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
테드managed 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!?” 당연히, 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” 에 “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, 예컨대. 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, 예 – 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. 그러나, I did come across a handful of beautiful microleps. All of these moths are in the genusAdelaand familyAdelidae (or some would say나는ncurvariidae). 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? 고맙게도, 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 are아델라의 삼중. 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.
구름 샌프란시스코에서 오늘 오후에 깨고 태양은 빛을하기 시작했다. 곧 따뜻한 날씨는 너무 익숙한 느낌을 유도, 하나 나는 곤충을 수집하고 실내에 앉아 있지 밖으로되어야한다! 이미 장소의 소수 봄에 왔지만, 나는 앞서 수집의 긴 시즌을. 기대 나는 도움이되지 수도 있지만 서쪽이 내게 주신 지난 장엄한 년에 반영. 내 중독을 설명하기 위해, 여기에 내 Google 어스 GPS 점의 캡션입니다.
각 플래그는 별도의 수집 이벤트를 나타냅니다 (노란색 핀을 무시), 가을 사이 2007 겨울 2009. 나는 최선을 다하고 수집 여행을위한 마일의 트랙을 유지하지 않은 (아마도 충격을 방지하기 위해), 하지만 접근해야 30,000. 내 혼다 어코드는 일반적인 필드 수단이 될 수 없습니다, 그러나 거리가 실질적으로 더 저렴하게. 물론 두 플랫 타이어와 금이 앞 유리는 도움이되지 않습니다. 당신은 쉽게 내가 플래그의 거대한 덩어리로 남부 캘리포니아에서 살았다는 것을 알 수 있습니다. 이들의 대부분은 산타 바바라 카운티에 초점을 맞추고있다, 이는 두 개의 새로운 종과 군 기록의 수십 굴복. 애리조나는 두와 두 번째 온다 10 하루는 다른 위치에 매일 밤마다 함께 여행. 그때 남서 지난 여름의 무료 깨고 두 과정 반 주 동안 중서부를 통해 오래 루프를 몰았다. 나는 주위에서 뽑아 4,000 나비목 단지 표본의 마지막에 마무리 퍼팅 시작. 지금까지, 하나의 새로운 종 – 서 부 텍사스에서 작은 Acrolophidae의 유일한 표본 (그룹에 MONA의 다발을 쓰고 피터 이동에 의해 결정). 티는 ID 여전히 왼쪽.
올해 보드: 리븐 워스 여행, 워싱턴 2010 Lepidopterists’ 사회 모임. 2 주 수집 여행은 아이다 호를 통해 다음 루프 동쪽 워싱턴 북쪽으로 촬영합니다, 집에가는 길에 유타와 네바다. 그러나 항상, 애리조나와 멕시코는 커닝된다. 내가 버클리에 살고있는 지금 나는 올해 시에라에 몇 번 더 얻을 수있을 것이다!
I am really at a loss for understanding yet anotherpositive acupuncture studythat was as well designed as my 8th grade science fair project. 부여, I was a nerdy science kid, but I could do a better job drunk. 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. 하지 언급하기, 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, 그것을 보여주기 위해 정말 형편없는 연구를 만들어 봅시다.!”. 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). 감사합니다, 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! 예, I have to link it because wordpress won’t embed… 감사 테드, figured it out!
쉘 크릭 아래로 내 주말 mothing 여행에서 몇 이미지, 산 루이스 오비 스포 카운티. 중앙 해안을 따라 이른 봄은 충격적이다, 와 뒷길은 꽃 관찰자로 포장했다. 주말 드라이브 가족에 의해 점유 된 자동차의 수십 있었다, 많은 사람들이 점심을 포장하고 꽃이 성장하는 것을 지켜보고하기 토했다. 나는 사람들이 자연의 아름다움을 즐기면서 볼 수 기쁘게 생각하지만, 그것은 피해가 짓밟고가 발생할 수 있습니다보기 어려운. 그러나, 더 많은 사람들이 자연을 감상 나갈 수 있다면, 아마도 보호하는 것이 더 쉽습니다. 꽃은 너무 밝고은 나방에 초점 어려웠다 밀도했다, 몇 시간 후 나는 작은 눈 맹검을 가기 시작 (또는 영원히 지금 알려진 것과 같아야한다, 꽃 맹검). 여기에 아름다움을 캡처 할 수있는 몇 가지 미약 한 시도 아르.
These pieces of art are the creation ofRobert J. Lang. Chances are if you’ve seen some insane origami than they were his creation. 예, 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.
등록 시간을 가지고 (죄송합니다, 그것은 성가신하지만 난 다른 곳을 찾을 수 없습니다) 박사에 의해 인터뷰에 대한 응답을 읽고. 법률 형제, 여기. 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…). 그럼에도 불구하고, 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.
