I’ve been a bit remiss at posting regular challenges, so I’ll try to pick up the pace. Who can tell me anything about this butterfly? The most you’re getting is that it is from the Western half of the US. Credit for family, genus or species andridiculouscredit for subspecies and where it is from.
Euphydryas anicia cloudcrofti
Tedmanaged to pretty quickly ID this lep with stunning accuracy for a beetle-guy. You lep-ers reading this should hang your head in shame for not jumping on it faster.
As mentioned in the comments, this butterfly only flies around the resort town of Cloudcroft, New Mexico in the Sacramento Mountains. For years they have been fighting to have this listed as an endangered species, but have failed at every attempt (the most recent rejection was August 2009). The town relies almost exclusively on winter ski resorts and developers have put up a successful fight against protection. The entire area is within the Lincoln National Forest, but they have only closed the area to butterfly collecting, not development. When asking the forest service about this butterfly they unequivocally state that the checkerspot is endangered (even though it’s not). Of course they do not want you to collect it – but if you offered a few million to develop its habitat, that’s a different story.
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!?” Naturalmente, 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” a “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, es. 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, sì – 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!
E 'stata oggi una bella giornata nella zona della baia, così ho guidato fino a Napa Valley e il Papa. Ero scouting qualche nuovo territorio per un piccolo fiore falena, Heliolonche Celeris, che a quanto pare è in attesa da più tempo è bello contigua di emergere. Questa stagione è stata un po 'tardiva a causa di tutto il freddo e la pioggia, ma io nutro speranze per una visita di ritorno di successo in un paio di settimane. Tuttavia, Ho incontrato una manciata di belle microleps. Tutti questi lepidotteri sono in genere Adela e la famiglia Adelidae (o alcuni direbbero Ioncurvariidae). Essi sono comunemente noti come “falene fata” perché sembrano danzare su macchie di fiori – che a quanto pare le fate amano fare. Sembrava che i maschi sono stati difendere una piccola area, da due a tre alla volta, twirling intorno l'un l'altro a pochi centimetri sopra i fiori. Suppongo che queste danze erano territoriale in quanto è stato osservato nessun accoppiamento. Mentre le femmine hanno lunghe antenne, i maschi prendono a dismisura. Ho raccolto una bella serie, ma io non hanno ancora inchiodato le specie – quanti si fa a vedere? Per fortuna, tutte le Adelidae sono stati coperti in un 1969 carta da Jerry Powell, che è anche a vivere per la strada da me.
Dopo aver guardato attraverso le collezioni qui al CAS, e leggere la monografia, sembra che la maggior parte di questi sono Adela trigrapha. Si tratta di una Adelid comuni della zona di San Francisco Bay e la maggior parte delle catene costiere di CA. Variazione è noto per essere un notevole, con bande spezzate e continue nonché variazione della rossa sulla corona. L'altra Adelid è facilmente ha identificato a Adela 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 withQuesto articolo?
The clouds broke this afternoon in San Francisco and the sun began to shine. The upcoming warm weather induced an all too familiar feeling, one that I should be out collecting insects and not sitting indoors! While I have already been to a handful of places this spring, I have a long season of collecting ahead. Looking forward I couldn’t help but to reflect on the past two spectacular years the west has given me. To illustrate my addiction, here is a caption of my Google Earth GPS points.
Each flag represents a separate collecting event (disregard the yellow pins), between fall 2007 and winter 2009. I have not kept track of the miles for dedicated collecting trips (perhaps to avoid shock), but it must be approaching 30,000. My Honda Accord may not be a typical field vehicle, but it makes the distance substantially more affordable. Of course the two flat tires and cracked windshield don’t help. You can easily tell that I lived in southern California with that giant blob of flags. Most of those are focused in Santa Barbara county, which yielded two new species and dozens of county records. Arizona comes second with two 10 day trips with each night in a different location. I then broke free of the southwest last summer and drove a long loop through the midwest over the course of two and a half weeks. I pulled in around 4,000 lepidoptera and have just started putting the finishing touches on the last of the specimens. Finora, only one new species – a sole specimen of a small Acrolophidae from western Texas (determined by Peter Jump who is writing the MONA fascicle on the group). Plenty left to still ID.
On the board for this year: A trip to Leavenworth, Washington for the 2010 lepidotteristi’ Society meeting. The two week collecting trip will shoot north to Washington then loop east through Idaho, Utah and Nevada on the way home. But as always, Arizona and Mexico are beaconing. And now that I live in Berkeley I will have to get into the Sierra a few more times this year!
Sono davvero in perdita per capire l'ennesimo studio di agopuntura positivo che è stato così progettato come il mio 8 ° grado del progetto Science Fair. Concesso, Ero un ragazzino nerd scienza, ma avrei potuto fare meglio ubriaco lavoro. Penso che dovrei condurre uno studio di follow-up in cui testare la efficacia di istrici gettato alle spalle. Sarebbe certamente più divertente; e completa di tutto quanto valore scientifico. Per non parlare di, istrici sono piuttosto carina.
I veri problemi con lo studio:
Cieco
n = 15. I loro test X² possono aver portato ad una risposta significativa, ma in nessuna immaginazione di qualsiasi universo fa 15 pari un campione statisticamente significativo di ogni popolazione, da nessuna parte.
Nessun controllo negativo. Hanno trattato tutti i loro pazienti con l'agopuntura o vitamine. La vitamina del complesso B è un trattamento (ancora uno molto mal supportato), e solo un controllo positivo. Di chi dire odore non ha migliorato naturalmente nel corso dello studio? Gli autori non possono.
Quindi la mia domanda è:, quello che può eventualmente essere la motivazione per questo studio? Posso immaginare come questo è stato sognato, intorno ai libri da colorare uno giorno “Ciao dottoressa Giulia, agopuntura funziona sicuro eh?” “Perché sì lo fa compagno idiota, creiamo uno studio davvero scadente a dimostrare proprio questo!”. Date un'occhiata a il mio più vecchio di agopuntura per ulteriori collegamenti e un po 'di più la discussione sul perché antica medicina cinese è uno spreco di denaro. Naturalmente se si prova 15 persone che si possono racimolare un risultato positivo per qualsiasi cosa. Ma come si inizia a introdurre gli studi più grandi e più strettamente controllati gli effetti positivi iniziano a ridursi.
Ridicolo. E ora che lo guardo, la mia scienza 8th grade fiera progetto è stato condotto con due serie di controlli, accecato, e aveva un campione di 18 (efficacia antibatterica di detergenti da cucina). Grazie, Io gentilmente prendo la mia posizione presso l'Università di Colonia Medical Center ora.
A continuation of the aquamoth series, this time withvideo from Science Friday! Sì, I have to link it because wordpress won’t embed… Grazie 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. Tuttavia, 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. Grazie. Le probabilità sono se avete visto qualche origami folle di quanto non fossero la sua creazione. Sì, coloro che sono in realtà realizzati da un unico pezzo di carta non tagliata. Egli fornisce il modello di piega per la maggior parte dei suoi disegni, 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 (Ok, for those who didn’t, here it is), you will be interested to hear his side of the story.
Take the time to register (scusa, it’s annoying but I couldn’t find it anywhere else) and read a response to the interview by Dr. Cognato, qui. 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…). Nonetheless, 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.
