Jag har varit lite försumligt vid utstationering regelbundna utmaningar, så jag ska försöka plocka upp takten. Vem kan berätta något om denna fjäril? De du får är att det är från den västra halvan av den amerikanska. Kredit för familjen, 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.
Jag satt försjunken framför min tv på söndag tittar på senaste versionen av BBC / Discovery-serien “Livet”. Det första som kommer att tänka… “VARFÖR var Oprah valt att berätta!?” Naturligt, Jag väntade insekterna speciellt att luften innan jag bloggat om här, 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” till “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, t.ex.. 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, ja – 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. Emellertid, I did come across a handful of beautiful microleps. All of these moths are in the genusAdelaand familyAdelidae (or some would sayJagncurvariidae). 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? Tack och lov, 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?
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. Än så länge, 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 lepidopterist’ Föreningens möte. 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!
Jag är verkligen med förlust för att förstå ännu en positiv akupunktur studie som var så väl utformade som min 8: e klass vetenskap rättvis projekt. Tilldelade, Jag var en nördig vetenskap kid, men jag kunde göra ett bättre jobb berusad. Jag tror att jag skulle göra en uppföljning studie där jag testa effektiviteten av piggsvin kastade på ryggen. Det skulle säkert vara mer underhållande; och full av ungefär lika mycket vetenskapligt värde. För att inte tala, piggsvin är ganska söt.
De verkliga problemen med studien:
Avblindas
n = 15. Deras X tester kan ha lett till en betydande svar, men i ingen fantasi av något universum gör 15 lika en statistiskt signifikant provtagning av alla befolknings, någonstans.
Ingen negativ kontroll. De behandlade alla sina patienter med akupunktur eller vitaminer. Vitamin B-komplex är en behandling (fortfarande en mycket dåligt som stöds), och endast en positiv kontroll. Vems säga lukten inte naturligt förbättras under loppet av studien? Författarna kan inte.
Så min fråga är, vad kan möjligen vara motivationen för denna studie? Jag kan föreställa mig hur det var drömt upp, runt målarböcker en dag “Hej Doc Julia, akupunktur fungerar säker va?” “Därför ja det gör kollega idiot, låt oss skapa ett riktigt skit studie för att visa just det!”. Ta en titt på min äldre akupunktur inlägg för fler länkar och lite mer diskussion om varför gamla kinesisk medicin är ett slöseri med pengar. Självklart om du testar 15 människor du kan skrapa ihop ett positivt resultat för nästan vad som helst. Men när du börjar introducera större och mer strikt kontrollerade studier börjar de positiva effekterna att minska.
Löjlig. Och nu när jag tittar på det, mitt vetenskapsmässaprojekt i 8:e klass genomfördes med två uppsättningar kontroller, förblindad, och hade en provstorlek på 18 (antibakteriell effektivitet hos köksrengöringsmedel). Tack, Jag ska vänligen ta min position vid University of Cologne Medical Center nu.
A continuation of the aquamoth series, this time withvideo from Science Friday! Ja, I have to link it because wordpress won’t embed…Thanks 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. Emellertid, 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.
Dessa konstverk är att skapa Robert J. Bara. Chanserna är om du har sett en del vansinniga origami än de var hans skapelse. Ja, de är faktiskt gjorda av ett enda stycke av oklippt papper. Han ger veck mönstret för de flesta av hans konstruktioner, men faktiskt vika något från det mönstret måste vara nästan omöjligt utan att veta sekvensen. Det är mycket imponerande, men om du är lite latare, du kan klippa och vika ut dina egna enkla insekter istället.
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 (förlåt, it’s annoying but I couldn’t find it anywhere else) and read a response to the interview by Dr. Cognato, här. 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.
