Ja sam bio malo nemarna po objavljivati redovite izazovima, pa ću pokušati podići tempo. Tko mi može reći nešto o ovom leptir? Najviše što dobivate je da je iz zapadne polovice SAD. Kredit za obitelj, roda ili vrste i smiješan kredit za podvrsta i gdje je to od.
Euphydryas anicia cloudcrofti
Rasprostirati pokošenu travu radi sušenje uspio vrlo brzo ID ovaj lep uz zapanjujuću točnost za buba-momka. Vi lep-ERS čitaju ovo bi trebalo objesiti glavu od srama jer nije skakanje na nju brže.
Kao što je spomenuto u komentarima, ovo leptir leti samo oko naselja grada Cloudcroftu, Novi Meksiko u Sacramento planinama. Godinama su se borili da se to na popisu ugroženih vrsta, ali nisu uspjeli u svakom pokušaju (Najnovija odbacivanja bio kolovoz 2009). Grad se oslanja gotovo isključivo na zimskim skijališta i programeri su stavili do uspješne borbe protiv zaštite. Cijelo područje je u Lincoln National Forest, ali oni su zatvorena samo područje na Butterfly prikupljanje, Ne razvoj. Kada pitate Forest Service o ovom leptir su nedvosmisleno navodi da checkerspot je ugrožena (iako to nije). Naravno, ne želim da ga prikupiti – ali ako vam se nudi nekoliko milijuna razviti svoje stanište, to je druga priča.
I sat rapt in front of my TV on Sunday watching the latest installment of the BBC/Discovery series “Life”. The first thing that comes to my mind… “WHY was Oprah chosen to narrate!?” Prirodno, I waited for the insects special to air before I blogged about this, but having to listen to Oprah for the last few weeks has been scratching at the back of my eyes. I guess I could have gone out and purchased the BBC version with the iconic voice of Sir David Attenborough instead…
To get a better grip of just how obnoxious Oprah is, you can watch thesame clip on Discovery. I have never considered Oprah to be anything close to scientifically minded – and her lavishsupport of Jenny McCarthyproves the point. For those who are not up to date – McCarthy is the leading proponent of the anti-vaccination movement. You can even go as far as attributing her PR campaign topreventable deaths.I’ll have to return to this subject another time.
Back to the topic at hand. There was some incredibly stunning insect footage, and a few vignettes about insect life I might not have otherwise ever seen. It seems like the US version of Life has been slightly re-written with zero factual contribution. Basic lines are changed from “she was not in the mood” za “uh-oh, looks like a headache”. Seems like a step down to me, albeit a tiny one. I was also a little annoyed with the continual focus on vertebrates – birds that eat flies, bears that eat honey, lizards that mimic Carabids – and anthropomorphizing intention, pr. the ants “crowning achievement of large complex communities… the closest thing in nature to human cities”. While it may be true that giant ant colonies superficially resemble human cities, I wouldn’t call them the “crowning achievement of insects”. Mind boggling in complexity, da – but overshadowing other non-social adaptations? This all boils down to a false premise that evolution is striving for human-like qualities and is directional.
But nothing to be overly critical about. Given the diversity and complexity of the insect world, I wouldn’t have even been happy with two weeks of solid footage. I would love to see what was left on the cutting room floor!
It was a beautiful day today in the bay area, so I headed up to Napa and the Pope Valley. I was scouting some new territory for a small flower moth, Heliolonche celeris, that apparently is waiting for more contiguous nice weather to emerge. This season has been a bit tardy because of all of the cold and rain, but I hold out hopes for a successful return visit in a few weeks. Ipak, I did come across a handful of beautiful microleps. All of these moths are in the genusAdelaand familyAdelidae (or some would sayJancurvariidae). They are commonly known as “fairy moths” because they appear to dance over patches of flowers – which apparently fairies love to do. It looked like males were defending a small area, with two to three at a time, twirling around each-other a few inches above the blossoms. I assume these dances were territorial because no mating was observed. While females have long antennae, the males take it to excess. I collected a nice series but Ihaven’t nailed down the species yet – how many do you see? Srećom, all of theAdelidaewere covered in a 1969 paper by Jerry Powell, who also happens to live down the street from me.
After looking through the collections here at the CAS, and reading the monograph, it looks like most of these areAdela trigrapha. It is a common Adelid of the San Francisco Bay area and most of the coastal ranges of CA. Variation is noted to be considerable, with broken and unbroken bands as well as variation of the red on the crown. The other Adelid is easily ID’d toAdela flammeusella.
Another installment of Genius of the Press, and perhaps a bit of a softball. (Yikes these are easy to find) Who can tell me whats wrong withthis article?
Oblaci izbio popodne u San Franciscu, a sunce počelo sjati. Nadolazeće toplo vrijeme inducirana je sve previše poznati osjećaj, onaj koji sam trebao biti izvan prikupljanja kukaca i ne sjedi u zatvorenom prostoru! Iako sam već bio na nekoliko mjesta ovog proljeća, Imam dugu sezonu prikupljanja naprijed. Veseli nisam mogao pomoći, ali da razmisle o posljednje dvije godine spektakularnim zapadno mi je dao. Za ilustraciju moje ovisnosti, Ovdje je opis od mojih Google Earth GPS točaka.
Svaka zastava predstavlja poseban događaj prikupljanja (zanemarite žute igle), između jeseni 2007 i zima 2009. Nisam pratila od milja za prikupljanje posvećen putovanjima (Možda bi se izbjeglo šok), ali to mora biti približavanja 30,000. Moja Honda Accord ne može biti tipičan polje vozilo, ali to čini udaljenost znatno više pristupačne. Naravno, dva flat gume i puknut vjetrobranskog ne pomažu. Možete jednostavno reći da sam živio u južnoj Kaliforniji s tim div blob zastava. Većina onih koji su usmjereni u Santa Barbari županiji, koji je donio dvije nove vrste i desetke županijskih zapisa. Arizona je na drugom mjestu s dva 10 Dan izleti sa svakim noći na drugom mjestu. I onda oslobodio jugozapadnom prošlog ljeta, a vozio dugo petlju kroz Srednji zapad tijekom dva i pol tjedna. Povukla sam se u oko 4,000 Leptiri te su tek počeli dovršava na posljednji primjeraka. Dosada, samo jedna nova vrsta – a jedini primjerak malog Acrolophidae iz zapadnog Teksasa (određuje Peter Skoči koji piše Mona čuperku na skupini). Obilje prepustiti dalje ID.
Na brodu za ovu godinu: Izlet u Leavenworth, Washington za 2010 Lepidopterists’ Društvo sastanak. Dva tjedna prikupljanje putovanje će pucati na sjever u Washingtonu onda petlje istok kroz Idaho, Utah i Nevada na putu kući. No, kao i uvijek, Arizona i Meksiko su vrhunci. I sad da ja živim u Berkeleyu ću morati ući u Sierra još nekoliko puta ove godine!
I am really at a loss for understanding yet anotherpositive acupuncture studythat was as well designed as my 8th grade science fair project. Dodijeljeno, Bio sam štreber iz znanosti, ali mogao bih bolje obaviti posao pijan. I think I should conduct a followup study in which I test the efficacy of porcupines tossed at your back. It would certainly be more amusing; and full of just about as much scientific value. Not to mention, porcupines are kinda cute.
The real problems with the study:
Unblinded
n=15. Their x² tests may have resulted in a significant response, but in no imagination of any universe does 15 equal a statistically significant sampling of any population, anywhere.
No negative control. They treated all of their patients with acupuncture or vitamins. Vitamin B complex is a treatment (still a very poorly supported one), and only a positive control. Whose to say smell didn’t naturally improve over the course of the study? The authors can not.
So my question is, what can possibly be the motivation for this study? I can imagine how this was dreamt up, around the coloring books one day “Hey Doc Julia, acupuncture sure works huh?” “Why yes it does fellow idiot, let’s create a really crappy study to show just that!”. Take a look atmy older acupuncture postfor more links and a bit more discussion on why ancient chinese medicine is a waste of money. Of course if you test 15 people you can scrape together a positive result for just about anything. But as you start to introduce larger and more tightly controlled studies the positive effects start to shrink.
Ridiculous. And now that I look at it, my 8th grade science fair project was conducted with two sets of controls, blinded, and had a sample size of 18 (antibacterial effectiveness of kitchen cleaners). Hvala vam što ste, I’ll kindly take my position at the University of Cologne Medical Center now.
A continuation of the aquamoth series, this time withvideo from Science Friday! Da, I have to link it because wordpress won’t embed… Hvala Ted, figured it out!
A few images from my weekend mothing trip down to Shell Creek, San Luis Obispo County. Early spring along the central coast is stunning, and the back roads were packed with flower watchers. There were dozens of cars occupied by families out for a weekend drive, many had packed lunches and sat to watch the flowers grow. While I am happy to see people enjoying the natural beauty, it is difficult to see the damage their trampling can cause. Ipak, if more people could get out to appreciate nature, perhaps it would be easier to protect. The flowers were so bright and dense it was difficult to focus on moths, and after a few hours I started to go a little snow-blind (or as it shall forever be now known, flower-blind). Here are a few feeble attempts to capture the beauty.
These pieces of art are the creation ofRobert J. Lang. Chances are if you’ve seen some insane origami than they were his creation. Da, those are actually made from one single piece of uncut paper. He provides the crease pattern for most of his designs, but actually folding something from that pattern has to be nearly impossible without knowing the sequence. It’s very impressive, but if you’re a bit lazier, you can cut and fold out your own simple insectsinstead.
For those who saw the FOX interview with MSU entomologist Dr. Cognato (u redu, for those who didn’t, here it is), you will be interested to hear his side of the story.
Take the time to register (sorry, it’s annoying but I couldn’t find it anywhere else) and read a response to the interview by Dr. Cognato, ovdje. In summary, he basically confirmed what was suspected, that they weren’t 100% straightforward with him in the first place and only gave him about six hours to prep. It is nice to hear that Tucker Carlson was actually interested in the entomolgy collection (although, perceived interest is a key tactic in the reporters tool-belt to disarm his interviewee…). Ipak, Cognato did a good job battling off the mindless, anti-science, right wing, propaganda machine. It is clear that he was put in a difficult situation, FOX came to him and wanted to discuss the collection. He knew he wasn’t going to be the best prepared for the interview (I know I sure wouldn’t be either!), but had to stand up for the collection in fear that they might have trampled on it without any fair rebuttal. It is sad we have almost no source of unbiased news nowadays. If you followed this story you should take the time to read about how it really happened.
