Report on Speaker at August 2020 Meeting: Glenda Walter

 

Small creatures of Hartmann Bushland Reserve 

I have been photographing and studying the invertebrates in Hartmann Reserve on the corner of Alderley and Rowbotham Streets over the past five years. This park is particularly interesting, as the insect life there seems to be more prolific than in other nearby parks.

Hartmann Bushland Reserve and homestead were gifted by the Hartmann family to Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service in the 1980s, having first been used as a nursery by the family who had owned it since the 1860s, and later as a rest home. Conditions were attached, such as the preservation of the trees and original vegetation and maintenance in perpetuity as a natural area. QPWS and the Friends of Escarpment Parks regularly remove weeds and care for the Reserve.

The variety and amount of original vegetation (Remnant Ecosystem 12.5.6), and the size of the block have played a part in the very prolific and varied invertebrate life found there. In the five years of the study, 718 species of invertebrates plus a number of birds, reptiles and mammals have been photographed, identified and recorded. Many were seen but escaped before an image was captured, and who knows what other creatures live above head height and in the tops of the mature trees?

I’m grateful to experts such as Martin Lagerwey (Leaf beetles), Ron Atkinson, Robert Raven and Rob Whyte (spiders), Ken Walker (bees), Bob Mesibov (Millipedes), Justin Bartlett (Clerid beetles), Geoff Monteith, Rod Hobson, Christine Lambkin and other Qld Museum staff members, for help with identifications (my apologies for not using titles). I also used websites and Field Guides.

Some examples of the invertebrates found in the five-year period 2015 to 2020 were 11 species of ants; eight species of bees; 122 species of beetles in 22 families; 67 species of bugs in 23 families; 28 species of moths in 13 families; 34 species of flies in 12 families; 26 species of wasps in 10 families; and lastly, 119 spiders in 19 families plus eight which were unidentified to family level. A new millipede was collected under permit and described and named by Bob Mesibov as Cladethosoma toowoomba.

Many images were shown during the talk, and brief mention was made of the habits of some of the subjects, such as spider camouflage (bird dropping spider Arkys curtulus, wrap-around spider Dolophones species, flower spider Thomisus spectabilis); insect mimicry (several Lycid beetle mimics, and spiders and bugs which mimic ants); insect and spider hunting techniques; insect mating habits (the wasp Catocheilus apterus); para-sitism of insects by wasps and flies.

I have now moved house and live some distance from Hartmann Reserve, but was still finding new species every time I visited, so I am sure that there are more to be discovered. It would be an interesting exercise to go back in 10- or 20-years’ time and conduct a similar survey to see how the invertebrate population had changed.

Please contact me on 0429185445 if you’d like a copy of the spreadsheet containing the list of names and other details of these creatures.

(Written by Glenda Walter)