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. Niestety, 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, to znaczy – do they really deter predators in the wild? Turns out not surprisingly, tak, 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 (tak, 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: jak na przykład 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, no moth, but a beautiful series of specimens andphotographs of Adela ćmy. 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. Dobrze, to be fair, I had complete life histories and DNA to support those decisions. Here – they have neither. I, 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.
Tak, 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… więc stay tuned.
2009 was a great season. I explored tons of new land and collected at least 6 nowe gatunki. 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…
Natknąłem się na kilka e-mailowych transkrypcji pytań przesłanych do naszego działu entomologii i nie mogę się oprzeć ich udostępnieniu. Obiecuję, że te wiadomości są (i będzie) 100% prawdziwe i nieedytowane. Imiona zostały zmienione lub usunięte, aby chronić niewinnych. Miejmy nadzieję, Natknę się na nie raz na jakiś czas, i zachowaj to jako ciągłą serię. Zachęcamy do przesyłania własnych materiałów!
Przepraszam, ten pierwszy to długi – ale warte przeczytania.
1 Marzec 2006: 3:23po południu.
“Przesyłam Ci zdjęcia pająka, którego posiadam, który wygląda na Zoropsis spinimana. Potrzebuję więcej informacji o tym pająku niż jest w Internecie. Również, Nie wiem czy ten pająk to samiec czy samica. Pająka mam od 2 tydzień. Wciąż żyje-ale nie jestem pewien co je. Próbowałem kilku rzeczy. Jeśli jesteś zainteresowany tym pająkiem, możemy porozmawiać więcej-jednak, Mam wrażenie, że ten pająk nie interesuje twojego działu. Proszę o odpowiedź i obejrzyj zdjęcia. Jeśli nie chcesz, żebym ponownie do Ciebie wysłał e-mail, proszę powiedz mi lub założę, że nie dostałeś mojego e-maila ze zdjęciami. Ty i Dr. “X” są bardzo zajęci i wydaje się, że dużo podróżujesz. Pewnie z ciekawszymi rzeczami niż ten pająk. Zdjęcia są poniżej - jeśli nie możesz uzyskać do nich dostępu, powiadom mnie, a spróbuję “cokolwiek mogę zrobić” żeby dostać te zdjęcia dla ciebie. Dziękuję za wszelką pomoc, której możesz mi udzielić,”
