Boreus intermedius: A Potentially Endemic Insect in Kennicott

Snow scorpionfly. Artwork by Kristin Link.

By Kristin Link

In the early 1930s, a man named Lowell Lloyd collected a species of snow scorpionfly between McCarthy and Kennicott two years in a row. This species, Boreus intermedius, has never been found anywhere else and is believed to be endemic to the area. Entomologist Taylor Kane, who works with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Museum of the North, came back this year to see if she could find them again after almost 90 years. 

Snow scorpionflies are small circumboreal insects, about half a centimeter long, that live in and eat moss. Kane says other types of scorpionflies might fit their moniker better, but snow scorpionflies don’t look much like scorpions and can’t fly. However, they are somewhat graceful and I enjoyed watching the male and female that Kane collected hopping around on their long legs. The snow scorpionflies can winter as adults under the snow, but will also come out during the winter to hop around on the snow and disperse since it is a good medium for them to move around on.

There is much to learn about snow scorpionflies, how they overwinter, and where different species occur. A few of the species that Kane has collected have yet to even be described. Kane and her team came out to McCarthy to look for snow scorpionflies in the spring and the fall. They had the best luck looking along the wagon road between McCarthy and Kennicott and found a number of Boreus intermedius as well as an undescribed species. The scorpionflies are so small and well camouflaged in the moss they take trained eyes to see. To find them, Kane and her team used “beat sheets,” white squares of cloth on a wooden frame to shake the moss onto. 

Kane said she is interested in studying snow scorpionflies to learn more about endemic insects, which only occur in specific locations, and can tell us about an area's biogeography and how it is shaped by climatic factors. Kane will look closely at the specimens she collects to study their morphology and compare these snow scorpionflies to those from other areas, such as Russia and Europe, to get an idea of where this population came from and what its evolutionary history might be. She also looks at them on the molecular level to study genetic diversity, which will give an idea of how big or isolated a population is. 

Kane will add her specimens to collections which will be available to future scientists and research projects. After all, it is a ninety-year-old museum specimen of a tiny dried-up and pinned Boreus intermedius with a label that said “collected between McCarthy and Kennciott” which brought Kane here this year.