Hello all,

I have had various levels of frustration with collecting here in the West Cape. Most of it has stemmed from being stuck in Cape Town dealing with banks and lawyers. The rest is with unseasonably crappy weather and the inability to find a decent field assistant. I finally had some great luck at Pakhuis Pass. Bruce Anderson, the graduate student who came out with me and I found a really great little seep with lots of flowers and tons of insects. We collected about 5 Ph. gulosa, a black tabanid, and some huge oil collecting bee.

I went to Pakhuis again with another field assistant about a week later. We caught 5 Ph. gulosa in 5 minutes! The males were host-guarding, waiting for females to approach, and they decided that I was desirable real-estate. I had male Philoliche fighting over me and following me around. They would hoover in front of me and just buzz. So I sat down and watched this male hover in front of me for over 10 minutes. Every few once in a while I'd hear a deeper buzzing as another fly swooped in and then the two of them would go tumbling off into the bushes and part. I finally caught them together and confirmed that the lower buzzing fly was a female. So now I can sex them by ear!

I also caught two female flies that had these HUGE pollinia on their rostrum! I can only imagine something that big must be a Disa orchid. We spent the whole next morning searching for orchids without any success. However, I did find some enormous variation in tube length of Pelargonium tubulare -- there was this spot on the slope where this extremely short form was particularly common. Anyhow, I also found a few other Pelargonium species, one with short tubes but variation in stamen length. I actually saw a Ph. gulosa visit one of these! The long stamens seem to make up for the short tube length.

Plus, we caught two new species, some tiny thing and this enormous fly that can only be Philoliche rostrata. Steven told me these would be in the valleys. Perhaps it was hill-topping.

When I finally came down the slope, I found my newest field assistant sitting in the car, reading the paper. I was not too impressed. I was happy to have such a great field day though.

shelah