このまれな美しさは、以前は数個体から西だけ山に散在地域から他のすべてのシーズンを知られている. 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!).
That summer sure flew by, and I have to admit that being unemployed really, 本当にturned my productivity into crap. But the good news is that I’ve just relocated to Denver for a job in entomology at theデンバー自然科学博物館! I’ll be working on databasing and photographing insects for the Southwest Collections of Arthropods Network (SCAN). It’s wonderful to be back to work and I’m feeling a lot more blogging coming on… not to mention this is one of the most amazing ecoregions in the United States. I am already plotting lots of ways to take advantage of these mountains in the spring.
So why not take a brief tour of my new office through the looking glass of creationist wackos. It’s nice to remind myself why I love talking about science.
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 Preserveバイ 6:30に, 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, ヴァネッサアタランタ, 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.
Back to the Monday Moth! This beautiful insect isStiria dyari (ヤガ科) collected on a February trip outside of 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. があります 7 currently described species most of which are found in the SW United States and northern Mexico, しかし 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.
バック裂孔から、バックプレス昆虫ニュース障害シリーズの天才へ! 昨年からのプレスオフ新鮮, 環境のための学科, 英国での食品·農村地域省は、衣服蛾の大規模な侵入のために閉鎖された. ここに示した絵 “ネイション” 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 version の “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!