“The Little Things that Run the World”

That’s what the late, great Naturalist E.O. Wilson, a world authority on ants, called the insects. He elaborated in his many books that the thousands of insects around us carry out many functions daily, almost totally unnoticed by us. We can see this happening in the Arroyo Seco with some following examples, observed best when we slow down and pause along the trail.

Most people are aware of one species of bee, the introduced European Honeybee, but in California we have about 1,500 species of bees, nearly all of them native. The majority of our natives are solitary and do not form social groups. Most provide a critical pollination service both of native plants and crops.

Diadasia is the genus for the Long-horned Bees or, in Hahamongna, I like to call them “Cactus Bees”, as they favor flowers of the Prickly-Pear. They construct intriguing nest burrows in the ground with a soil turret or collar sticking up around the opening.

Bumble Bees, like this California Bumble Bee (Bombus californicus), are some of our largest bees and are declining. This one is gathering nectar and pollen from flowers of Deerweed (Acmispon glaber), a common Pea Family plant. These bees nest underground with a queen laying eggs and workers feeding larvae both pollen and nectar. The nest dies out each winter and a new one is established.

Butterflies need both a “host” plant for their caterpillars to feed on and nectar plants to feed the butterfly. Shown in this photo, the Bernardino Blue both nectars on, and lays eggs on, Flat-topped Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum). We do a good ecosystem service when we plant both host and nectaring types in our yards.

Datura (Datura wrightii), has prominent white flowers, about the largest flower in California. The color white shows up at night and it’s thought the White-lined Sphinx Moth is a pollinator for Datura. Watch for the plant in the more disturbed sites in Hahamongna.

Pepsis Wasp (Tarantula Hawk) is hard to miss with metallic blue body, nearly two inches long in females, and orange wings. In the Hahamongna basin their most commonly-visited shrub is Scalebroom (Lepidospartum squamatum). Pepsis wasps cruise above the ground, searching out a tarantula and sting it into “suspended animation”; they then drag it into a burrow and lay one egg on the tarantula which becomes food for the wasp larva.

Using iNaturalist, a free phone app, many observers are now documenting with photos the flora and fauna of the Arroyo. For the Hahamongna Project alone there are 10,800 observations of 1277 species thus far (check it out here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/save-hahamongna-bioblitz)

Mickey Long, Field Biologist, and former Natural Areas Administrator, L.A. County Parks & Recreation

Busy and Blooming