From a peppermint Pericopinae. I recorded this video on-site in northern Costa Rica a few years ago. When I reached down to pick up this moth, it was hard to avoid noticing the behavior. The moth, Chetone angulosa (Erebidae: Pericopina) ((used to be Arctiidae)), has a common defensive mechanism for this group – they excrete hemolymph to deter would-be attackers. Lots of moths do this, but I have never seen it so spectacularly displayed. If you listen carefully you can hear the hissing sound as the fluid is pumped form the body. What was most impressive is how strongly it smelled of peppermint… strongly enough that I just had to give it a go. Purtroppo, it didn’t taste as advertised. While it wasn’t excruciating, the most noticeable effect was an abrupt numbness that lasted for a several minutes. Pretty potent stuff, and I can imagine the effect on a small bird or mammal might be far less amusing.
It seems like biologists have a funny habit of tasting their subjects. I recently sat in on a herpetology talk regarding poison-dart frogs. On a slight tangent, did you know that the coloration of these famously aposematic frogs has NEVER been tested until recently? The fact that they were poisonous is well known, but no one ever took the time to see if their colors actually fit a true aposematic model, questo è – do they really deter predators in the wild? Turns out not surprisingly, sì, they do. But it’s nice to actually have quantitate data to support this long held assertion. Back to tasting – a well known herper test is to give the frog or toad a lick. While this can actually help to identify the species of herp, it more likely seems to be an amusing side effect of long hours in the field. Not being a herper I can’t recall the name or group this applied to; but a famous paper went into great depths to describe the tastes, potent effect and the potential dangers associated with each licked toad species (this was a legit taxonomic review).
The only example for useful tasting in insects that I can think of right now is for two strikingly similar butterflies- Papilio thoas/cresphontes. I believe thoas has a sweet flowery smell when you catch it fresh (sì, not a taste… but close), however I’ve never seen this published or tested it myself, so it may be apocryphal. It is however well known that many butterflies smell strongly of their hostplant: come Speyeria coronissmelling ofApocynum(strong vegetable odor). Lots of room for further investigation here. But without a doubt a biologist uses all five of his senses whenever he can.
For the last four weekends now I have been on a goose chase, for one moth, Heliolonche Celeris. It’s a beautiful small Noctuidae with pinkish forewings and stunning orange-red hindwings. It isn’t very often encountered and only found along the northern California mountain ranges feeding onMalacothrix floccifera– a CA endemic flower. Every trip I have gotten skunked, until today – I collected two! As you may recall my first outing was about a month ago, nessuna tarma, but a beautiful series of specimens andphotographs of Adela falene. 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.
Recentemente mi sono imbattuto in alcuni in modo ridicolo tassonomia orribile dalla Cina (.PDF). Se scorri un po' in basso puoi vedere la traduzione in inglese. A prima vista questo sembra un documento di tassonomia standard con descrizioni di specie semplici. Potresti anche pensare a te stesso, “eh, chiedo perché stanno descrivendo specie da un solo esemplare”. Non è la fine del mondo, L'ho fatto anche io. Ok, ad essere onesti, Avevo storie di vita complete e DNA per supportare quelle decisioni. Qui – non hanno nessuno dei due. E, dopo aver dato un'occhiata alle illustrazioni campione, qualcosa dovrebbe diventare incredibilmente evidente. Cosa hanno in comune questi esemplari (a parte la scarsa qualità dell'immagine)?
to fake a UFO encounter? I recorded this video two years ago over the desert of Arizona. To confess, it made my heart skip a beat at first. I turned around and there were three glowing lights floating silently above me. I literally thought to myself “holy s#@% I don’t believe in this crap!”. 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.
Così, 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 “Ufo” 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.
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… quindi rimanete sintonizzati.
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…
Mi sono imbattuto in alcune trascrizioni e-mail di domande inviate al nostro dipartimento di entomologia e non posso resistere a condividerle. Prometto che questi messaggi lo sono (e sarà) 100% reale e inedito. I nomi sono stati cambiati o rimossi per proteggere gli innocenti. Fiduciosamente, Mi imbatterò in questi ogni tanto, e mantienilo come una serie continua. Sono incoraggiati i tuoi invii!
Scusa, questo è il primo lungo – ma vale la pena leggerlo.
1 Marzo 2006: 3:23pm.
“Ti mando le foto di un ragno che possiedo che sembra essere uno Zoropsis spinimana. Ho bisogno di più informazioni su questo ragno rispetto a quelle che si trovano su Internet. Anche, Non so se questo ragno sia maschio o femmina. Ho avuto il ragno per 2 settimane. È ancora vivo, ma non sono sicuro di cosa mangi. Ho provato diverse cose. Se sei interessato a questo ragno possiamo parlare di più, tuttavia, Ho la sensazione che questo ragno non sia di reale interesse per il tuo dipartimento. Per favore, rispondimi ed esamina le immagini. Se non vuoi che ti invii un'e-mail di nuovo allora, per favore dimmelo o presumo che tu non abbia ricevuto la mia e-mail con le immagini. Sia tu che il dott. “X” sono estremamente occupati e sembra che viaggi molto. Probabilmente con cose più interessanti di questo ragno. Le immagini sono sotto: se non riesci ad accedervi, ti prego di avvisarmi e proverò “cosa posso fare” per farti avere queste foto. Grazie per tutto l'aiuto che puoi darmi,”
