Rodolia cardinalis (Mulsant, 1850) - Cyprus

Family: Coccinellidae
Rodolia cardinalis (common names vedalia beetle or cardinal ladybird) is a species of ladybird beetle that is sometimes described as endemic to Australia.

Description
The adult has a semispherical body, 2 – 4 mm long, covered with dense, short hairs. It is reddish-purple with black spots localized in several parts of its body, forming a net of contours between the spots. The head, posterior part of the prothorax across the full width, and the scutellum are all black.

There are typically five black spots on the elytron. Four of those are arranged on the dorso-lateral part of the elytron. The two anterior spots form an roughly half-moon shaped oval with the convexity directed towards the suture of the elytron. The two posterior ones make a more irregular shape, formed by the intersection of two circular spots. Finally, the fifth spot covers the length of the elytron's suture, englarging towards the posterior stretch.

The antenna are short and slightly clubbed, composed of 8 items, of which the proximal is markedly pulled aside. The legs have an extended and irregularly flattened tibia, forming a space housing the tarsus when at rest. The tarsus is composed of 3 tarsomeri.

The larva is around 5mm long, coloured the same red as the mature beetle, with black spots on the thorax. The left side has a series of tubercles, each with short bristles on. The pupa is 4-5mm long. It is a red which darkens with age in as the abdomen darkens.

Diet
R. cardinalis regularly feed on aphids and small mites, which makes them good as biological control agents. They are only predatory to things smaller than them. Most of their food is herbivores, as carnivores are more likely to injure them as they are slow. Their flying capacities are limited so hunting in the air is not possible.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photos Lakatamia, 24/10/2015 by Michael Hadjiconstantis

Mogrus neglectus (Simon, 1868) - Jumping spider - Cyprus

Family: Salticidae 

Yllenus is a spider genus of the Salticidae family (jumping spiders).

Photos Geri, 11/8/2015 by Michael Hadjiconstantis

 

Tetragnatha nitens (Audouin, 1826) - Stretch spider - Cyprus

Family: Tetragnathidae

Male

Female

Tetragnatha is a genus of spiders containing hundreds of species. They are found all over the world, although most occur in the tropics and subtropics. They are commonly called stretch spiders, referring to their elongated body form. When disturbed they will stretch their front legs forward and the others in the other direction, thus being able to hide on blades of grass or similar elongated substrates. They are able to run over water.

The name Tetragnatha is derived from Greek, "tetra" is a numerical prefix that refers to four and "gnatha" meaning "jaw".

Egg sack

One of the biggest and most common species is T. extensa, which has a holarctic distribution. It can be found near lakes, river banks or swamps. In the stratum of reed, tall grass or minor trees and shrubs those habitats are sometimes literally ruled by thousands of individuals of the stretch spiders who build their radial nets with sticky silk.

A shift to cursorial behavior in the Hawaiian Tetragnatha species seems to have occurred very early on arrival of the ancestor on the island chain.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Photos at Meneou, 8/8/2015 by Michael Hadjiconstantis.

Plexippoides gestroi (Dalmas, 1920) - Jumping Spider - Cyprus

Family: Salticidae

Female

Male

The jumping spider family (Salticidae) contains more than 500 described genera and about 5,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders with about 13% of all species. Jumping spiders have some of the best vision among arthropods and use it in courtship, hunting, and navigation. Although they normally move unobtrusively and fairly slowly, most species are capable of very agile jumps, notably when hunting, but sometimes in response to sudden threats or crossing long gaps. Both their book lungs and the tracheal system are well-developed, and they use both systems (bimodal breathing). Jumping spiders are generally recognized by their eye pattern. All jumping spiders have four pairs of eyes with one pair being their particularly large anterior median eyes.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos of female: Nicosia, 27/7/201, by George Konstantinou.
Photos of male: Strovolos, 1/11/2017, by Michael Hadjiconstantis.

Larinia chloris (Audouin, 1826) - Orb-weaving spider - Cyprus

Family: Araneidae

Larinia is a genus of Araneidae family. It is found on every continent.

Το γένος Larinia ανήκει στην οικογένεια Araneidae. Συναντάτε σε όλες τις ηπείρους.

Photos Meneou, 8/8/2015 by Michael Hadjiconstantis

(common) water hyacinth - Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms - Water hyacinth - Cyprus

Eichhornia crassipes, commonly known as (common) water hyacinth, is an aquatic plant native to the Amazon basin, and is often considered a highly problematic invasive species outside its native range

Water hyacinth is a free-floating perennial aquatic plant (or hydrophyte) native to tropical and sub-tropical South America. With broad, thick, glossy, ovate leaves, water hyacinth may rise above the surface of the water as much as 1 meter in height. The leaves are 10–20 cm across, and float above the water surface. They have long, spongy and bulbous stalks. The feathery, freely hanging roots are purple-black. An erect stalk supports a single spike of 8-15 conspicuously attractive flowers, mostly lavender to pink in colour with six petals. When not in bloom, water hyacinth may be mistaken for frog's-bit (Limnobium spongia).

One of the fastest growing plants known, water hyacinth reproduces primarily by way of runners or stolons, which eventually form daughter plants. Each plant can produce thousands of seeds each year, and these seeds can remain viable for more than 28 years. Some water hyacinths were found to grow up to 2 to 5 metres a day in some sites in Southeast Asia. The common water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) are vigorous growers known to double their population in two weeks.

Water hyacinth has been widely introduced in North America, Asia, Australia, Africa and New Zealand. In many areas it is has become an important and pernicious invasive species. In New Zealand it is listed on the National Pest Plant Accord which prevents it from being propagated, distributed or sold. In large water areas such as Louisiana, the Kerala Backwaters in India, Tonlé Sap in Cambodia and Lake Victoria it has become a serious pest.

When not controlled, water hyacinth will cover lakes and ponds entirely; this dramatically impacts water flow, blocks sunlight from reaching native aquatic plants, and starves the water of oxygen, often killing fish (or turtles). The plants also create a prime habitat for mosquitos, the classic vectors of disease, and a species of snail known to host a parasitic flatworm which causes schistosomiasis (snail fever). Directly blamed for starving subsistence farmers in Papua New Guinea, water hyacinth remains a major problem where effective control programs are not in place. Water hyacinth is often problematic in man-made ponds if uncontrolled, but can also provide a food source for goldfish, keep water clean  and help to provide oxygen to man-made ponds.

Water hyacinth often invades bodies of water that have been impacted by human activities. For example, the plants can unbalance natural lifecycles in artificial reservoirs or in eutrophied lakes that receive large amounts of nutrients.

Eichhornia crassipes, the Common water hyacinth, has become an invasive plant species on Lake Victoria in Africa after it was introduced into the area in the 1980s. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos Geri 17/10/2014 by George Konstantinou

Casuarina sp. - Cyprus

Casuarina is a genus of 17 species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian Subcontinent, southeast Asia, and islands of the western Pacific Ocean. It was once treated as the sole genus in the family, but has been split into three genera (see Casuarinaceae).

They are evergreen shrubs and trees growing to 35 m tall. The foliage consists of slender, much-branched green to grey-green twigs bearing minute scale-leaves in whorls of 5–20. The flowers are produced in small catkin-like inflorescences; the flowers are simple spikes. Most species are dioecious, but a few are monoecious. The fruit is a woody, oval structure superficially resembling a conifer cone made up of numerous carpels each containing a single seed with a small wing. The generic name is derived from the Malay word for the cassowary, kasuari, alluding to the similarities between the bird's feathers and the plant's foliage, though the tree is called rhu in current standard Malay.

Casuarina species are a food source of the larvae of hepialid moths; members of the genus Aenetus, including A. lewinii and A. splendens, burrow horizontally into the trunk then vertically down. Endoclita malabaricus also feeds on Casuarina. The noctuid Turnip Moth is also recorded feeding on Casuarina.

C. cunninghamiana, C. glauca and C. equisetifolia have become naturalized in several countries, including Argentina, Cuba, China, Egypt,Israel, Iraq, Mauritius, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, Rio de Janeiro, the Bahamas and the southern United States; in the United States it was introduced in the early 1900s, and is now considered an invasive species. The species has nearly quadrupled in southern Florida between 1993 and 2005, where it is known as Australian pine.

C. equisetifolia is widespread in the Hawaiian Islands where it grows both on the seashore in dry, salty, calcareous soils and up in the mountains in high rainfall areas on volcanic soils. It is also an introduced, invasive plant in Bermuda, where it was introduced to replace the Juniperus bermudiana windbreaks killed by juniper blight in the 1940s. Now the ironwoods are growing on cliffs and sandy slopes strangling all surrounding plants, or covering them in needles; they also erode the cliffs by digging their roots deep into them and splitting them apart.

Casuarina and Allocasuarina spp are strongly suspected of having allelopathic properties, as evidenced by the total or near absence of understory once a mat of litter develops around the plants.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos Zakaki 8/11/2014 by George Konstantinou

Osage orange, hedge apple, horse apple, monkey ball, bois d'arc, bodark, or bodock - Maclura pomifera (Raf.) Schneid. - Μακλούρα η μηλοφόρος - Τοξόδεντρο - Cyprus

Δέντρο της Αμερικής, το ξύλο του χρησιμοποιούσαν οι Ινδιάνοι για τα βέλη του και ήρθε στην Ευρώπη μετά τις ανακαλύψεις. Στην Ελλάδα και Κυπρο απαντάται σπάνια.

Maclura pomifera, commonly called Osage orange, hedge apple, horse apple, monkey ball, bois d'arc, bodark, or bodock 

is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, typically growing to 8–15 metres (26–49 ft) tall. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on different plants. The fruit, from a multiple fruit family, is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7.6–15.2 centimetres (3–6 in) in diameter. It is filled with a sticky white latex. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green. Despite the name "Osage orange," it is not closely related to the orange.

Maclura is closely related to the genus Cudrania, and hybrids between the two genera have been produced. In fact, some botanists recognize a more broadly defined Maclura that includes species previously included in Cudrania and other genera of Moraceae.

Osajin and pomiferin are flavonoid pigments present in the wood and fruit, comprising about 10% of the fruit's dry weight. The plant also contains the flavonol morin.

The trees range from 40 to 60 feet (12–18 m)(if it grows to maturity) high with short trunk and round-topped head. The juice is milky and acrid. The roots are thick, fleshy, covered with bright orange bark.

Osage orange occurred historically in the Red River drainage of Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas and in the Blackland Prairies, Post Oak Savannas, and Chisos Mountains of Texas. It has been widely naturalized in the United States and Ontario. Osage-orange has been planted in all the 48 conterminous States and in southeastern Canada.

The largest Osage orange tree is located at River Farm, in Alexandria, Virginia, and is believed to have been a gift from Thomas Jefferson. Another historic tree is located on the grounds of Fort Harrod, a Kentucky pioneer settlement in Harrodsburg, Kentucky

The Osage orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km). The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts. In 2001, its wood was used in the construction in Chestertown, Maryland of the Schooner Sultana, a replica of the HMS Sultana (1768).

The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket. Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood, which can be used as a substitute for fustic and aniline dyes. At present, florists use the Maclura pomifera fruits for decorative purposes.

When dried, the wood has the highest BTU content of any commonly available North American wood, and burns long and hot. The wood should not be used in open fireplaces without a spark screen because the wood is very prone to popping and may send sparks and small embers several feet.

Unlike many woods, osage wood is very durable in contact with the ground. Smaller logs make good fence posts, being both strong and durable. They are generally set up green because the dried wood is too hard to reliably accept the staples used to attach the fencing to the posts. Palmer and Fowler's Fieldbook of Natural History 2nd edition, rates Osage orange wood has being 2.5 times as hard as white oak (Quercus alba) and having twice the tensile strength.

Although Osage oranges are commonly believed to repel insects, there is insufficient evidence to support this. Research has shown that compounds extracted from the fruit, when concentrated, may repel insects. However, the naturally occurring concentrations of these compounds in the fruit are far too low to make the fruit an effective insect repellent. In 2004, the EPA insisted that a website selling Maclura pomifera fruits online remove any mention of their supposed pesticidal properties as false advertisements..From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photos Agios Antronikos 1/10/2014 by George Konstantinou

Stenosis sulcata (Miller, 1861) - Cyprus

Family: Tenebrionidae

Photos Nicosia 14/4/2015 by George Konstantinou

 

Olisthopus glabricollis (Germar, 1817) - Cyprus

Family, Carabidae

Olisthopus is a genus of ground beetle native to the Palearctic (including Europe), the Near East and North Africa. 

Photos Nicosia 14/4/2015 by George Konstantinou