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. Sadly, 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, dan saya boleh bayangkan kesannya pada burung atau mamalia kecil mungkin jauh lebih menarik.
Nampaknya ahli biologi mempunyai tabiat lucu untuk merasai subjek mereka. Saya baru-baru ini menghadiri ceramah herpetologi mengenai katak dart beracun. Pada tangen sedikit, tahukah anda bahawa pewarnaan katak aposematik yang terkenal ini TIDAK PERNAH diuji sehingga kebelakangan ini? Hakikat bahawa mereka beracun diketahui umum, tetapi tiada siapa yang pernah meluangkan masa untuk melihat sama ada warna mereka benar-benar sesuai dengan model aposematik yang sebenar, itu dia – adakah mereka benar-benar menghalang pemangsa di alam liar? Ternyata tidak menghairankan, ya, mereka buat. Tetapi adalah bagus untuk mempunyai data kuantiti untuk menyokong penegasan yang telah lama dipegang ini. Kembali kepada rasa – ujian herper yang terkenal ialah menjilat katak atau katak. 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 (ya, not a taste… but close), however I’ve never seen this published or tested it myself, so it may be apocryphal. Walau bagaimanapun, diketahui bahawa banyak rama-rama berbau kuat pada tumbuhan perumah mereka: seperti Speyeria coronis berbau Apocynum (bau sayur yang kuat). Banyak ruang untuk siasatan lanjut di sini. Tetapi tanpa ragu seorang ahli biologi menggunakan kelima-lima derianya pada bila-bila masa yang boleh.
Untuk empat hujung minggu yang lalu sekarang saya telah mengejar angsa, untuk satu rama-rama, Heliolonche celeris. Ia adalah Noctuidae kecil yang cantik dengan sayap depan merah jambu dan sayap belakang merah jingga yang menakjubkan. Ia tidak begitu kerap ditemui dan hanya ditemui di sepanjang banjaran gunung California utara yang memberi makan Malacothrix floccifera– bunga endemik CA. Setiap perjalanan saya telah menjadi skunked, sehingga hari ini – Saya mengumpul dua! Seingat anda, lawatan pertama saya adalah kira-kira sebulan yang lalu, tiada pelanduk, tetapi satu siri spesimen yang cantik dan gambar Adela pelanduk. Beberapa perjalanan yang lalu belum lagi menjadi produk yang produktif seperti Adela. Jadi apa yang perlu dilakukan apabila tidak menemui sasaran anda? Dapatkan sinar matahari dan ambil beberapa gambar yang tidak menyenangkan.
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. okey, 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)?
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.
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 “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… jadi tinggal ditala.
2009 was a great season. I explored tons of new land and collected at least 6 spesies baru. 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. ini news 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. Semoga, 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 Mac 2006: 3:23pm.
“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,”
