch, in Detail

Monteith's Leaf Insect, Phyllium monteithi Brock and Hasenpusch,  has been noted in this blog on several occasions. Females are very rarely found. They seem to be restricted to the rainforest canopy and are reluctant to fly, if they can. Only a single female has been discovered in several years of searching by many local enthusiasts. Males come to lights and one was found in mid-May, rather late in the season. This one seemed especially photogenic and lent itself to some close-up photography.

The front femora are flattened and irregularly armed on the anterior margin. The internal base of the femur is "excavated" to accommodate the head and protruding eyes. The front tibiae are less produced and the internal margin is not armed. The head is notably flattened and bears the ocelli.

The antennae are fuzzy throughout but the tips are different.

The "flagellum" of the antenna is composed of elongate segments covered with fine setae. But the tips bear much shorter segments that are bare. What could be the function of this? Scanning electron micrographs might reveal different sorts of chemical and tactile receptors in each region of the antenna.

The top of the head bears the base of each antenna, the compound eyes and three ocelli. The ocelli are found in most insects are said to vary in function from one group to another. Flying insects like this one have larger ocelli and they are usually positioned as a triangle atop the head.

 This schematic representation of an ocellus illustrates that it bears a lens element and a number of photoreceptors. But it is a different photo-receiver from that of the compound eyes. The latter are much more complicated. These ocelli may serve as a light metering system for the insect. They cannot receive form. They may serve in stabilising the insect during flight. Some suggest they may have a role in receiving polarised light.

The Time Has Come

I haven't had much to say about the cassowaries this year. But they have been around since the first noted sighting in late November, 2012. It's remarkable that they and their parents have survived to this point. A procession of heavy vehicles associated with logging on Black Mountain Road meant that every time they crossed, they had to take a risk of being hit. Mr Cassowary surely is road savvy. We hear he has been around for some 40 years and during this period he has brought from 1-3 chicks to adulthood nearly every year. This year we have three and today they appeared without Pops for the first time. He showed up later in the afternoon. We suspect that he is not far off when the young are driven off--just to be sure they are not harmed.

The chicks are very wary and appear bewildered. They scrap a bit amongst themselves. They will not understand why their protective father has suddenly become the "enemy".

It's a big world out there. The lessons provided by the father will serve the young cassowaries well if they have been good students. There are many skills that have been learned but the hazards are many--wild dogs, pigs, cars, falling trees, barbed wire and potential shortage of food. These young will be driven off the resident pair's territory and will have to establish a territory of their own. It would really be interesting to know where each ends up.

A Good Read

Lifetime friend Prof Con Slobodchikoff has produced another book. It took some 6 weeks to reach Kuranda via Ebay and I thought that was probably a good thing, meaning that the book was in high demand and perhaps, had to undergo a second printing. Let's hope so.

Con has spent his academic life studying animal behaviour. He tended to specialise in the behaviour of the several species of Prairie Dogs. These are communal rodents that live in the grassland communities of North America. They were once much more common than they are now and used to co-habit with the North American Bison.

We all know that animals communicate with one another by various means--vocal, chemical or visual. But what about a "language"? Con develops this theme in a most interesting read. You may be surprised at his conclusions.

I strongly recommend this book. It could change your outlook towards the other species that occupy our planet.

A Few Local Grasshoppers

These are common grasshoppers but have an all-together different appeal when seen up close and in their majestic colours. (Of course, if you are trying to grow vegies, you may have a different opinion all together!)

 Northern Grass Pyrgomorph Atractomorpha similis Bolîvar; Pyrgomorphidae; Pyrgomorphinae; Atractomorphini

Atractomorpha similis Bolîvar; Pyrgomorphidae; Pyrgomorphinae; Atractomorphini

The Northern Grass Pyrgomorph occcurs across the top of Australia and down the east coast nearly to the Victorian border. It overlaps much of its souther range with the Australian Grass Pyrgomorph, A. australis Rehn. The two are very difficult to distinguish and you need to make measurements of the proportions of the length and width of the fastigium (the process between the eyes and base of the antennae) to make an identification.

Atractomorpha is a large genus with many species in Asia and Africa. There is a third species in Australia known from sandy areas and the escarpment in the Kakadu region of the Northern Territory where is is associated with the shrub, Hypoestes floribunda. It has a red-orange hind wing as opposed to the rosy pink hind wing of the other two species.

The Northern Grass Pyrgomorph occurs along rainforest margins but it is equally at home on lawns and playing fields. It is remarkablde that it survives and thrives on lawns that are regularly mowed. It either jumps or flies away from the mower to live feeding on grasses and forbs until the next mowing session.

 Froggatt's Buzzer Froggattina australis (Walker); Acrididae; Acridinae; Acridini; female

  Froggattina australis (Walker); Acrididae; Acridinae; Acridini; male

 Froggatt's Buzzer, Froggattina australis (males 19 mm, females 28 mm), is another grasshopper commonly seen along forest margins, on lawns and playing fields. Unlike the Northern Grass Pyrgomorph, males buzz when they fly. They make very short flights on under 2 m suddenly drop and seem to disappear into the grass. The colour and colour pattern is variable in this species. If the grass is primarily green, then green is the predominant colour of the grasshopper. If the grass has a lot of dead brown patches and is predominantly brown, then the grasshoppers will be more brown than green.

Froggatt's Buzzer occurs on both coasts of Australia and in a broad band from NW Australia through the centre and almost to the southern border. A similar but smaller species, Calephorops viridis, overlaps with it in coastal areas of northern Queensland and NW Western Australia and adjacent Northern Territory. It is a much smaller and more slender species (males 15 mm, females 20 mm) and similarly buzzes but the buzzing flights are much shorter, lasting less than a half second.

            Froggatt's Buzzer, head and thorax of a male

  Garden Bermius, Bermius brachycerus Stål; Acriddiae; Oxyinae; Oxyini; female

The Garden Bermius is known to many gardeners along the east coast of Australia, especially in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria where is has the habit of invading vegetable plots and feeds on lettuce, beans and other vegies. It is a species of disturbed habitats-a weed species. It is a native that finds human activities to its liking. It does not live on lawns  but can be found in adjacent vegetation, especially if there is abundant moisture.

  Garden Bermius, Bermius brachycerus Stål; Acriddiae; Oxyinae; Oxyini; female

   Garden Bermius, Bermius brachycerus Stål; Acriddiae; Oxyinae; Oxyini; female

The"prosternal tubercle", the peg between the fist pair of legs is a useful character to help identify many grasshoppers. The "Buzzers" discussed above have no such process between their front legs. In the example of the Garden Bermius, this structure is called a "peg". This grasshopper can be confused with the one below, the Rice Grasshopper. They are of similar size, though the Garden Bermius is a bit larger (males 23 mm, females 33 mm) and does have banded antennae and does not have the hind tibiae expanded for swimming.

  Rice Grasshopper; Oxya japonica (Thunberg); Acrididae; Oxyinae; Oxyini; female

The Rice Grasshopper has a very broad range in Asia where it does considerable damage to rice and other grasses. In Australia is is found in a narrow band along the east coast from the vicinity of Cairns south to almost the southern border of Queensland. It has been found in the northern portion of the Northern Territory. Oddly, it is not a pest in Australia. The antennae of this species are not banded. The  apical portion of the hind tibiae are expanded, somewhat paddle-like. This helps the grasshopper to swim which it does readily when threatened.

                      Fireman Grasshopper, Tolgadia infirma (Stål); Acrididae; Oxyinae; Oxyini; female

                  Fireman Grasshopper, Tolgadia infirma (Stål); Acrididae; Oxyinae; Oxyini; female

The Fireman Grasshopper is so-called because of its escape habit of sliding down grass stems as a fireman slides down the pole in the firehouse. This grasshopper is short-winged ( click on the hopper above to expand the photo), the wings extending a short distance down the abdomen and incapable of flight. This is a common species and lives in grasses and forbs in disturbed areas, especially along forest margins. It has a reasonably large range extending along the coast from southern Queensland across the top portion of the continent and into the Northern Territory and adjacent Western Australia.

 Giant Valanga, Valanga irregularis (Walker); Acrididae; Catantopinae; Cyrtacanthacridini; female

The Giant Valanga is known to most gardeners from northern New South Wales to north Queensland and the northern part of Western Australia and adjacent Northern Territory. This is a large grasshopper (males 64 mm, females 87 mm) that is capable of making extensive flights. Deposition of a single egg pod amongst shrubs in the garden can lead to a disaster. The nymphs are voracious and feed on a wide variety of ornamental and native shrubbery. They can reduce an expensive plant to shreds in a few days if not controlled.

Valanga poses a difficult taxonomic problem in Australia. Either there are many similar but slightly different species or, as is now accepted, it is a genus with a few very highly variable species. It is a wonderful taxonomic problem awaiting study utilising the latest DNA techniques. Is anyone is looking for a PhD topic? There are hundreds of specimens in Australian museums and it is not difficult to find these grasshoppers in the field.

Giant Valanga, Valanga irregularis (Walker); Acrididae; Catantopinae; Cyrtacanthacridini; female

Giant Valanga, Valanga irregularis (Walker); Acrididae; Catantopinae; Cyrtacanthacridini; nymph

This nymph was found on the same shrub as the female above. It is assumed to be the same species, maybe even a brother os sister of the adult above. But it may be something different. It shows some similarity to nymphs of Austracris proxima.

More information on Australian Grasshoppers can be found at the Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturenoises/

or in the following book