Reignite a hétfői Moth sorozat itt egy nagyszerű dolog: Melemaea cupcake (Araszolók).
Ez a ritka szépségű korábban csak már ismert, a szórvány településeken át a hegyen nyugatra és csak néhány egyed minden évszakban. That is until Denver Museum volunteer Barbara Bartell began inventorying moths on her property near Golden Gate Canyon State Park in the Rocky Mountain front range. Over 8,000′ these moths turn out to be a regular visitor at her cabin blacklight and we now have the largest series known of this stunning species (and all perfectly curated!).
Hagyja, hogy Denver össze a két dolog tökéletes ez a blog – rovartan és szkepticizmus! Ha még nem látta ezeket a filmeket, majd egy másodperc nézni a fenti videót. Legalábbis ez tűnik egy igazi jelenség, camera crews from the news station were able to record the very same effect. So what could they be?
I had an instantaneous recognition of what these UFOs were – flying insects, probably flies of some kind (Diptera) mating in the warm afternoon sun. It has been nice here in Denver and the hours around 1pm are always the warmest (strangely the same time the “UFOs” are most active). But it’s hard to tell with any degree of certainty what these objects are because of the way thatKDVR shows the clips. Odd angles, 2 second flashes, fast forward, super slow motion, super contrast… you only have fractions of a second to see the clip in real time. But when you do it seems so very obvious – and in my professional opinion – that these are insects.
Unfortunately they now have a quote from a Denver entomologist, Mary Ann Hamilton (misspelled as Mart on the KDVR website), saying these are not insects. Facepalm. I don’t know Mary and I certainly can’t blame her for being uncertain as to what these are after staring at the footage over and over and over again. In my opinion it was too hasty to rule out insects. Especially because once you enhance… enhance… és ENHANCEthe footage you being to lose all track of reality. The camera footage has recordedveryout of focus insects, and the very nature of optics means you have lost most of the information outside of the depth of field. And so enlarging and slowing down these images only makes this problem infinitely worse. The pixels become too large to render any meaningful information and an effect known aspareidoliastarts to kick in. Our brains start jumbling together often meaningless data into something recognizable. This is why people see a face on Mars, or rocket boosters coming out of the butts of these insects flying over Denver. And I don’t blame Mary for looking at some of these shiny objects whipping around in weird directions and not seeing insects. But perhaps KDVR could have requested an interview with someone at the Denver Museum (which they did not) – they would have been given an entomologist with much more field experience. I can’t say Mary is unqualified and I don’t mean any disrespect to her, but I don’t believe running a butterfly house is the same thing as being an active research entomologist.
This video is pretty excellent for explaining insect UFOs – although these are much larger insects than the ones captured above Denver.
And check out this cool video of a Syrphidae fly hovering in the sun – imagine these out of focus and hurtling around in front of the camera…
Az a nyár bizony elrepült, és el kell ismernem, hogy munkanélküli vagyok, tényleg gagyivá változtatta a termelékenységemet. De a jó hír az, hogy most költöztem át Denverbe egy rovartani állás miatt Denver Museum of Természet és tudomány! Adatbázis létrehozásán és rovarok fényképezésén fogok dolgozni a Southwest Collections of Arthropods Network számára (LETAPOGATÁS). Csodálatos visszatérni dolgozni, és úgy érzem, hogy egyre több blogolás következik… arról nem is beszélve, hogy ez az Egyesült Államok egyik legcsodálatosabb ökorégiója. Már most rengeteg módszert tervezek, hogy tavasszal kihasználhassam ezeket a hegyeket.
Tehát miért nem tesz egy rövid körutat új irodámban a kreacionista vackok szemüvegén keresztül. Jó emlékeztetni magam arra, hogy miért szeretek a tudományról beszélni.
Egy hétfői lepke homályos rózsaszínben – beleértve (Pávaszemek). Ezek a rózsás juharmolyok meglehetősen gyakoriak Illinois déli részén, de mindig megdöbbentő, amikor napvilágra kerülnek.
Not an uncommon moth, but a distinguished looking one. This isCatocala ilia (Erebidae) ((formerly Noctuidae)), and it feeds on a handful of Oaks. It came into my light over the weekend in Southern Illinois, down in the Trail of Tears State Forest. As with so many other moths this widespread species has a number of variations which may turn out to be distinct – pending a monograph of the species…
I’ve now banked a handful of nice moth images so expect more Monday moths! (even though this is a Friday moth).
A helyi híreket a legtöbb keleti Egyesült Államokban és Kanadában már remegve (van) Nemrég beszámoltak a betörése vörös admirális – Vörös admirális lepke. Bár ez egy gyakori eset minden tavasszal ezeket a pillangók vándorolnak észak felé az áttelelő okból, a dél-amerikai, A puszta számok ebben az évben megdöbbentő. Vannak a szó szoros értelmében több ezer admirális a mi hátsó udvarok.
Tehát mi más ebben az évben?
Van, hogy vajon miért a meleg tavaszi időjárás (legmelegebb márciusi rekordot sok helyen) és gyakran sok téves információ, hogy együtt haladjon néhány karosszék rovartan. A legtöbb hírforrások jöttem át azt a meleg tavaszi tette ezeket a lepkék is virágzik, és szaporodnak rendellenes számok. Ez nem is lehetséges azonban, V. atalanta telel egy felnőtt. A déli államok nyújtanak temps éppen elég meleg a felnőtt Vanessa lepkék, hogy elrejtse az ősszel, és a legelső, hogy felébressze a tavasszal, hogy egy ugrás kezdődik párzási. Még ha a lepkék ébren voltak februárban gazdanövény még nem voltak fel (bogáncsot); A pillangók a mi hátsó udvarok vannak a tavalyi.
De mi van, ha az időjárás nem játszanak szerepet ebben boom ciklus? Tavaly volt egy La Nina évben a mi szép és enyhe tél. A megelőző évben volt El Niño, a legtöbb kelet-amerikai volt, bántalmazta a téli és elszenvedett az epikus Chicago “snowpocalypse”. Talán ez a kombináció depressziós népességszámokat kellő 2010/2011 amely azután csökkent parazitoid terhelés, lehetővé téve a nagyobb általános pillangó termékenység nyarán 2011. Azok áttelelő lepkék ezután megadta a meleg tél, ami lehetővé tette az alacsonyabb téli halandóság. Mivel a lepkék költözött északra tavasszal nem volt fagyos éjszaka, hogy vágják populációk – Csak sok éhes madarak. Az eredmény az lenne abnormális beáramló vándorló lepkék.
Today’s moth is an understated brown Crambidae, Loxostege brunneitincta. While this isn’t a particularly captivating moth it does have an interesting story that illustrates the need for scientific collections and museum loans. If you read the label image you will notice the moth was originally collected in 1927 byÉs. P. Van Duzeein Truckee, HOGY. Van Duzee was a noted Hemipterist and a curator at the California Academy of Sciences for 24 years until his death in 1940. His collections of bugs (in the literal sense) alone totaled164,442 példányok, and like many entomologists Van Duzee collected everything he came across and likely added another 100,000 specimens to the museum of groups he wasn’t even studying. And so this little brown moth remained in the CAS until the 1970’s whenEugene Munroeborrowed specimens for his work on the genusLoxostege.The resulting 1976 fascicle described this species as new to science and even used this specimen as an illustration in the book. If you’re unfamiliar with the term paratype it’s a specimen from the series (excluding the holotype) that was used to describe that species. And while this particular moth doesn’t seem to be abundant, the genus does have some more notorious pests like the southern beet and alfalfawebworms. More often than not the pets themselves are well known but the genera they belong to might be enigmatic. But thanks in part to Van Duzee and many entomologists like him, Munroe was able to assemble a collection of specimens that would have taken decades (if not longer) to gather. And only with a sufficient collection is a comprehensive assessment of species possible.
On a brisk 37 degree morning in Northern Illinois I decided to dust off my camera and explore the progress of “spring”. I hitRollins Savanna Forest Preserveby 6:30A, just in time for first light to melt the patchy frost. A week and a half ago temps were pushing the upper 80’s and summer felt in full swing. In typical Chicago fashion things didn’t last long, the weather returned to its fickle spring form with storms and (what now seemed like) bitter cold.
Despite a 3 hour hike I only came across one butterfly – a red admiral, vörös admirális, and about a half-dozen dog ticks (Dermacentor sp.). Beggars can’t be choosers, there was hardly a single insect out. I might as well take photos of birds…
The very first and most abundant birds were the Tree Swallow, Tachycineta bicolor. These two were just greeting the dawn and stretching out their little legs. They seemed to be rather patient subjects, a good first-bird-to-ever-photograph!
A prairie isn’t complete without a chorus of Redwinged-Blackbirds.
Despite my best efforts this is one of the better Sandhill Crane images I could get. If you click through my Flickr set you’ll find one more, but sneaking up on them in the marsh was rather difficult. I don’t get birds yet…
This Coyote let me get pretty close, looks like they are fed well in suburbia.
Vissza a hétfő Lepkék! This beautiful insect isStiria dyari (Noctuidae) beszedett februári utazásként kívül Cataviña, Baja California Mexico. I believe the host plants are still unknown, but all of the moths in the genusStiriahave these brilliant yellow forewings that help camouflage them on the stem of a yellow flowered plant. Vannak 7 currently described species most of which are found in the SW United States and northern Mexico, de Stiria rugifronsmakes it into the great plains. All of the species have poorly defined and often overlapping ranges, not to mention the genitalia can highly variable. It’s very likely the final word has not been written about these beautiful noctuids quite yet.
Back from szünet, majd vissza a Genius a Press rovar-news-kudarc sorozat! Fresh off the presses from last year, A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK was shut down for a massive infestation of clothes moths. The picture shown here from“The Nation” story is a far cry from a proper clothes moth (Tineidae) – looks like a Noctuidae of some kind.
But it’s hard to blame them for getting this moth wrong when UK pest control companies don’t even know what a clothes moth is. Here isInstakil’s versionof “the moth” that happens to be a Plusiinae noctuid.
And the winner for failed identification goes to this other UK company “Hawk Force“. Not even a moth – but a skipper butterfly!
