Over onMyrmecos Alex Wild just brought to my attention a rather personal attack from a pair of republican senators (Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John McCain, R-Ariz). Once again I started to comment, but given how close to home this hits, I felt a longer winded diatribe approaching…
Yn ôl pob tebyg, my job is agiant waste of money. Funding that the California Academy of Sciences (my employer) has received, is coming under direct attack. iawn, fy position has nothing to do with Antweb and I am not supported by public funds – but some of my colleagues are. Colleagues that have the exact same job title as my own, work a few doors down, and happen to work on different projects funded from different sources. What this boils down to is not only a republican war on science (go find that book), but a republican war on intellectualism. Everyone whose scaly little hand has crafted this report is not only willfully ignorant but is being outright dishonest. What is their unstated major premise here? The logical fallacy runs somewhere along the line of…
A) Democrats are wasting money because we are not in power.
B) By pointing out where this money is being “wasted” we will help save it and in turn ingratiate ourselves to the voters.
B) Supporting science (e.g.. wasteful spending) is the cause of our economic problems.
Yn ffres oddi ar ddesg y Nature News mae nodwedd sy'n ystyried byd heb fosgitos (neu -bysedd traed). Sut mae hyn yn newyddion? Efallai bod rhywfaint o reolaeth fector newydd y mae angen i ni i gyd glywed amdano! Wel, edrychwch ar yr erthygl o'r rhifyn diweddaraf o Natur dan y teitl “Byd Heb Mosgitos“. Deuthum ar draws hyn ymlaen yn wreiddiol Blog PZ Myers a dechreuodd ysgrifennu sylw… a ddechreuodd dyfu'n esbonyddol felly penderfynais flogio amdano yn lle.
iawn, efallai nad. But I did get a little jealous when I came acrossyr erthygl honwhere I discovered a local San Francisco artist who is charging $60 pop i “pryfed lledaenu dosbarthiadau”. Tybed faint o wir yn arddangos i fyny i'r dosbarth misol? Mae hyn yn unig mewn, Chris Grinter is offering an insect spreading class for merely $49.99! I’d probably make it all sciency though and no one would show…
But while you’re learning the ways of pinning you can pick up your creepy victorian taxidermy character.
Just about time for another volume of Genius of the Press. Who will be first to spotthe error here? Roddwyd, the information section of the california flat rate moving website is not exactly a source of top notch journalism…
Here are a few more images from my recent northern road trip, this time from western Idaho. Right outside the town of New Meadows were fields of flowers thick with life. It was some of the best day collecting I’ve done in years, and fellow road tripper Peter Jump and I discovered this population ofMae Adela yn fy fflamio. This represents a likely state record for Idaho and possibly the eastern most population known for this species. They are supposedly associated with Owl’s Clover (some now reassigned toCastilleja), but I don’t recall ever seeing any at this location. I usually notice this plant whenever I’m in the field because it is the host to a handful of other interesting leps.
One frustrating character of the genus Adela is the homogeneity of the genitalia. For any entomologist out there it is par for the course to use the morphology of genitalia as a plethora of characters most useful in species identification. Microleps are often most easily differentiated through dissection, and a few groups must be dissected to even get to genus! But even strikingly different Adela are almost identical internally. Instead, a leg will go off to get DNA barcoded. Chances are it’s nothing too interesting, but stranger things have been known to happen. At the very least it will be informative to know what the genetic divergence might be across the range of the species.
In eastern Lassen county, on the vast high juniper hills of the California-Nevada border, there are herds of “wild” horses, sheep and cattle. Par for the course, the only flowering plant around was horehound (Marrubium vulgare). Despite the non-native flora and (semi)mega-fauna, the insects were still at home. Being the only nectar source, the small clumps of invasives were packed with thirsty Lycaenidae. In all I netted 6 different species and got some decent shots of 3. It seems like I take a lot of butterfly photos for a moth collector…but it’s hard to pass up such a charismatic group.
But thinking of those horses (ah OK, “mustangs”) has given me a great idea. Oes, horses were once part of the prehistoric American fauna up until about 12,000 flynyddoedd yn ôl. While the horse family may have evolved on the American plains, they have been long absent. Reintroduction of horses by the Spaniards planted the seeds that would become a staple of American culture. That is why today millions of dollars and tens of thousands of feral horses run wild in CA, NV and Utah. Even less popular are the somewhat clandestine annual culls that must be strictly enforced to keep these large herds healthy. My solution: reintroduce lions. America was once home to the North American lion (Panthera leo atrox), which stood a whopping 25% larger than the African lion and was the largest cat to have ever lived. These must have feasted on horse-tacos and in turn kept the populations stable. And since our feral horses are of Arabian dissent, we may as well introduce the extremely endangered Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), that will be well suited to feast on its Persian brethren. If we are conserving “wild” horses, we might as well do it right (plus, I’d be much more interested in seeing horses if I could see lions too).
I’m not too sure if I’m sold on this theme. I’ve been shopping around for a new look, and am giving “twenty ten” a try. Let me know your opinion – whether or not you think it is better than the previous layout “misty”, or if there is another design you love. Be extra critical (especially since I had zero to do with these pre-fab designs).
Wel – didn’t like the new theme all that much, went back to the tried and true misty. I can always hope for a future one that fits this page a bit better though.
Thanks for the input (especially for some received off-blog).
A few months ago I was out collecting in western Arizona and failed to follow through with any images or updates on that trip. Wel, it was a success and well worth the miles to get there! I was searching for a Crambid moth in the mountains of theKofa National Wildlife Refuge (special thanks to the Kofa staff for quickly approving my permits). While I’m still sorting through moths from that trip, the timing couldn’t have been better weather wise. It was mild out (mid 90’s is almost cool for that region!) and still wet. As you can see below, there were plenty of moths that night. Here are a few images from the trip… now to catch up with my latest photos!
This is as close to the Big Horn Sheep as I could get…
I’m back from the road with thousands of specimens, a little weary and ready to sit still for a bit. In all it was a wonderful trip – but I have lots and lots of processing to do. While I play catch-up, enjoy this clip. Hyd y gwn i, there is no direct relation. But the Grinter pool is a small one and it seems like he should be somewhere on my tree. All I can say is that I hope after I am gone there are ghosts of my creepy employees haunting my home, breathing heavily behind visitors ('n sylweddol? that’s the latest ghost trick?). I also fully expect a documentary with a guy trying'n sylweddolhard to sound creepy – it should be in my last will and testament.
Dros yr wythnos a hanner nesaf byddaf yn gyrru i fyny i dalaith Washington ar gyfer y blynyddol Lepidopterists’ Cyfarfod Cymdeithas. Mae wedi'i leoli yn nhref trap twristiaid Leavenworth, sef a “thema Bafaria” diorama o siopau cardiau post a chlocsiau. Er na allaf byth ddeall yn iawn apêl trefi â thema, mae'n rhywbeth y mae Americanwyr yn ei garu. Hec, Roeddwn i'n byw yn Solvang am ddwy flynedd (isod), felly bydd Leavenworth yn goffadwriaeth hiraethus.
Nawr wrth gwrs byddaf yn gwersylla ac yn casglu ar hyd y ffordd, felly bydd fy postiad yn gostwng yn is na'r norm sydd eisoes yn araf. Byddaf yn ceisio postio rhai diweddariadau o'r ffordd, yn enwedig pan mae pethau anhygoel yn digwydd*. Arhoswch diwnio, a mwynhewch y blogwyr ysblennydd eraill o fy blogroll.
* Pa rai a wnant yn ddiau. Wrth gwrs, Rwy'n gwybod fy mod wedi addo hyn o'm taith ffordd ddiwethaf i Arizona ac nid wyf eto wedi cyflawni. Rwy'n gweithio arno!
Sylwadau ar gau 
Mae Adela yn fy fflamio
