Hellgrammite Lazarus

Sunday Aug 16 at 8 AM I came again to the SW gate on Chautauqua. The Clematis virgins bower growing on top of the fence was just beginning to open its white flowers. I walked north into the Woods to the old overgrown main west gate (now closed and blocked by young trees) then east about 600 feet through the sedges and moribund dense young ash stand to a huge old cottonwood tree fallen perhaps in the ice storm two years ago.

Under a small older rotten log by the cottonwood I was surprised to find a hellgrammite! Curled up under the moist log, it sprang into action twisting around when I picked it up. It appeared to be a last instar full-grown larva. The nearest water was probably 100 meters north. This iconic aquatic immature insect had hunkered down and was waiting for the area to be inundated again .. pretty amazing! I was reminded of finding in October 2008 a half grown diapausing belostomatid under another dry rotten log further south in the Woods.

It occurred to me that the habitat of these insects was defined not just by spatial distance to water but also by a time dimension to the recent water and the future return of water.

The rotten log was near a small depression, 2-3 m in diameter that looked to have retained water longer than the surrounding soil. In this depression there were the shell remains of hundreds of the small fingernail clams Sphaerium(?)Sphaeriidae bivalves and two other completely different bleached aquatic shells as well (Helisoma Planorbiid rams-horn snails and Physa (sinistral shell).
The depression was ringed by modest diameter (10-15 cm DBH?) green ash and elms. The bases of all these trees were each well equipped with lots of trunk roots or pneumatophores(?) that may have allowed them to survive longer and deeper inundation. The dry soil in the center of the depression had a whitish tinge of (calcium ?) as though a sort of leachate had formed ..like a floodplain caliche.

Clambering up on to the enormous old cottonwood log I found an egg sized lime encrusted fresh plasmodium of a Physarum? slime mold.. recently crawled up there and drying, forming a fruiting body, sporulating.

Down at the base of the massive log I stared at the broken stump and wondered why cottonwoods like this do not stump sprout. It could very possibly have quickly grown enough new stems and leaves to support the rest of the tree.

Nearby there were the first golden fallen mulberry leaves on the ground .. the first real fall colors.

Just east of the base of the big cottonwood there was a sharp transition or break in the forest vegetation. At that point the ground was maybe an inch higher and had not flooded. The vegetation changed abruptly. There was a general ground cover of Lonicera Japanese honeysuckle, Cornus dogwood, Symphoricarpos buckbrush/ coral berry, Rhus, and a
sparse but general cover of a tall stemmed grass, now dead and bleaching yellow.

East of the transition to higher drier ground a dry still hard small hackberry log had dozens of millipedes.. and under another similar log I counted 80 of the same species all clustered together. Why? Protection? Habitat preference?

Under the logs there was also a fourth snail species - this one terrestrial.. name??

The logs in the drier woods were covered with the black encrusting Loculoascomycete.. not as evident in the area of the previous inundation.

Under the dry logs there were also hundreds of pill bugs and a few colonies of very small ants. Why pill bugs and ants so often cohabit? Why no scorpions here? Too wet?

Spiders:
Under the same small rotten log there were a quick running large wolf spider.. half the bulk of a tarantula, carrying a large egg sac under its abdomen.. and a pair of daddy long legs. Walking through the knee high sedges I found a pair of Argiope the black and yellow garden spider. The female was huge. And scattered through the Woods I am starting finally to see more of the cinnamon colored Araneus. Plus there are still many of the Micrathena.