Mistletoe Marble Moth (Celypha woodiana) Photo from https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/mistletoe-marble

Firstly, Readers, Happy New Year! May it be a happy and healthy one for all of you lovely people. In view of all the ‘stuff’ going on at the moment, though, it’s tempting to agree with Ogden Nash…

Good Riddance, But Now What?
Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.
Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.
–Ogden Nash

If nothing else, let’s preserve our sense of humour.

And now, back to the invertebrates of Christmas. It’s hard to imagine any creatures getting much sustenance from mistletoe, but there are six species of insect that depend upon it for their living. First up is the Mistletoe Marble, a tiny moth that looks like a bird-dropping (very handy for camouflage). The caterpillar lives between the layers of the mistletoe leaf, causing a blister gall.

Blister gall on mistletoe – Photo by Dave Shenton at https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/mistletoe-marble

The Mistletoe Marble is declining, probably because our orchards are disappearing – it is usually found on the mistletoe in old apple trees. It’s been suggested that preserving the species (which has a Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) in place) might mean drinking more cider. Alas, a superfluity of the stuff when I was a student has left me unable to stomach the stuff, so you lovely people will have to drink my share.  Cheers!

Then there’s the Mistletoe Weevil (Ixapion variegatum). The eggs of this little beetle (much smaller than some of its relatives so you could say it’s the lesser of (at least) two weevils) are laid on the stems of the mistletoe, and the larva buries into the stem, causing it to become distorted. When it hatches, the adult weevil feeds on the leaves of the mistletoe, causing brown speckling. I’ve just discovered the blog The Mistletoe Diary, a great source of information re all things mistletoe-related. There is a theory that the Mistletoe Weevil only targets stressed mistletoe,  but the author of the blog suggests that maybe it’s the other way round – it’s the weevil that’s stressing the mistletoe by burrowing into it. Nothing in nature is ever straightforward.

Incidentally, I rather like the alternate name ‘Kiss-Me-Slow Weevil’. Ostensibly it’s named because of the mistletoe collection, but we don’t give our insect friends enough love in my opinion, so if you see one, give it a quick peck so that it knows it’s appreciated.

Mistletoe or Kiss-Me-Slow Weevil (Ixapion variegatum) Photo By Udo Schmidt from Deutschland – Ixapion variegatum (Wencker, 1864), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39236720

And finally, there are four species of true bug which feed on mistletoe. Some of these are relatively new to the UK, but as they’re all so small they could easily have been hiding in plain view. One is the Mistletoe Jumping Louse (Cacopsylla visci), one is a rather pretty plant bug resembling a tiny shield bug (Pinalitus viscicola) and one, which was first recorded in 2003, is a rotund and mottled little chap/pess. All three feed only on mistletoe by sucking the sap.

Hypseloecus visci (Photo by Tristan Bantock at https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Miridae/hypseloecus_visci.html

Pinalitus viscicola (Photo by Tristan Bantock at https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Miridae/pinalitus_viscicola.html)

Mistletoe Jumping Bug (Cacopsylla visci) Photo Joe Botting at https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/homoptera/Psylloidea/Psylla_visci.html

The fourth bug, though, doesn’t feed on mistletoe directly – it’s a predator, feeding on the plant-eating bugs, particularly the Mistletoe Jumping Bug. Anthocoris visci is a little tiger of the mistletoe, prowling amongst the leaves for herbivores to puncture.

Anthocoris visci – Photo by Timon Boumon at https://observations.be/species/25221/

So, mistletoe is the sole foodplant for a rare moth, an unusual weevil, three bugs which suck its sap and a bug that eats the other bugs. In other words, there’s a whole mini-ecosystem around this hemi-parasitic plant, which normally only gets thought about at Christmas. It’s well worth having a look at any that you have in the house to see if it is home to any insect ‘friends’.