We went to the Saratov province and Dosang

Community and Forum → Travel and expeditions → We went to the Saratov province and Dosang

Bad Den, 13.05.2009 14:36

As planned, from April 30 to May 10 this year, a small organized group of individuals, namely Necrocephalus, Fornax13, Alexey Sazhnev, Alexey Tsylin, Igor Kryukov and I, made a surprise trip to the Saratov and Astrakhan regions (Alexey Sazhnev and Igor Kryukov did not go to the Astrakhan region).
The voyage began on April 30. After praying and putting on clean underwear, we met A. Tsilin, who had arrived from St. Petersburg, at the train station, and we (he and I) moved to Ulyanovsk (where we were supposed to pick up Fornax on the thirteenth). The course was plotted with the help of a miracle of enemy equipment, the Garmin nuvi 215W GPS navigator, trusting it 99%, which was later regretted: the shaitan device was set by default to "normal heroes always go around" and at the border of the Nizhny Novgorod region led us to where the road ended. After getting lost for about 2 hours, we still found the right road and rushed on to Ulyanovsk. We arrived there at around 3 a.m., captured Alexey and drove on to Saratov, where we were supposed to meet with the rest of the expedition members. We got to Saratov without incident, at about 8 am, ignoring the persistent attempts of the navigator to make us "turn right after 450 meters" on a straight road with no visible intersections, where we met Yakov, Alexey and Igor. Without thinking twice, we went to the first planned point – Blue Mountains (Ozinsky district, border with the Republic of Tatarstan). Kazakhstan).
In Ozinki, we filled out applications from border guards for permits to stay in the border zone, which we were promised to issue the next day at lunchtime, and asked them where we could camp, and where to go, and where better not to go.
We arrived, set up tents, a screen, a field kitchen, in anticipation of rich catches (especially in the light) and in commemoration of the arrival, we quickly drank-had a snack-had a snack, and went fishing. Necrocephalus and Fornax13 immediately picked up interesting specific beetles from the groundhog burrows, which they were very happy about. However, the weather prepared an unpleasant surprise – a very strong wind rose, breaking the orderly rows of our tents, dropping the screen and eventually the temperature reached +2. I had to urgently move to sleep in the car. This was the first sign that Krishna gave us.
In the morning, having refreshed themselves and waited until at least a little warmed up, we made another attempt to do what we were actually going for – to catch beetles. In the morning, the wind subsided a little and various beetles were hiding under various shelters on the surface of the soil. I managed to collect various small ground beetles, a couple of dorcadion species (equestre and elegans), various caloed cow cakes, and Pimelia subglobosa black-bodied beetles. Necrocephalus, Fornax13, and Alexey Sazhnev continued to find more and more interesting animals in groundhog burrows.
Since the wind did not subside, it became clear that the beast had gone to the far cordon and a strategic decision was made to move to another place-the village of Melovoe (Krasnoarmeysky district), almost on the border with the Volgograd region.

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14.05.2009 11:16, Bad Den

Solved – done. Let's go to Melovoe. Since we left quite late, closer to lunch, and the path was long and ran through Saratov, Igor suggested that we spend the night there, in order to fall in with the benefits of civilization, i.e. "eat, wash, prick and forget", well, pick up some insects, etc. And in the morning, "with a fresh head", go put it back in place. That was settled. On the way to Saratov, they picked up a fragrant bait on the road – a flattened hedgehog, so that they could then collect necrobionts on it.
On the morning of the 3rd, we moved to Melovoe. On the way, Igor's inner voice told him to take a side road, and it didn't let him down. On a dead dog, quite interesting necrobiont beetles were collected.
Arriving in the vicinity of Melovoye, we searched for a place to camp and found a suitable one on the edge of a pine forest. Here and the forest and the settled slope and the screen where you can put it-babble!

After setting up camp, preparing food and having lunch, we set out to set traps and catch fish in general. Then we saw the second sign of Krishna - 200 meters away from the camp on the litter, slowly moving in our direction a band of fire. A forest fire, so far grassroots. Grabbing everything that came to hand and b. m. suitable for extinguishing (shovel, empty canister), with passion engaged in this exciting business. The water ran out very quickly, although with its help it was possible to extinguish a significant front. I beat down the fire with a canister, Alexey Tsylin-with a shovel, the rest with green branches, legs, etc. After some time, help arrived in the form of a tractor with a barrel of water and several local people. It seemed that things were going well and the joint efforts would be able to fight the fire, but alas-the beginning of a horse fire made it urgent to turn off the camp and relocate to the Volga bank. It was already evening, and we happened to catch a crunch of Rhizotrogus aestivus, which we did not disdain to take advantage

of. Setting up camp, installing the screen, preparing dinner took quite a long time, and it was already dark. The flight at night was rather sluggish (relatively cold, t did not rise above +10), but Geotrupes mutator arrived. Crustaceans did not fly to the light at all (a day later, Fornax13 and Necrocephalus also caught a series of Chioneosoma sp. during the evening summer).
The next day was spent on a field trip around the camp, I mostly looked for ground beetles under shelters, caught some interesting black heifers (Blaps).
In the evening, fishing for the lamp again, with almost the same results (Geotrupes mutator, Cybister lateralimarginalis).
Well, on the morning of May 5, the four of us, after saying goodbye to Igor and Alexey Sazhnev, moved to the last point of our tour – the village. Dosang (Krasnoyarsk district, Astrakhan region)

P.S. When we left, the fire was still burning and its area was expanding.

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15.05.2009 13:10, Bad Den

Dosang. This was the only point in the Astrakhan region where I had material from. I just didn't know any other gathering places. Therefore, when the question arose of where to go to the Astrakhan region, he immediately decided-of course, to Dosang. I, however, had little idea of the situation there, where to live, where to catch, etc. But these are small things

.
We were driving through the Volgograd region, and at the entrance to Kamyshin, I felt that I was somewhat ill, and so much so that Alexey Tsylin had to get behind the wheel – a rather strong flu broke out, which greatly spoiled my further stay in Dosang (apparently, it was not for nothing that Krishna gave signs). Nevertheless, we came to Dosang. We arrived around 22 o'clock, it was already dark and cold. While I was calling up friends in Astrakhan and figuring out how to spend the night in Dosang, Fornax13 and Necrocephalus explored the nearby desert and brought good news: life is like a key – scarabs fly, blackbirds crawl. Finally, the issue of overnight accommodation was resolved (many thanks to Tatiana from the Astrakhan Department of Rosselkhoznadzor) and we started to settle in. In the end, we settled in the dorm of the Laboratory for Regulating the number of Carriers and vectors of Plague and other Natural focal Infections, or simply in the " chumka "(also known as the "Chuma Hotel"

). A wonderful place

.
The next morning we set off for the desert. They tried to catch scarabs on the fly, but without success

, but they collected several species of blackbirds, and under the cow droppings of ground beetles from Harpalinae. Fornax13 found a fresh and still soft Scarites bucida, and under a piece of dung - Corsyra fusula.
In the afternoon, the Tera Flu action ended, I had to take a horizontal position, and the others went to the shore of Akhtuba to catch there (I worked in approximately this mode – I catch in the morning, and after lunch and at night I lie around). The results were staggering, and we came back happy. With the night fishing was not very good, it flew badly, and on the last night the generator refused to work. Nevertheless, as a result of night fishing, a rather rare and interesting beetle was caught - Orubesa athleta (Scarabaeidae: Dynamopodinae). In addition, in the list of interesting and noteworthy places: Geotrupes mutator, Aphodius bimaculatus, Ceratophyus polyceros, Chioneosoma spp., Pachylister sp. etc. (Yakov and Alexey will add, I think

).

This is how the trip turned out. I think we should definitely go again

.

P.S. There will be slides coming soon

This post was edited by Bad Den - 05/15/2009 13: 48

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15.05.2009 19:22, Fornax13

From the most memorable:
in the Ozinsky district, Onthophagus ponticus and Aphodius citellorum, as well as the pleasant nutcracker Limoniscus suturalis, were collected in the collections of nidikolny Onthophagus ponticus and Aphodius citellorum. Denis collected some fucking soil elephants. Also in the burrows sat good staffs and other cute little things.
In Dosang, about 20 species of black heifers were collected in 4 days. I was especially amused by the healthy gray creaking pimeliina, which walks exclusively at night on the dunes (I haven't determined yet, while the working version is Diesia argentata). At least two species of bladders, Tagona macrophthalma, Microdora, anatolica, and Platyope leucogramma, walked in the steppe. On the banks of the Akhtuba River, Tagenostola pilosa with a non-black-bodied appearance was occasionally encountered, and on the dunes, Yakov and I collected another 3-millimeter creature, which at first was mistaken for a psammophilic scaraboid. In general, sifting sand gave very good results: Aphodius (Sugrams) hauseri, Psammodius ?nocturnus, Eremazus cribratus, Pleurophorus ?arabicus from the lamellate sawyers; from the carapaces-Exaesiopus atrovirens, Styphrus corpulentus and even some sort of Philothis; from other groups, we were very surprised by specific psammophilic burrowing scutes, absolutely insane in appearance. On the banks of the Akhtuba River, we collected several Airaphilus, motley shorebirds, cute coastal nutcrackers from the genera Aeloderma and Drasterius,wonderful small trocids, black-bodied Psammocryptus, several species of pselaphids, and Yakov and I even managed to take one aderid from the sediments. Among the ground beetles on the shore, several species of Acupalpus and some banal bembish predominated. Naturally, in the mass of staphylinids, among which there are very unshaven ones.
Two kinds of scarabs and the usual gymnopleurae walked in droves on the dunes. There also came across Onitis humerosus and several types of banal (for those places) afodiev and ontophagov. But the most interesting part, as usual, was waiting for us at sunset. All of a sudden, Aphodius (Sugrams) hauseri, Pleurophorus ?arabicus started flying en masse, hordes of Airaphilus rolled around under the crests of the dunes (which we thought was a rarity), Trox eversmanni occasionally flew by, and of course, Orubeza was one of the goals of the trip.

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16.05.2009 10:03, Necrocephalus

It seems that the most interesting part has already been told

But some things can be added. For example, we were pleased with the specific steppe and desert grinders that we collected in dry manure: in the Saratov region, it was Xyletinus ruficollis and some other monotonously dark fellow that we haven't yet reached, and in the Astrakhan region, near Dosang, it was X. ornatus, X. ?pallens (which was not caught in manure, and during the evening summer), as well as Trachelobrachys kiesenwetteri.
In the desert, we constantly came across relatively fresh corpses of Cnemisus, but we could not catch live beetles either by sifting sand or during the evening summer... There was even an assumption that they had already left (although it is unlikely - spring in Dosang is late this year). Maybe we were just looking for them in the wrong place. If anyone knows how to catch these creatures , please unsubscribe

In general, the trip was a success

Ozinki was pleasantly pleased with the burrowing fauna, Cretaceous - with a variety of animals and landscapes, and 4 days in Dosang is, of course, an insignificant time for a more or less decent survey of such a place. I fully support the idea of Bad Den: "I think we should definitely go again."

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04.10.2009 17:08, Fornax13

I will gradually add

Ozinsky district, 6 km south of the village. Sinegorsky, N 51º17. 469'; E 49º48. 465 '
1-2. V. 2009

Carabidae:
1. Acupalpus (Ancylostria) interstitialis Reitter, 1884*

Dytiscidae:
1. Agabus (Gaurodytes) paludosus (Fabricius, 1801)

Histeridae:
1. Gnathoncus suturifer Reitter, 1896
2. Chalcionellus decemstriatus (P. Rossi, 1792)
3. Hypocacculus (Nessus) rufipes (Paykull, 1798)
4. Hister quadrinotatus L. G. Scriba, 1790
5. Margarinotus (Stenister) obscurus (Kugelann, 1792) (= stercorarius (Hoffmann, 1803))

Staphylinidae:
1. Coprophilus (Zonyptilus) pennifer (Motschulsky, 1845)
2. Coprophilus (Zonyptilus) schubertii (Motschulsky, 1860)
3. Platystethus (Craetopycrus) nitens (C. Sahlberg, 1832)
4. Anotylus bernhaueri (Ganglbauer, 1898)
5. Scopaeus (Hyposcopaeus) gladifer Binaghi, 1935 (= bulgaricus Coiffait, 1971)** - finished it off

6. Xantholinus (Xantholinus) ?longiventris Heer, 1839-alas, female.
7. Bisnius scribae (Fauvel, 1867)
8. Heterothops is also still sp.

Scarabaeidae:
1. Pleurophorus pannonicus Petrovitz, 1961
2. Aphodius (Ammoecius) brevis Erichson, 1848
3. Aphodius (Phalacronothus) biguttatus Germar, 1824
4. Aphodius (Phalacronothus) citellorum A. Semenov & S. Medvedev, 1928
5. Aphodius (Plagiogonus) putridus (Fourcroy, 1785)
6. Onthophagus (Palaeonthophagus) ponticus Harold, 1883
7. Onthophagus (Palaeonthophagus) semicornis (Panzer, 1798)
8. Onthophagus (Palaeonthophagus) vitulus (Fabricius, 1776)

Byrrhidae:
1. Lamprobyrrhulus nitidus (Schaller, 1783)
2. Porcinolus murinus (Fabricius, 1794)

Elateridae:
1. Limoniscus suturalis (Gebler, 1845)

Monotomidae:
1. Monotoma bicolor A. Villa & G. B. Villa, 1835*

Endomychidae:
1. Lycoperdina succincta (Linnaeus, 1767)*

Curculionidae:
1. Humeromima nitida (Boheman, 1843)
2. Omias rotundatus (Fabricius, 1792)*
3. Archeophloeus inermis (Boheman, 1843)
4. Minyops carinatus (Linnaeus, 1767)

This post was edited by Fornax13-08.10.2009 00: 23

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