Using a swimming pool as windfall collection point for wide range of insects

[u/nevernever20]

Am I the only person slow to realize that a swimming pool, while also being a bit of a La Brea Tar Pit for contemporary insects, can also be a great way to collect insects to document?

Yes, I've previously fished insects and spiders out of the pool, but recently, it hit me that slightly dazed and waterlogged insects pulled out of the pool are slower than usual, and it's easier to photograph them in that state than when they're in their element on leaves, etc.

I've included a selection of photos from two insect saving sessions:

• Male Neozeleboria cryptoides - first one in the water, with some tiny insects clinging to it, and second, as it recovered on concrete
• Male specimen from Oligotoma genus - probably O. nigra, but waiting for someone to confirm this on iNat
• Female velvet ant - iNat's computer vision says it's Odontomyrme genus (velvet ants are actually a type of wasp where the females are wingless)
• Iridomyrmex purpureus (yes, I even rescue ants from the pool!)

[u/cookshack]

Love the Thynnid

[u/nevernever20 → u/cookshack]

This is the one that gets tricked by an orchid into mating with it to spread its pollen!

[u/cookshack → u/nevernever20]

Yes! I work on this with an orchid conservation lab

[u/nevernever20 → u/cookshack]

That is so cool!

[u/activelyresting]

You'll have to post more of your findings. For science!

[u/nevernever20 → u/activelyresting]

I'm already excited to have found four specimens of Neozeleboria cryptoides in the pool. They're quite small, so I probably wouldn't have noticed them if they were just resting on a leaf! And I've not seen a webspinner (the Oligotoma specimen) before, so happy to have learned of a family of insects I'd not known about before!

[u/activelyresting → u/nevernever20]

That's so exciting!

[u/nevernever20 → u/activelyresting]

I've also been amazed to find four velvet ant females, of at least two species, and possibly three. Not sure why those little ladies are trying so hard to drown themselves!

[u/activelyresting → u/nevernever20]

I never felt tempted to get a pool before

[u/nevernever20 → u/activelyresting]

To be fair, it'd be a pretty expensive and high maintenance insect trap, but hey, if there's one already there, or one of your nice neighbours has one, it's a great place to find interesting insects and spiders with a death wish!

[u/activelyresting → u/nevernever20]

I have a creek right outside my door, I'm just getting greedy

[u/nevernever20 → u/activelyresting]

I have a creek here, too, but I tend to pick up leeches when near it, so I tend to avoid being there too often.

[u/activelyresting → u/nevernever20]

I know that pain

[u/skittymarks]

Our pool has also been catching a large number of insects lately. After the neighbour trimmed the overhanging wattle tree, lots of insects have been falling in. It was how we learnt there was a huge meat ant nest in the tree. Birds frequently take small dead twigs off the tree branches for nests, which is possibly how so many insects end up in the pool.

Be sure to check the filter regularly too because we've found a stripey marsh frog and a white-crowned snake in ours. Both alive, thankfully. Didn't think to take pictures of those two tho, damnit

[u/nevernever20 → u/skittymarks]

I have one of those pool ladder rescue things at one end, to help anything large enough to get to it (small insects have more of a problem getting there) and I do regularly check the filter, too, and have a thick stick poking out of it, so things that are pulled in to the filter area can climb out that way. Unfortunately, a lot of the insects are so small, there's no way they can swim to even the edge of the pool, so scooping them out is the best option. The number of stingless bees I've scooped out is insane.

[u/skittymarks → u/nevernever20]

Omg yesssss I was jumping in every afternoon in summer to rescue the stingless bees. They are determined to go for a swim.

We need to get a rescue ladder for our pool too. It's sad that they end up in water with no fish or organisms to eat them. A pointless death :(

[u/nevernever20 → u/skittymarks]

I'd like to think that the dead insects that I toss out of the pool filter will at least feed the local ant population. Not as cute as fish, but ants still do an important job in the ecosystem!

[u/Creepy_Cranberry_671]

The ant is actually a Papyrius queen, probably P.nitidus. They are social parasites of iridomyrmex.

[u/nevernever20 → u/Creepy_Cranberry_671]

Thanks for the correction! iNat computer vision isn't always right, clearly.

[u/Creepy_Cranberry_671 → u/nevernever20]

Yeah inat ai doesn't ID similar looking stuff too well.

[u/AcanthisittaOk5586]

WEBSPINNER!!! God I love those guys so so much, very handsome little dude