Sitka Nature

Coral Slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa) seems to be one of the more common slime molds around Sitka. Individuals growths are small and can be easy to to overlook when they occur in small clusters. I associate this slime mold mostly with rotting wood in coniferous forests. I’ve also only noticed it at lower elevations, though this may be due to lack of time spent at higher elevation forest.

More pictures of Coral Slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa)

This photo is from a hike up Indian River in 2006. I noticed a metallic gold beetle crawling on the zipper of my backpack while stopped for a break. Only recently did I get around to posting it on bugguide.net, where it was quickly identified as Lioligus nitidus by v belov, who noted it was a new genus for the site.

Looking on-line, I found very little about this beetle, but I did find one paper about a study done on Prince of Wales Island where this species was one of many invertebrates found in alder leaf litter. (That study was looking at diversity/productivity of conifer and alders, with a mind toward the management of second growth, and whether alder should discouraged, as it has been in past years, or encouraged.)

In May Connor found and brought me this Thallophaga hyperborea which had been crawling up a stake he had pounded in the ground. It seemed a strange place to find a moth, but upon learning its identity (via bugguide.net) and reading a little about the life history, it made more sense.

Larvae of this species dine on conifers, including our local Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) then spend the winter as pupa in the soil before emerging as adults in the spring. It seems likely this individual was just emerging when Connor found it.

Variable Carpet Moths (Anticlea vasiliata) are aptly named for their diverse array of color morphs. This May I photographed two different ones, to go along with one I photographed April 2009.

Information I’ve seen about larval food plants does not includes only raspberries, which many people raise, but they are not especially common. It is possible this species moved in with the introduction of raspberries, though I suspect they have other food plants that are native – perhaps salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) which are abundant.

The photo which leads the post represents the least marked end of the spectrum for this species, with those shown below being perhaps more typical. Note the dark lines present in the relatively unmarked individual are also present on the other individuals, though the darker bands obscure them somewhat.