The 2011 Ig Nobel ceremony took place yesterday at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. The award is sponsored by Improbable Research, an organization that gathers fascinating, odd, and outright hilarious research papers that triumph the idea that not all science is boring. Among this year’s distinguished recipients was fellow entomologist and blogger David Rentz, who received the IgNobel in Biology for a discovery made in 1983 with colleague Darryl Gwynne in the Australian outback. Much to their surprise a certain style of brown bottle with indentations at the base (“stubbies”) proved to be irresistible to males of the Buprestid beetle Julodimorpha bakewelli Julodimorpha saundersii (shih source paper and comment below).
Congratulations Dave and Darryl!
Julodimorpha bakewelli attempting to copulate with a bottle of beer. Photo by D. Gwynne
It should be noted that the species discussed in the Gwynne & Rentz paper is actually Julodimorpha saundersii, which at the time of their publication was considered a synonym of J. bakewellii. The former occurs throughout SW and Western Australia, while the latter is limited to eastern Australia. Refer to Bellamy & Wier (2008).
Thanks for the clarification Ted, I’ve added the name and link above!
David finally posted about this on his blog: http://bunyipco.blogspot.com/2011/12/beetles-on-bottle.html
[…] Buprestids Mistake Stubbies (the particular kind of beer bottle) For Females, they received the 2011 Ig Noble award for Biology. It made a lot of sense, as it fulfills the Improbable Research premise of entertain and […]