Low Places
by Beverley Harper Tinsley
Original - Sold
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Dimensions
8.000 x 8.000 inches
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Title
Low Places
Artist
Beverley Harper Tinsley
Medium
Painting - Watercolor And Graphite
Description
I spotted this burying beetle near a creek not far from The Great Sand Dunes, in Colorado, and I knew I had to paint it underneath the inky cap mushrooms.
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According to :
http://wiki.bugwood.org/HPIPM:Burying_Beetles
The burying beetles are moderate-large sized (25-35 mm), brightly colored beetles marked with orange-red and black. Their antennae are pronouncedly club-like. Ten species of burying beetles are known from Colorado and one or more representatives can be found throughout the state. Burying beetles have unusual life histories that involve extraordinary involvement of adults of both sexes in larval rearing. Although variations may occur among the different Nicrophorus species, the general outline follows.
Rearing of larvae begins upon location of a recently dead rodent, bird or other small carrion item. The adults are acutely sensitive to odors associated with early decay and the first beetle arriving at the carcass - either male or female - will guard it and await a mate. When a member of the opposite sex arrives the pair will then inter the carcass, a process that can usually be completed in a few hours.
Once the food item has been successfully covered it is further prepared by stripping all skin, fur and/or feathers and gathering the flesh into a pear-shaped ball. The flesh is chewed and covered with salivary and anal secretions that help to preserve it from decay.
A rearing chamber is then dug out where eggs are laid. After eggs hatch and the one of the parents (usually the female) produces a stridulation �call� that attracts the young to a depression made on the top of the food ball. Upon arrival they are fed regurgitated liquids one or more of the parents provides to them. Parental feeding continues during the early larval development, but later they can feed directly on the food ball. Both parents may be involved in this activity but typically females tend primarily to larval feeding and males guard the entrance of the nest from other insects.
The larvae develop quite rapidly on this highly nutritious diet and become full-grown in about 6-8 days. They then scatter about the nest area and dig chambers within which they pupate. Pupation lasts over two weeks and the new adults subsequently emerge.
Figure 3. Mites, Poecilochirus sp., on back of a burying beele. These mites are very common associates of burying beetles and help protect their food ball from scavengers such as flies.
After larvae have finished feeding an initiated pupation the adult parents leave the nest area and disperse to locate new carrion. They may feed on large items for sustenance and egg maturation, but will only use relatively small animal pieces for larval rearing. During the warm months while they are active additional broods may be produced in new nests, the number depending largely on availability of suitable carrion.
*****
According to:
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/coprinoid.html
Inky caps are fascinating mushrooms. They are saprobes, assisting in the decomposition of wood, dung, grassy debris, forest litter, and so on. Most of the species have black spore prints and gills that liquefy, at least partially, as the mushroom matures. The resulting "ink" provides the common name for the inky caps, and can actually be used as writing ink.
But the mushrooms, of course, do not have the production of ink for writing in mind. Rather, liquefying the gills is a clever strategy for dispersing spores more efficiently. The gills liquefy from the bottom up as the spores mature. Thus the cap peels up and away, and the maturing spores are always kept in the best position for catching wind currents. As this happens, the shape of the cap progresses from more or less oval (when seen from the side) to broadly bell-shaped and, eventually, more or less flat as the spores nearest to the stem are exposed to the air currents.
Identification of inky caps ranges from fairly easy (Coprinus comatus and Coprinopsis atramentaria, for example, are common and widely known) to extremely difficult, especially when it comes to the tiny ones. Simply getting some inky caps home to study can be a challenge, since many are so ephemeral that they appear, liquefy, and turn into black goo within a matter of hours. Identification of these short-lived mushrooms (did I mention that they all look pretty much the same?) hinges on microscopic examination of various erudite features, and is an enterprise best left to folks who enjoy such endeavors.
Uploaded
August 11th, 2011
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