May 19, 1996 Bug Walk Results

Species encountered, in approximate order, from the start:

• In the mustard and other weedy growth around the parking lot:
       - Wooly Ground Beetle
       - small brown ants (probably Argentine Ants)
       - small darkling ground geetle
       - Tarnished Plant Bug (on flower heads)
       - Green Lynx Spider (a young one)
       - unidentified leaf miner (a fly larva in this case)
       - Western Spotted Cucumber Beetle
       - flower thrips
       - Harlequin Cabbage Bug (2 nymphs of different ages and one adult)
       - California Ladybird Beetle
       - Honey Bee
       - unidentified moths
  
• On the Tamarisk trees:
       - unidentified spider
       - mealybugs
       - ladybird beetle larva (in this case, similar to but much larger than mealybugs)
       - green leafhopper (nymph and adult)
       - inchworm (geometrid moth caterpillar)
       - Black Scale
  
• Along the railway tracks:
       - thrip damage to daisy flowers
       - Black Scale on broom
       - green aphids on broom
       - ants on broom tending aphids
       - syripid/hover fly (a small one, both larva and pupa on broom)
       - unidentified black larva among the aphids
       - thickened stems on broom related to gold colored growth (a fungus?)
       - Cyclosa spider webs on broom
       - Green Lynx Spider on Telegraph Weeds
  
• On bamboo shoots:
       - colonies of aphids in and near leaf axils
       - lots of ants tending the aphids
       - pregnant Bola Spider and 6 egg cases
       - another syripid/hover fly
  
• At the Center itself and on the Gunpowder Point trail:
       - Silver Argiope Spiders (mature females, immatures, egg sacs, spiderling ball) on cactus
       - Gray Wall Spider
       - old wasp nest on wall
       - bead galls caused by mites on California Sagebrush
       - button-shaped galls on Australian Saltbush
       - Cabbage White butterfly
       - Common White butterfly (female)
       - rock slaters on beach
       - flies on beach
       - Pygmy Blue butterfly
       - sand wasp
       - grass spiders (funnel-shaped web)
  
• Other:
       - another leafhopper in here somewhere
       - Mourning Cloak butterfly seen as I was leaving (around 1:30pm)
  

See Insects and Spiders of the Chula Vista Nature Center for page and figure references in the field guides. A couple of the species indicated here need to be added to this list.

Ron Lyons - May 21, 1996.