News from the Bernard Field Station

Since our last update we’ve added fifteen new taxa to the BFS invertebrate list, including 1 katydid, 2 bugs, 2 beetles, 3 flies, 1 butterfly, 5 bees, and 1 wasp. As always, many thanks to everyone who’s helped observe, photograph, collect, and identify these inverts, including Ben Stapp, Jonathan Wright, Hartmut Wisch, John Ascher, David […]

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We’ve recently updated the BFS invertebrate list, and I’m afraid that our blog posts have not kept pace with our new invert finds. Altogether since our last invert blog update, we’ve added an additional 57 taxa, including 3 spiders, 1 silverfish, 1 dragonfly, 2 grasshoppers, 6 bugs, 10 beetles, 10 flies, 5 moths, 3 butterflies, […]

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We have nine new additions to the BFS invert list: Dactylopius sp. (Cochineal) Our first addition is an insect that any casual observer might notice at the BFS, but it had somehow been overlooked in our list making – Cochineal (Dactylopius sp.) – that white cottony stuff on Opuntia sp. cacti (Prickly-Pear or Indian-Fig): Dactylopius […]

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Spotted last Sunday on Amsinckia in the East Field, the plant bug Plagiognathus moerens: Plagiognathus moerens is a specialist feeder of Amsinckia and other Boraginaceae. It’s very little studied — the only references in the scientific literature are to the taxonomic description. So far as we can tell, our photos from the BFS are the […]

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During Spring Break Jonathan Wright, Harsi Parker, and I spent an afternoon at the BFS documenting and photographing arthropods. It will take a while to figure out the identity of all the interesting insects we found, but we’ve now idenitified the first two and added them to the BFS Invert List: Zelus renardii – Leafhopper […]

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