Spencer, G. J.

English

Journal of the Entomological Society of British Columbia

6 EXTO\IOLO(;I L \r. Sot'. OF BIUTI"';H COLI" \1 111.\ . PHIl<". (l~47J . VOL. 44, FEH. 16, 1948 Cyanocitta stelleri stelleri (Gmelin), Steller's Jay. D eg eeriella rleji" i('ns Piage t Philopterus subj/aveS( '('1!8 Geoff. Pica pica hudsonia (Sabine), Magpie. D egeeriella biocellatl1 Piaget Philopte1'1ts picae Denny Corvus brachyrhynchos hesperis Ridgway, Western Crow. }dyrs'.flea subaefjua lis Lyonet Penthestes gambeli grinnelli Van Rossem, Short-tailed Mountain Chickadee. Phi lopterus rutteri Ke ll . Bombycilla garrula pallidiceps Reichenow, Bohemian Waxwing. Philopterus subjlaves('cus Geoff. Lanius ex cubit or invictus Grinnell, Northern Shrike. Philopteru,~ subfl((~'{,s c{, lIs Geoff. Agelaius phoeniceus caurinus Ridgway, Northwestern Red-winged Blackbird. Philopterus agelaU Osb. Hesperiphona vespertina brooksi Grinnell, Evening Grosbeak. Phi loplerus subfla l'e.'1cens Geoff. Pinicola enucleator alascensis Ridgway, Alaska Pine Grosbeak. Ph ' lopt ('ru s .~u bflav esccns Geoff. Junco oreganus oreganus (Townsend), Ore-gon Junco. Uil'inus rl i ffusus Kell. KEY '1'0 COLLECTORS I. Me1'. C ....... . ... Jan McTaggart Cowa n H. A. C . ... . . . .. (the late) R. A. Cummings J. A. M . ........ .. ............ J. A. Munro K E. P. . . . . . . ..... . . . .. . . ];~rnest E . P eden K. R. . .. . ... ............... Kenneth Racey G .. J. S ... . .. . ...... . .. . ... . . . G. J. Spen cer M. Y. W . . . .. . . , ... . ...... .. M. Y. Williams ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I am deeply in-debted to the "arious collectors who gave me the lice or the birds to examine, to Professor A. W. Baker for naming the lice m entioned in this paper and to Mr. ]. A .. Munro, Chief Federal Migratory Bird Officer for British Columbia, for checking ovcr the bird list. NOTES ON SOME DERMESTIDAE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Coleoptera) G. J. SPENCER Departmellt of Zoology, University of British Columbia . During the last 16 yea rs in the dry brlt of this provincc, I have collected all the D ermestidae I could lay hands on, but so far have obtained onl" 13 identifi ed, and 2 unidentified spec i e~ belongin g to the M cgatomini. The late K <: l1neth :\udcn, a most assiduous beetl e coll ector, also ob-tained only 15 species so these few may he f airly representative. Over 700 species have been named in this family and Leng lists 123 for America north of Mexico, so further collecting mar ren'al several more for British Columbia. The numbers in which they occur at any one time in the dry belt, va ry greatly. The best sources for ad ul ts 0 f small spe-cies are flowers such as choke cherry, wild spiraea, death camas, and water hemlock, and for adults and larvae of larger species, the hides of sheep that have died on the ranges during the winter, and any carrion. D ermestes marmoratllS Say, our largest speCles, may be found under animal re-mains on the ranges and under sheep s kin ~ that shepherds have left lying about. Both adults and larvae are most readilv found in sllch situations although any dry ca rrion attracts th em. From th e standpoint of numhers and ease of collecting, two species head th l' list, D ernll:stes talpinus Mann. and D er-mcstes signatlls Lec. 'rhcse come to car-rion after the first wave of carrion-beetles and lI1arm oratus has passed and the car-casses are drying and not so smelly. D C1''III estcs fr ischii Kug. is not common but generally occurs singly or in small numbers on carcasses that have been well picked over by bears and coyotes. I have never taken D. maculatw DeGeer 1774 (=vulpinus Fabr. 1781) out of doors. The large series in our col-lections was reared from a dried wolf car-cass stored in the laboratory pending clean-ing up. The larvae from the dried wolf scattered in all directions, invading three ~~ ,'TO)IOI.I)GH ',\1. Soc OF BH(T1SlI CO I.\T)1 1<1.\, PH''' ', (H147 J, VOl.. 44. FI':!:. ] 6. ~ !148 7 adjacent roo ms wherc they pupated in all lTI ;1n ner c f concealed pbces, so m e e l'e ll w;1ndering between the drawers 0 f insect cab inets where they chewed Ollt pllpation cham hers in the woodwork of th e drawers. Th e in f estation in the wol f appare ntly arose from ;1dults th;1t escaped from th e heetle room w here this spec ies is main-tain ed in l;1rge numbers f o r cleaning skele-tons and skulls. The culture was imported (:ri g ina ll y from California and has beell m a inta in ed in a la rge tin C;1gC for seve ral years. The spccies 7, a pparel~tll ' not natil'c to this prm'ince and has not ret become cs-t <1 blished ill the dry belt. . J)f'rmcs tl'S i({rrf({rillS' Linn. the larder . hee tle, is hest collected under old b<1con rind or an old ham bone to w hich they generally <1rrive in pairs. In the Sa m e wa};, <1 m ak a nd female often ;1rri,'e durin" th e nig ht to th e hre;1d hox into which a fr~s hl }' h<1ked loa f has been put ;1 nd has fermented or soured a little in the heat . I once reared a, f ew adults from the hodi es of dri ed in-sects in th e laboratory at K am loops where the larvae had become estahlished naturally -;) ra th er unusual occurrence. ' A ttagf'nu.r piceus Olivier, the blac k car-pet heetle, occurs most freely under old horse or cow skeletons which are n ea rly dr\' ;)nd from which el'errthing but shreds o{ tendons has heen picked. St~agg l e rs oc-casion<1ll y come into th e cabin on th e r;1nges in hte summel' and m;1), he found on window frames. I once reared a small series froln each of the foll ow ing: a sup-ply of casl'in from Australia; trash, con-sisting chiefly of particles of wool that oc-curred hetween rather widely bid floor hO<1rds in a puhlic dancc h<1 li in th e e1ry helt ; an old inscct collection in the Kam'-loops lahorato ry. AntizrntllJ sa op/l11/ariat' (Linn.), th e notorious buffalo carpet beetle uf easte rn North America, apparcntly does not occu r in this province )'tt. \Vhat I former ly cun-sidcrvd to he this species turns out to he A. t ill/pim'li{{/' Fabricius, des ig nated by Hin-ton ; IS va l'. {)aidelLS Case\. In 1942 I lluh-lishn l a note on LacLillS sp. as a parasite of A . .'(1'Op/III/{(l'i((1' ( Ent. Soc. of B.C. Prot'. 39, 1942) from Ill'crl e material sent in fr om Princeton. Th t hu: t1 es were identi-fied f cr me h)' th e la t l' .1\1r. Ralph H op-ping and a rc so lahe ll (:d in my collections, but Mr. Hoppin g did not have th e good fortune, as I ha \'e had, to he ahle to con-sult Hinton's wcrk an ~1 these heetle:;, a lso, turn Ollt to be A. fiimpillcl/{/(, var. occidens Casey . I hare a l;lI'ge Se ri es c f A. pimpilIeLlae collected in th e dry belt from Kamloops to th e Chilcntin , occ urrin g freel y on flow-ers of ya rro w and on wild, short spiraea on th e ran ges but nel't:' r e n hawthorn blos-Sf'ms, en whicll ad ults of A. sO'ophu/ar i({1! are sometimes so ab undant in Ontario. Al-though adults ofpi!llpinelLaf' are so com-m"n, I have n()t bee n ahle to find out where th e 1<1 I'\'a c· den· lop . The one record of. larvae in tras h from a home in Prince-ton, is th e only instance- I hal't of its kind; certainly it is not a household pest as is sO'ophuL({riae. Full g rown larvae o f pim-pint'liae a re a rmed with evenly but thinly distrihuted stout , hl ac k, dorsal bristles and lack th e lon g cauda l brush of brown ha irs that is characteristic o f larvae oJ scrophu-Lari({t'. When working Oll the fauna of re-cently ahandon ed birds' nests, I have fre-quentl y come <1c ross dermestid larvae but ha \c. not yet reared any to adults; it is possi ble tha t th ey m ay he those o f pimpi-?leilat'. A nthrenu.< vaf,(/Jci ( Linn .), the varied ca rpet heetle, first oht;1i ned as 1<1rv;1e in homes in Vanco uI'er in 1936 and rea red through to adults, has beccme the most troublesom e house hold pest in the lower Fraser valley and up the coast as far as Powell River. On ce estahlished in a house , the lan'at" are extremely hard to eradicate lInl ess by cyanide fumigation and evell then th ere is no g ua rantee that th ey will not turn up aga in n ext yea r. One house-holde r inform ed me th at larvae re-ap-pea red only three m on ths after fumiga-tion, w hich would seem to indicate that cpnide does llot kill th e eggs. For years I h';nc examined h,lwthorn and spiraea blu"soms eac h sprin g but have never found ,,'I'I'I}(/sci adul ts (Jut of doors on these or on a ll\ other fl owl·r,. III mid-May, 1947, howl'IL r, two citi ze ns w ho had consulted 8 E:\T() .II OI.O(;[( .\1. SO('. OF BHITl~11 COLl '\ II!lA. Paol', (l H17) , VOL, 44. !<' f:ll . 16, 1948 m e about the contr" l of these larvae, fou nd adults (Jut of doors and ca ll ed m e up to report it ; one picked 13 beetl es off a w hite hlanket which she had washed and hung cut to dry and the other found several on tulip and pyrethrum flow ers in her next-door neig hbor 's ga rden. Th e adults apparently feed on white ga rden flowers and fly into hom es to lay eggs. They breed also in feathers of disca rded birds' nests for I found senTal larvae in a humming bint 's nest w hich had been g iven me in September; the lan 'ae were almost full grown so ther must havc been in th e nest for seve ral months. That adults of .d. vcrbrtSci do not re-quire pollen or nec tar from flow ers in or-der to mature their eggs, is proved by the fact that I hal'e rcan·d a st rong cu ltu re in a glass-topped tin hox for 11 yea rs, sta rt-ing from the first few larvae that I re-ceived in 1936. It was from th ese larvae that I idcnti fi ed thl' spec ies (which was new to m e). They we re fed on crushed Purina Fox Chow bisc uits and ge neration a fter gene ration has developed in that box ever since, with food being renewed when-(;vcr necessa ry. For one six-month period they were fed whea t g rains and for an-other simi lar period, oa t grains, and ap-paren tl y thrived on the change. If wheat and nat g rains are ni cked with a knife, all the starchy conten t;; are soon consumed. One small lan "a , supplied one ni cked g ra in of wheat, gra duall y ate its way into the g rain as into a ca l'C , leaving a semi-circul ar wall of fr ass and cast skins behind it. G ene rations seem to ()\'erlap, but one wave of adults appea rs in March to April and a second in September to N ovember. In one experiment som e 50 beetl es of both sexes were remo\"e d from this tin shortly after em ergence and were placed in a si milar tin en 14th March, without a ny food. They mated and laid eggs plenti-fully and gradually died. Some eggs shri-vell ed but most hatched and by 15th May a large brood of larvae was active in the hox and had consumed the bodies of all but fi ve o f their pa ren ts w ithout, howeve r, having eaten th e sh rive ll ed unhatched eggs . This means that an in f cstation of A. 'vf!l'basci in a home, can mainta in itsel f indefi nitely without the adults having to fly outsid e to f eed on flowers. Screening of windows to keep bee tl es out of a house wO llld seem a hope less task because f ew sc reens ha\'C fr am es suffici ently tigh tl y fit-tin g. The larvae of A. vcr/;flsci are highly resistant to DDT powder. A number of them placed without food in a tin which had the poison dusted on the bottom, wa lked ove r it for two wee ks w ithout any o f th em dying and finally the lot died of star va tion. A five per cent solution of DDT in Varsol (a cleaning fluid put out by the Imperial Oil Co.), sp rayed on the backs () f la rvae seem ed to have no effect Ln them for some hours but by next day th ey had become paralyzed and incapable o f moving anlund although the legs tw itched spasmodically. Some re m ai ned for 13 days in this cond ition before dying . H owever, those h it w ith spray on the un-der side o f the body, died in a few hours. A few grains of hexachlorocyclohexane (666) o f 13 per ,cent gamma isom er con-ten t, in the sam e type of tin as employed with DDT powder, killed all larvae ill +8 hours, apparently by fum iga tion. The infestation is definitely spreading in greate r Vancouver and it is difficult to ',et wha t fac tors will ultimately lncl it "if. Adults of O rphillls nif!er (Rossi) are he 't (htained in the Dry Belt off flowers (,f chc ke cherr),; I have no idea what the lana l' fced on. .'I1cgatoma ( Perimrgatoma) vespu/ae Millirc n used to he a pest in our insect, bird or mammal coll ections at th e Univer-,; ity f rom 1931 onwards until 19 43 , when r sprayed the outsid e o f all ou r cabi nets with fi \'e per cent DDT in Va rsol about th e third week ill May. The spray has been repeated each year since, and the in-festation has now di ed out. In rearing: ex-periments with this spec ies I find that lar-vae placed si ng ly in tin sal ve boxes w ith a variety of foods including dead insects, invariably shrinl up and die eyen after E:"TO\I OLO(; H ' AL Soc. OF BIUTIS JI COLI' \ UH .I . PIWI". (1947) . VOL. 44. FJ:: II . 16. 1948 six months of capti,·ity. On thc oth er hand I ha I'e reared them in hulk wi th a mass of dried insec ts, and they developed into heetl es. As soon as adults em erge th ey shculd hc removed from a culture if specimen ts for pinning are desi l'ed, oth er-wi,e th e ensuing lal"\'ae ea t th e bodies of th eir dead parents, as do th ose of A. ver-hasci. A ll my pinned specim ens were rea red in the laboratory in Vanco uI'e r with th e exception of one heetl e which occurred on a window of th e Dom in ion Entomolog i-ca l Lahoratory in Kamloops . I ha ve never captured it out of doors in th e dry helt a lth ough I suspect that it ca me to the University originalh from U pper Hat Creek where I was working in 193 1 an d whence I brought down much dri ed, pinn ed material, w hich, I think , became in fested during the process of drying be-fore th e sp·.'C imens were: pinned a wa), into b.xes. :vIi lli ron, who desc ribed this species III 1939 from Minnesota, obtaincd his material from an old demonstration nest of the wasp, V rspllia arenaria. HowcI'er, I hale put both adu lts and larvae into a glass jar con ta inin g ;1 nest of Vespllla which contain ed an ab undance of wasp larval faeces and dri ed larvae and pupae but was not ab le to establish a colony in this medium. Neither w ill laf\'ae develop O il F ox Chow dust which has proved so success ful for A. "vl'r/J(lS(i. Th e bodies of dri ed grass hoppe rs, fat moths and espec i-a I I Y dri ed m ar ine cr ustacea, are excellel1t fLocl for th is P. VI'sf" lilt'. III addition to th ese li sted above, I have ;1 fl'w specimens ollh of each of two fur-ther speci es of Dt'1"III r.< tir/m·, ncar M cga-t Oll/ a , but have not btell ahle to get them identi fi ed as ye t. LITERATURE CITED Hinton, H . E., 1945. A monograph of the Beetles associated with stored products. Vol. 1, British Museum, London. Milliron, H. E., 1939. A Parthenogen etic New Species of the Genus Perimegatoma H orn (Coleoptera: Dermestidael. Ann als Ent. Soc. of Am., 32 (3) :570-574. THE CI.AY·COLOCRED WEEVIL, BRACHYRHINUS SINGULARIS, IN WEST P()I\T G[{EY, VANCOUVE R. (Coleopt e ra: Cu rc uli oni<i ae) .-Th e clay -colou red wet' -" il , Brach yrhinus singularis (L . ) fir s t r eport ed ill thi s Prov ill ce from Victoria by M r. H a rry Alldison (Ent. Soc . B .C. Proc. 38, 194:!) appea red in \V e~ t Point Gre, ' in Octobe r ID44. wh en one s pecillien was cap· Hired ill Ill)' hou ~e . The next year, fou r bee tl e:-; were taken on th e kitchen alld pantry windows, also ill O('toh(" l' . Now ill the sprill!.! of 1944 I had nr ~ t noticed hol e~ ea ten Ollt of the lea\'es of purple iri s bordering th e sid e\v a lk alongside the h ou se a nd II} 1 ~45 the hole~ had Il()ticeably increased ullti l III an\, le a Yf~s show ::> d ex te ll si y (> dallla ,~~'e: 011 both occasions th t! ,.,lants were in sppr ted h~' daj.·lig-ht but no in sects tou Jd be found Oil t hEm , I ll th(' fir s t week of :Ylay 194 5, the iri ses we re eXall) ill ed at ni~h t with a fl ashlight, a t inte n 'a ls f ro lll 8 o ' clock onwa rds alld se,·era l wee \,jl ~ we re foulld ("he\\i ll ~ holes ill the lea,·es . By 9 o' clock th ey h ad jllt~ reHsed in nu mber s and remained fa irly cons tant for t.h e next half hour, so th.::: wors t infes ted portion of t.h e hed, a s trip som e ;::5 feet alongs ide the h ouse, wa., c a reft! II ~' swept with a net and many weev ils were t akel1; a furth er s trip of som e 1 05 fee t a longs ide the g-al'd en fence where the irise s were but lit tle damaged, .,·ie lded abo ut a rlozell more. In a ll, 1 31 c1ay·co loured wC'evi l:;; , strawherry-root wee,·il s (Brachyrhinus ovatus fL .) ami 4 other , I ,p. inde t.) wer e coll ected f rom off the ir i ~ l ea y e~. Appa rellt ly this s \\'eepiJl~ reilloved practically a ll t he heetles beea use in October 1946, o nly one iris lea f \\-as fou nd '0 h a\"(~ beeJl r ece ntly damaged and no beet les cou ld be loca ted . Durin g th e nrst we(!k i l l ~'1 ay, 19 4 7 , th e iri s pl a n ts ill th ese lwo heel s a lld ot he r clumps inside the ga rden walls, which hith erto bad ]l o t been touched, showed ~ig ll~ of he in g' attacked. S\\,f'(>pin~ at 9 p.lll. on l\'l ay 10th yield ed 2:~ lH"l' tl e:-o, an d no ~ubs(>quellt damage occlIrrc(i. The garden ('ontain s a cUllsicierable range of an-11"lal s and perelllIi als but nllly irises seem to be at · tacked aIld, of ~p.\'erctl va ri eties of these, the purpl e is Illos t su~ceptible. Th e weevih- apP::lrently ral\ ~~e widel y si nce one was ta ke ll in "lay. o n a limb of a sweet eherry tree, :!i) feet trolll the t runk a nd 6 fee t o fT t he g rou nd} ~o lh t>ir dalll :t'!e wi ll proba bly ~OO Ii extend t o ot her p la nt !' be~ide~ iri s . An diso n (I oc. c it.) record~ th em as exten ~ i \'el y injuring laurel lea\'es in Victoria . Th ere are 110 lau re ls in my ga rd en but for se veral years I h a ve Iloti ced the lower leaves of sev -pral laurel bu shes in th e next block, to be extensively dallla~ed: it is therefore H r ,' likely that this sam e ill~ect is cOll c? rned and that its distribution in \Vest Puint Grey is fa r 1I10l'e exte ll sive than is at pre sent realized.-G .. J. Spen ce r, D epartment of Zoology, Uni · \"('r"it~ · of Briti sh CuhlJllbi a 

Notes on some Dermestidae of British Columbia (Coleoptera)

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Notes on some Dermestidae of British Columbia (Coleoptera)

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Journal of the Entomological Society of British Columbia