I love observing species nobody has observed before, and I LOVE coming across species on iNat that are new to me and that I can go out and try to find. I assume I’m not the only one, so I figured I’d make a thread for us to share these kinds of discoveries and hopefully raise awareness about some of these obscure species. Do you know of any species that I and others could go on a mission to try to find? please share them! Here are three of mine for now:
I recently came across Sorosphaerula veronicae on iNat*,* a fungus that creates stem swelling galls in Veronica arvensis. V. arvensis is a VERY common lawn weed found throughout the world, so I went out and found S. veronicae in the second spot I looked for it. At the time of writing, there’s only 42 observations of it though… which I think is crazy.
Geranium carolinianum is another very common lawn/disturbed habitat weed that is found throughout the US, and apparently in east asia as well. Recently, I found some with reddish, slightly curled, and slightly shriveled leaves on some. I think they are being caused by Aceria missisippiensis. While my specific ID may be incorrect, I took macro shots and did microscopy to confirm that Aceria mites are indeed the cause. I’ve found them in both MS and two locations in MD, so I bet it’s fairly widespread, just neglected.
My last recommendation to look for is Coccipolipus hippodamiae, a mite that lives under the elytra (wing covers) of Harmonia axyridis ladybugs. H. axyridis have been introduced all over the place, so the mites could potentially be found anywhere H. axyridis is. I don’t think the distribution of the mite is known, so finding them is useful information. While they can be a bit tricky to observe due to their size, taking good macro photos of the underside of the elytra of the beetle will often show the enlarged orange females and the eggs. I’ve found that heavy infestations can even be seen from the outside in intact beetles- the elytra get dark/transluscent areas that are visible to the naked eye. If you see beetles like that, you might want to check for mites!
Sadly I am new and haven’t found truly cool and rare species yet, so I can’t contribute much.
I am interested in trying to find C. hippodamiae though but I am not sure how I’d go about it.
Obviously if its on the outside then you can just see it with the naked eye, but if its on the underside of the wing, am I supposed to hold the wing open?
It is possible to carefully hold them open while they’re still alive. I’ve done it with just my fingers, but it’s tricky. It’s much easier if you use a pair of tweezers (or a needle or similar) to initially get one elytron up, and then you can keep it up with your fingers as you take pictures. If you do it carefully, the beetle should be unharmed.
What is even easier is just to put the beetle in the freezer until they die, then just use a pair of tweezers to remove the elytra. The mites are undamaged, and that lets you take better photos. Unless you’re in east asia, H. axyridis is actually an invasive species, so killing a few beetles isn’t harmful. If you have a microscope, something that worked for me was to put the elytra in a little tube with slightly soapy water and shake it to dislodge some mites. You then wait a little while for them to settle to the bottom, and pipette them into the slide.
That mite is very cool, I already look for that fungus that shows up on ladybugs but I’ll keep an eye out for those too now.
Nothing super spectacular from me at this time, I’ve recently been walking along roadsides so my observations are of fairly common stuff. I still like seeing the surprising diversity there.
I recently observed (what I think is) Microbotryum stellariae (Chickweed Anther Smut) on Stellaria pubera. It has a fair number of observations in Europe, but mine is only the second in the US, which seems odd considering how much chickweed (native and introduced) there is here. It could also be a different, related species I imagine. (edit: I guess I’ve convinced myself I should put this at genus rather than species, haha. Regardless, anther smuts seem underobserved in the Americas).
Oh wow, that’s awesome! I was reading about anther smuts literally only a couple of days ago, so I really want to find some. I’m not aware of having ever seen them. Apparently, they’re most common in Silene sp. I’ll have to check every flower I see…