#hgn

HELLO BUG FRIEND!!!!!

So there's a polyphyletic group of insects known as "leaf miners." This group includes teeny tiny moths, flies, sawflies, and beetles! A great percentage of plants have some form of leaf miner on them- and a great percentage of those leaf miners are super specialized, feeding only on one closely related group of plants. Most of the ones I've encountered will only feed on a particular species!

The first step in this dope ass lifestyle is to lay your egg inside of the leaf, and then once it hatches into the larval stage, they do what it says on the tin- make a little "mine" in between the layers of tissue on the leaf! Imagine being born inside of a quesadilla; hidden from carnivorous predators, shielded from bad weather, and never out of food. It's a dream! It also makes it really hard for scientists to find you... unless they can find the trail you leave behind!

[Tulip Tree Leafminer, Phyllocnistis liriodendronella, photo is mine. This caterpillar is capable of feeding on a number of related plants, largely Tulip Trees and Magnolias.]

Leaf miners are pretty small as adults, and extremely prone to parasitoid wasps. Just about the only damn way to get any of them is to find a mine that's occupied and rear it! The adult can then be humanely euthanized, and dissected for description.

[Mine on American Holly, occupied by Rhopobota (species undescribed!), photo is mine. The occupant is visible as a brownish yellow smudge at the midrib here. This species feed only on this host, I. opaca. I am rearing some of these as well, I've had them since February and the bastards are due any day]

Two weeks ago, I was up working with a group to remove invasives from a protected area, and I found a leaf miner pupating on Phacelia that I didn't recognize. I didn't think much of it, posted it to iNaturalist, and leafminer GOD Charley Eiseman commented that this was an unknown species, and that no miners are known on that entire genus anywhere east of Texas. I am VERY far east of Texas. I spent two weeks in a panic trying to figure out how to get a collection permit, and on Monday I went up with the group again. I hadn't received my permit yet, but the head botanical surveyor for the conservation group happened to be there for the first time, and he approved collection on the freaking spot. So I collected some leaves (in a dirty plastic bag he offered me) and brought them home. And then....

I went to the movies because it was fucking date night, okay? I didn't do any of my intake stuff- pictures, measurements, color or texture notes, mine notes.... it was date night, and I was late, and it's been two months on the Rhopobota so I probably have plenty of time before they hatch out, and we went and saw Project Hail Mary and I went to bed and when I woke up...

PHOTO IS MINE BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OTHER PHOTOS THAT EXIST BECAUSE NOBODY HAS EVER HELD ONE OF THESE IN THEIR HAND BEFORE. NOBODY HAS EVER ADMIRED HER LITTLE ANTENNAE. NOBODY HAS EVER GASPED ABOUT THE VEINS IN HER WINGS AND THE EXQUISITE YELLOWNESS OF HER BELLY.

THIS IS HER BESIDE A DIME, SHE'S SO TINY SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL SHE'S SO LOVELY I LOVE HER I'M FUCKING OBSESSED.

The part of this that strikes me so hard is that... I'm not even a scientist. I've been holding these leaves in little dollar tree 5-for-$1.25 tupperware. The next step in this process is to wait a week or so for the rest of them to hatch out (I have six so far!!! about eight more pupae, some of which may have already hatched in the wild), place them in alcohol, and ship them in the mail to the aforementioned Charley Eiseman, who will complete the work of describing them formally in a paper, naming them, and.... taking proper photos probably because they are ONE AND A HALF MILLIMETERS LONG!!!!!!!!! How am I supposed to take good pictures of such a TINY MARVEL????