Wine Cap
Stropharia rugosoannulata

Many North American mushrooms happen to grow in man-made habitats, including the city. The wine cap is not known to grow anywhere else. Its favored habitat is the wood chips that accompany landscaping projects, but it is also found at the margins of gardens and footpaths. 1

This large attractive mushroom is cultivated for food in Europe and China, and is one of the most biggest mushroom crops overseas. 2  The fact that it does not grow in natural landscapes in North America suggests that the fungus is native to Eurasia, and was introduced in soil or other garden products. It is likely that there is a native North American competitor that prevents wine cap from establishing itself in non-man made habitats. 3

Promisingly, it has been found that the wine cap fungus depends on bacteria, including fecal coliform bacteria, for growth. Experiments with mycelium-permiated wood chips point to a possible use for this fungus as a filter for harmful bacteria. 4

The wine cap gets that common name from the beautiful burgundy color of the immature and mature fruiting bodies. As they age they fade and lose color; fresh specimens that are tan rather than wine colored can be found, as well. The spore-bearing surface underneath the cap is purplish gray, and the spores and spore print are purple-brown to black. The species name rugosoannulata means wrinkled ring, and refers to the robust annulus on the stalk. Other common names for this mushroom include King Stropharia and Garden Giant.




1. The Mushroom Expert
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/stropharia_rugosoannulata.html

2. Unicorn Bags, a commercial cultivation supply company
http://www.unicornbag.com/cultivation/stru.shtml

3. David Arora, Mushrooms Demystified second edition, Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1986, pp. 378-9

4. Mushrooms in agroforestry.
http://www.agroforestry.net/overstory/overstory33.html

Detailed identification tips.
http://www.messiah.edu/Oakes/fungi_on_wood/gilled%20fungi/species%20pages/Stropharia%20rugosoannulata.htm

Eight-spotted forester Alypia octomaculata

This pretty little animal confounds our expectations about moths. Everyone knows that moths are brownish things attracted to lights at night. Instead the eight-spotted forester is boldly colored with two white spots on each black wing, as well as tufts of orange 'fur' on the upper parts of the legs. Such bright colors and contrasting markings on an insect are usually taken to be a sign of unpalatability, but my research has turned up no mention of this for this moth. Often unpalatable lepitdopterans feed on toxic plants when young, such as the well-known monarch whose caterpillar grows up on a diet of milkweed. The eight-spot's caterpillar feeds on wholesome grape leaves, though the urban population is more likely to be brought up on Virginia creeper. In Boston and other northern ecosystems, the eight-spot emerges from its cocoon in May and breeds quickly to produce a generation which reaches adulthood in August. The second generation produces the caterpillars which then overwinter as pupae, beginning the cycle again in May.

( sources )

Flesh fly, Sarcophaga sp.

There are a surprising number of species of flies associated with urban life. Moist refuse provides nursery space for the adorable babies of houseflies, bottle flies, and others. But the abundance of squirming maggots in fragrant muck is sure to attract predators. Surprisingly, one of these is the larva of the flesh fly.

There are quite a few species of flesh fly, virtually identical in appearance to our eyes: usually a bit bigger than a house fly, with three stripes on the thorax and a checkerboard on the abdomen. Northern climes may have 30 species in the genus Sarcophaga, while there may be hundreds in warmer, wetter places. Long noticed at carcasses and corpses, the fly's scientific name means 'flesh eater,' but in fact their maggots are flesh eater eaters. Still, forensic entomologists can use the appearance of Sarcophaga maggots as an aid to determine time of death.

I should hasten to add, the genus is a diverse one, and in addition to maggot predators, it includes species that develop as parasites on insects, earthworms or slugs, those that are coprophages, and one whose maggots live only on lizard eggs. Flesh flies found indoors are most often seen in the wake of a poison-based rodent control program. Poisoned mice die in the walls of a building whereupon their carcasses are eaten by 'filth fly' maggots, which are preyed on by flesh fly maggots. (Later the skin and fur are eaten by a host of dermestid beetles and clothes moths and other detritivores.) Flesh flies are important predators and decomposers but they are potential carriers of disease, and certainly the appearance of a great many of them in an urban environment shouldn't be ignored. Like many insects we find distasteful, flesh flies may be a sign that something somewhere is quite rotten.
( more photos and more information )

Northern false widow Steatoda borealis
This northern false widow was momentarily stunned after a surprise encounter with a yellow sac spider, which ran directly into it but then continued on its way without further incident.

Spiders in the genus Steatoda have the misfortune of being usually dark in color, and more or less globular in shape. This is often enough to confuse them with the dangerous Latrodectus spiders, or widows. The northern false widow is a very small spider that can often be found indoors, especially in winter. Inside they are one of many species responsible for the kind of untidy webs that get called cobwebs. These traps are for capturing very small flies and moths, though larger Steatoda spiders are known for preying on other spiders, including true black widows.



Sources:

http://www.kollathstensaas.com/books/spider.html
Spiders of the North Woods, by Larry Weber. It's not perfect or complete, but it's the best book for spiders in northeast North America I've found.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/46494
Bug guide dot net is a great resource for looking at photographs of insects and spiders and comparing them to your own.

http://research.amnh.org/entomology/blackrock2/families/theridiidae.htm
A dichotomous key for advanced identification of comb-footed spiders.

http://www.canadianarachnology.org/data/spiders/8033
The entry on this spider from the Nearctic Spider Database.

http://www.zoo.org/factsheets/spiders/f_widow.html
The woodland park zoo describes the west coast relative of the northern false widow.

Yellow sac spider, Cheiracanthium sp.
( Read more... )

Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Jamaica Plain.

Rusty blackbird Euphagus carolinus

It is not shocking that after many years of observing nature in the city, that this was the first and to date only, rusty blackbird I have seen. First of all, blackbirds are not always easy to distinguish from one another, especially the females. And they habitually gather in mixed flocks numbering in the hundreds or even thousands. This lone female would have gone unidentified if not for the dogged pursuit of the Urban Nature Walk photogs, and the bird's fortunate stillness for the camera. It was only after examining the pictures later, and comparing them to identification guides that we recognized her.

Secondly, this is one the more uncommon blackbird species that can be found in the Boston area, and the one with the most particular habitat needs. Rusty blackbirds only nest in forested wetlands, as far north as the treeline in Alaska and northern Canada. They also happen to be the North American songbird with the steepest observed population decline. Why this should be so is a mystery, but it is likely to have many causes. Habitat losses over the recent centuries, as agriculture spread across Alberta and other places, have had the greatest impact. Also, competition from other blackbirds--those that are better adapted for living alongside human changes to the landscape--appears to threaten them as well.

Rusty blackbirds migrate to wet woods in the United States in winter, with Massachusetts marking the northernmost part of their winter range. They feed mainly on aquatic invertebrates, such as insects and insect larvae, but will resort to eating acorn mast and other plant material when pressed. There are reports that rusty blackbirds have even attacked and eaten smaller songbirds.

( another big picture, and links to more information )
On this day in 365 Urban Species: White-winged scoter.

A group of seven pagoda trees planted along rt.9 in Brookline.

Pagoda Tree, Scholar Tree Styphnolobium japonica

It is with self-deprecating amusement that I'm posting this "new" urban species. The pagoda tree has been cultivated in North America since 1747 (preceding the United States by 29 years) and in Asia for at least 2000 years before that. It gets its common names from its association with Buddhist temples and the graves of learned men. In Asia it also has a long history of medicinal uses, which include everything from curing headaches to inducing abortions. Western medicine has identified some of the pagoda tree's components, testing them for use in treating inflammatory bowel disease and varicose veins. The yellow flowers (similar to, but less dramatic than those of black locust) can be eaten (caution is advised, as the whole plant is toxic to some degree) and can also be used to make dye.

The tree is tolerant of pollution and poor soils, making it a tempting choice for urban landscape architects who want to add an exotic accent to an open area (and don't mind the clean-up of hundreds of fallen pods). The foliage, like that of honey locust, consists of small leaflets, allowing sunlight to filter down to the turf below. The beanlike fruit is distinctive, with the pod pinched around most seeds, looking like pearls on a string.



( sources )

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Eyelash cup, an amazing and beautiful little mushroom that seems to give people the creeps.

Drain Fly Psychoda alternata, Telmatoscopus albipunctatus, or similar species

cottonmanifesto found this creature in our bathroom sink. At first it was a paradox: It seemed to have two wings, like a fly, but it had long antennae and looked fuzzy, like a moth. It was a quick job to narrow the field down to "moth flies" (family Psychodidae), a group of very small flies that breed in wet, decaying organic matter.

Drain flies specifically breed in the kind of very wet, bacteria rich organic matter that accumulates in clogged gutters, rain soaked trash cans, and old household plumbing. They do not bite (though close relatives called sand flies are blood suckers), or infest food, though one imagines that they could spread disease-causing bacteria from one place to another. In at least one case in South Africa, drain flies were found to cause health problems for sewer workers, who were inhaling large quantities of them. Controls for this animal, when deemed a pest, include cleaning and unclogging drains--and at least one product is specifically designed to help cope with them. It consists of a cocktail of competing bacteria that are supposed to eat the drain fly maggots' nursery out from under them.

Moth flies are weak fliers, but are small enough to pass through window screens. Once outside they become a component of aerial plankton, adrift beyond their control, hoping to land sometime in their 2 week adult life span near another fount of bacterial slime in which to lay their eggs. I did not find it in my research, but I propose that sometimes when one finds a house centipede stranded in a sink or bathtub, that they are hunting drain flies.