The bugs we observed in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Many individuals were aggregating around the fallen seeds of a tree that grew on the beach.
One of the things I love about being an evolutionary biologist is that members of the scientific community is pretty darn good at sharing knowledge with one another. Here’s a cool example: when I was in Puerto Rico for my anole research this summer, my field assistant Karen and I observed some really interesting bugs near one of our anole sites. I took a couple of cell phone pictures and posted them on Facebook to see if any of my biologist friends knew what they were. This is Step 1, and it’s often enough to give me the answer I’m looking for.
Not this time; I wasn’t really surprised, since Puerto Rican insects seemed like an esoteric area of expertise. But I wasn’t without clues. Someone suggested that the bugs might be soapberry bugs (family Rhopalidae), so I Googled the name to learn more. I quickly learned that I had had lunch with one of the world’s experts on soapberry bugs — Dr. Scott Carroll — just a few months earlier, when he had given a lecture at UCLA. I contacted Scott, and got this informative response almost immediately:
The flowers and unripe seeds of the bugs
“What you are encountering is the beautiful Dysdercus andreae. Dysdercus are the ‘cotton stainers,’ and this is the St. Andrew’s Cotton Stainer, named for the ‘St. Andrew’s Cross’ pattern on its dorsum.
“These bugs are behaviorally and ecologically quite similar to the soapberry bugs (family Rhopalidae), but they are in a different family (Pyrrhocoridae). They feed on seeds of Malvales (cotton group).
“The beach plant hosts are either of two woody species, Hibiscus tiliaceous or Thespesia populnea. Your image shows the Thespesia, I believe. The individual flowers of these plants have the interesting characteristic of being open for just 1-2 days, with a color transition from light yellow to deep maroon. The adults and nymphs (e.g., several in lower part of image) both feed on the seeds. Oviposition is in detritus on the ground. They mate for a long time — post-insemination copulatory mate guarding, presumably. Once they begin oogenesis, females of these bugs histolyze their flight muscles, so all the eggs end up in whatever basket they are in. The males retain flight capacity.
“Caribbean slaves used to be required to catch a full quart jar of D. antica daily while picking cotton.”
Wow! Just like that, not only do I know what the bugs are, but I’ve learned about ten cool things about their natural history. Thanks, Scott! This kind of helpfulness is closer to the rule than the exception in our field, and that’s one of the great things about being connected to this community — the answers are never far away!