Dari peppermint Pericopinae. Aku direkam video ini di tempat di Kosta Rika Utara beberapa tahun yang lalu. Ketika aku sampai ke bawah untuk mengambil ngengat ini, sulit untuk menghindari memperhatikan perilaku. Ngengat, Chetone angulosa (Erebidae: Perikopina) ((digunakan untuk menjadi Arctiidae)), memiliki mekanisme pertahanan umum untuk kelompok ini – mereka mengeluarkan hemolymph untuk mencegah calon penyerang. Banyak ngengat melakukan ini, tapi saya belum pernah melihatnya ditampilkan begitu spektakuler. Jika Anda mendengarkan dengan seksama, Anda dapat mendengar suara mendesis saat cairan dipompa dari tubuh. Yang paling mengesankan adalah betapa kuatnya aroma peppermint… cukup kuat sehingga saya hanya harus mencobanya. Dengan sedih, rasanya tidak seperti yang diiklankan. Meskipun itu tidak menyiksa, efek yang paling terlihat adalah mati rasa tiba-tiba yang berlangsung selama beberapa menit. Barang cukup ampuh, dan saya bisa membayangkan efeknya pada burung kecil atau mamalia mungkin jauh lebih tidak menyenangkan.
Sepertinya para ahli biologi memiliki kebiasaan yang lucu untuk mencicipi subjek mereka. Baru-baru ini saya menghadiri ceramah herpetologi tentang katak panah beracun. Sedikit bersinggungan, tahukah Anda bahwa warna katak aposematik yang terkenal ini belum pernah diuji hingga saat ini? Fakta bahwa mereka beracun sudah diketahui, tetapi tidak ada yang pernah meluangkan waktu untuk melihat apakah warna mereka benar-benar cocok dengan model aposematik yang sebenarnya, itu adalah – apakah mereka benar-benar menghalangi predator di alam liar?? Ternyata tidak mengherankan, ya, mereka melakukannya. Tapi bagus untuk benar-benar memiliki data kuantitatif untuk mendukung pernyataan lama ini. Kembali mencicipi – tes herper yang terkenal adalah menjilat katak atau kodok. Meskipun ini sebenarnya dapat membantu mengidentifikasi spesies herp, sepertinya itu adalah efek samping yang lucu dari berjam-jam di lapangan. Tidak menjadi seorang herper, saya tidak dapat mengingat nama atau grup yang diterapkan ini; tapi sebuah makalah terkenal masuk ke kedalaman yang besar untuk menggambarkan rasanya, efek ampuh dan potensi bahaya yang terkait dengan setiap spesies kodok yang dijilat (ini adalah ulasan taksonomi yang sah).
Satu-satunya contoh untuk mencicipi serangga yang berguna yang dapat saya pikirkan saat ini adalah untuk dua kupu-kupu yang sangat mirip- Papilio thoas/cresphontes. Saya percaya thoas memiliki bau bunga yang manis ketika Anda menangkapnya segar (ya, bukan rasa… tapi dekat), namun saya belum pernah melihat ini dipublikasikan atau mengujinya sendiri, jadi mungkin apokrifa. Namun diketahui bahwa banyak kupu-kupu sangat berbau tanaman inangnya: seperti Speeria coronis berbau apocynum (bau sayuran yang kuat). Banyak ruang untuk penyelidikan lebih lanjut di sini. Tapi tanpa ragu seorang ahli biologi menggunakan kelima indranya kapan pun dia bisa.
Selama empat pekan terakhir sekarang saya telah di mengejar angsa, untuk satu ngengat, Speedy Heliolonche. Ini adalah Noctuidae kecil yang indah dengan sayap depan merah muda dan hindwings oranye-merah menakjubkan. It isn’t very often encountered and only found along the northern California mountain ranges feeding onMalacothrix floccifera– bunga endemik CA. Every trip I have gotten skunked, until today – I collected two! As you may recall my first outing was about a month ago, no moth, but a beautiful series of specimens andphotographs of Adela ngengat. The last few trips haven’t even come close to being as productive as the Adela one. So what to do when not finding your target? Get a sun burn and take some crummy photos.
Recently came across some ridiculouslyhorrible taxonomy from China (.pdf). If you scroll down a bit you can see the english translation. At first glance this looks like a standard taxonomy paper with bare-bones species descriptions. You might even think to yourself, “huh, wonder why they are describing species from only one specimen”. Not the end of the world, I’ve even done it myself. Oke, to be fair, I had complete life histories and DNA to support those decisions. Here – they have neither. Dan, once you take a look at the specimen illustrations, something should become shockingly apparent. What do these specimens have in common (other than the poor image quality)?
palsu pertemuan UFO? Saya merekam video ini dua tahun lalu atas gurun Arizona. Mengaku, itu membuat hati saya berdetak pada awalnya. Aku berbalik dan ada tiga lampu menyala mengambang diam-diam di atas saya. Aku benar-benar berpikir sendiri “kudus s # @% saya tidak percaya omong kosong ini!”. The scale is really lost in the video, but they were huge and hovering under a high cloud cover. When the video zooms in you see a small light on the ground for reference. Our brain, being so inclined, makes it appear as if these lights are linked together in a massive triangle.
I walked back to the car while keeping a careful eye out for cacti and rattlesnakes (I was photographing a mojave rattler at the time), and grabbed a pair of binoculars. With a decent magnification it was clear that these were flares. Now only could you see a flickering light on the clouds above, but long trails of smoke rising above them. As you followed the flares down they gradually winked out – only to reappear some distance away (another drop). This was then followed by a series of fighter jets flying extremely low over the desert. Basically, this is the exact same thing that caused the “lights over phoenix” flurry a few years ago.
Jadi, I uploaded this video to Youtube and didn’t call it a UFO – just some mysterious lights. Will it be adopted as UFO proof? I sure hope so. Not only that, I hope it appears on some UFO documentary in the future. It’s not as “compelling” as other “Benda terbang aneh” videos, but my Canon point-and-shoot camera could only do so well.
While extra-terrestrials likely exist, there is absolutely zero compelling evidence to suggest they have visited us – and thanks to the laws of Physics, it is probable that they will never be able to visit regardless of how technologically advanced they become.
Aku baru saja diilustrasikan metode saya untuk menyebarkan Microlepidoptera, pergi menjelajahi halaman teknik. Siapa yang cukup berani untuk mencobanya?
We need to be conservationists to be sure, preserving wetlands, forests, open spaces and coastlines. We need to reduce our waste — plastic trash and the like. But what we really need is big, new ideas: new ways to distribute and store energy for electric power, new ways to conserve and distribute clean water for farming and gulping, and new ways get ourselves and our cargo around, so that we don’t change the Earth’s climates too much as we burn our fossil fuels.
I’ve been busy spreading microleps over the last few days, and here is a small selection from my summer collecting trips. Still have at least another 200 to go before catching up on my backlog. I am working on illustrating just how to spread these moths… sehingga menantikan.
2009 was a great season. I explored tons of new land and collected at least 6 new species. Let’s hope for twice that many in the year to come.
So what is wrong with this illustration below? Sounds like a great show at theKrohn Conservatoryin Cincinnati. Thisnews storymade me look just a little closer…
I’ve come across a few e-mail transcripts of questions sent into our entomology department and I can not resist sharing them. I promise these messages are (and will be) 100% real and unedited. Names have been changed or removed to protect the innocent. Hopefully, I will come across these every once in a while, and keep this as an ongoing series. Submissions of your own are encouraged!
Maaf, this first one islong – but well worth the read.
1 Maret 2006: 3:23sore.
“I am sending you pictures of a spider I possess that appears to be a Zoropsis spinimana. I need more information about this spider than is what is on the internet. Juga, I do not know if this spider is male or female. I have had the spider for 2 minggu. It is still alive-but I am not sure what it eats. I have tried several things. If you are interested in this spider we can talk more-however, I get the feeling that this spider is not of real interest to your department. Please respond to me and examine the pictures. If you do not want me to email you again then, please tell me or I will assume that you did not get my email with the pictures. Both you and Dr. “x” are extremely busy and it appears that you travel a great deal. Probably with more interesting things than this spider. The pictures are below-if you cannot access them then please notify me and I will try “what ever I can do” to get these pictures to you. Thank you for any help you can give me,”
