Travel September-October

Just a heads up I suppose that I will be visiting Hawaii from the 12th September to 19th, following the Festival of Birds there. The first days will be on Big Island, and then the remaining days on O'ahu. I was also thinking of trying to get tours on Maui and Kaua'i, but most tour guides no longer do tours in recent years! Really though if anyone has any target groups to look for (I have already contacted several of you), let me know. For instance, I will be checking Euphorbia for Nathan Taylor, and psyllids for Chris.

I have a good deal of map points for my visit to Hawaii, but if there are any particular suggestions, let me know! I wouldn't mind some sort of snorkelling/scuba diving session somewhere, since I have virtually zero ocean observations. I have a camera suitable for the task so I might as well. I think I'm good on bird locations, but I don't have any good stakeouts for the butterflies (although I have a big grid of koa tree congregations that I can check for koa blue).

Not to mention, I was invited to a volunteer session in Australia starting September 25th. So that will keep me out of America until late October. I will be based in Tasmania.

Just when I thought the year was over!

Julkaistu syyskuu 7, 2018 04:51 IP. käyttäjältä silversea_starsong silversea_starsong

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Should be fun! Coincidentally that's about the same time I was thinking about visiting California, so I guess I won't be seeing you then, haha.

I'll compose a list of target species within the next day or two. As you already know there are about 3 dozen species on Metrosideros polymorpha, and as with the hackberry psyllids, the galls are going to be more useful than the adults (and likely easier to find anyway). But I'll get you a more complete list, as there are other hosts as well of course.

Lähettänyt psyllidhipster yli 5 vuotta sitten

Alright, here are some more comprehensive psyllid notes:

All of the native Hawaiian psyllids are Triozids. While there are plenty of introduced things too, those are things you could find in California as well (ie the usual Eucalyptus suspects, some species on Ficus, Heteropsylla spp. on mimosoid legumes, etc.). So I'll skip over those in favor of the native Triozids, of which all of the genera should be new to you (and the few that aren't new will probably be eventually placed in different genera in the future)

2 Cerotrioza spp., one known host is Xylosma hawaiiensis
2 Hemischizocranium spp. on Zanthoxylum dipetalum (Rutaceae)
8 Hevaheva spp., all on Rutaceae. Most of those on Pelea spp., one species on Platydesma campanulata, one unknown species from Melicope.
1 Paurotriozana on Cryptocarya oahuensis
2 Kuwayama on Pisonia sandwicensis. Several other Kuwayama from unknown hosts; I don't think these are congeneric with the American Kuwayama
4 Megatrioza on Pritchardia; P. hardyi is a confirmed host for one of those. A fifth Megatrioza is recorded from Zanthoxylum
2 Stevekenia on Nothocestrum, specifically N. peltatum and N. longifolium. These were described just last year and the hosts are rare.
2 Swezeyana on Sideroxylon
1 Crawforda on Tetraplasandra hawaiensis
Trioza uniqua on Cryptocarya
and of course, the 36 Pariaconus on Metrosideros polymorpha

As all of the native species are Triozids and probably of common ancestry, it is very likely that the majority of these species, if not all of them, are gall-inducers as nymphs. So, provided that you can recognize the hosts, looking for galls is probably going to be the easiest way of documenting different species.

Lähettänyt psyllidhipster yli 5 vuotta sitten

Haha, this is going to be fun, I don't know any of the plants...I'll try and cram some last-minute research!

Lähettänyt silversea_starsong yli 5 vuotta sitten

Do you think these are galls on Nothocestrum? https://www.arkive.org/aiea/nothocestrum-latifolium/image-G67404.html

Lähettänyt silversea_starsong yli 5 vuotta sitten

Not sure what those are, but in trying to find Percy's recent publication of the genus I found instead a newer article she published this year on the genus Swezeyana, which now includes 9 species. Planchonella sandwicensis is apparently the host for all of those, but the nymphs are not gall-inducing. And apparently the nymphs of Hemischizocranium and Stevekenia are not gall-inducing either, so no galls on Zanthoxylum or Nothocestrum apparently. As for the rest, you can probably expect galls.

Lähettänyt psyllidhipster yli 5 vuotta sitten

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