פֿאַר די לעצטע פיר וויקענדז איצט איך האָבן שוין אויף אַ גאַנדז יאָגן, פֿאַר איין מאָל, געשווינד העליאָלאָנטשע. עס ס אַ שיין קליין נאָקטוידאַע מיט פּינקיש פאָרעווינגס און סטאַנינג מאַראַנץ-רויט הינדווינגס. It isn’t very often encountered and only found along the northern California mountain ranges feeding onMalacothrix floccifera– אַ CA ענדעמיק בלום. Every trip I have gotten skunked, until today – I collected two! As you may recall my first outing was about a month ago, קיין מאָל, but a beautiful series of specimens andphotographs of Adelamoths. 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. קעשורע, to be fair, I had complete life histories and DNA to support those decisions. Here – they have neither. און, 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)?
צו שווינדל אַ ופאָ טרעפן? איך רעקאָרדירט דעם ווידעא צוויי יאר צוריק איבער דעם מדבר פון אַריזאָנאַ. צו מודה, עס געמאכט מיין האַרץ האָפּקען אַ קלאַפּן בייַ ערשטער. איך פארקערט אַרום און עס זענען געווען דרייַ גלאָוינג לייץ פלאָוטינג בישטיקע אויבן מיר. איך ממש געדאַנק צו זיך “הייליק s # @% איך טאָן ניט גלויבן אין דעם דרעק!”. 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. באַסיקאַללי, this is the exact same thing that caused the “lights over phoenix” flurry a few years ago.
אַזוי, 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 “ופאָ” 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… אַזוי בלייַבן טונד.
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!
אנטשולדיגט, this first one islong – but well worth the read.
1 מאַרץ 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. אויך, I do not know if this spider is male or female. I have had the spider for 2 וואָכן. 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,”
