Para reacender a segunda-feira série traça aqui é um galã: Melemaea Madalena (Geometridae).
Esta rara beleza anteriormente só foi conhecido a partir de localidades espalhadas por todo o oeste da montanha e apenas de alguns indivíduos a cada temporada outros. Isso até que a voluntária do Denver Museum, Barbara Bartell, começou a inventariar mariposas em sua propriedade perto do Golden Gate Canyon State Park, na cordilheira das Montanhas Rochosas.. Mais de 8.000′ essas mariposas acabam sendo um visitante regular em sua cabine blacklight e agora temos a maior série conhecida desta espécie impressionante (e tudo perfeitamente curado!).
Leave it to Denver to combine two things perfect for this blog – entomology and skepticism! If you haven’t seen these clips then take a second to watch the video above. At the very least this appears to be a real phenomenon, 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… e 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…
That summer sure flew by, and I have to admit that being unemployed really, realmenteturned my productivity into crap. But the good news is that I’ve just relocated to Denver for a job in entomology at theMuseu da Natureza e Ciência de Denver! 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.
Uma traça segunda-feira em rosa felpudo – includens (Saturniidae). Essas mariposas bordo rosadas são bastante comuns no sul de Illinois, mas sempre um stunner quando eles vêm à tona.
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).
As notícias locais para a maior parte do leste dos EUA e Canadá estão agitadas (ele tem) recentemente com relatos da irrupção de Vanessa atalanta – a borboleta Almirante Vermelho. Embora esta seja uma ocorrência comum a cada primavera para essas borboletas migrarem para o norte de seus locais de invernada no sul dos EUA, os números absolutos deste ano são surpreendentes. Existem literalmente milhares de almirantes em nossos quintais.
Então, o que é diferente este ano?
Há muita especulação sobre o clima quente da primavera (o março mais quente já registrado para muitos lugares) e muitas vezes muita desinformação para acompanhar alguma entomologia de poltrona. A maioria das fontes de notícias que encontrei dizem que a primavera quente permitiu que essas borboletas florescessem e se reproduzissem em números anormais. Isso não é bem possível, no entanto, V. atalanta hiberna como um adulto. Os estados do sul fornecem temperaturas apenas quentes o suficiente para adultos Vanessa borboletas para se esconder no outono e ser o primeiro a acordar na primavera para dar um salto no acasalamento. Mesmo se as borboletas estivessem acordadas em fevereiro, as plantas hospedeiras ainda não estavam no ar (cardos); as borboletas em nossos quintais são do ano passado.
Mas e se o clima desempenhasse um papel neste ciclo de expansão? O ano passado foi um ano La Niña com nosso inverno lindo e ameno. O ano anterior foi um El Niño, a maior parte do leste dos EUA foi assaltada com o inverno e sofremos nas mãos do épico Chicago “nevasca”. Talvez esta combinação tenha deprimido suficientemente os números da população em 2010/2011 que então diminuiu a carga parasitóide, permitindo maior fecundidade geral das borboletas no verão de 2011. Essas borboletas durante o inverno receberam então um inverno quente que poderia ter permitido uma mortalidade de inverno mais baixa. Como as borboletas para o norte nesta primavera não houve noites geladas de cortar em populações – apenas lotes de aves com fome. O resultado seria um influxo anormal de borboletas migratórias.
Traça de hoje é um discreto marrom Crambidae, Loxostege brunneitincta. Enquanto isso não é uma mariposa particularmente cativante ele tem uma história interessante que ilustra a necessidade de coleções científicas e empréstimos de museus. Se você ler a imagem da etiqueta, você irá notar a traça foi originalmente coletadas em 1927 byE. P. Van Duzeein Truckee, CA. 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 espécimes, 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 6:30no, 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, Vanessa atalanta, 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.
De volta para a segunda-feira Traça! Este belo inseto é Styria dyari (Noctuidae) coletados em uma viagem de fevereiro fora de Catavina, Baja California México. Acredito que as plantas hospedeiras ainda são desconhecidas, , mas todas as traças do género Styria estas têm asas dianteiras amarelas brilhantes que ajudam os camuflar no caule de uma planta de flor amarelo. Tem 7 espécies atualmente descritas a maioria dos quais são encontrados no SW Estados Unidos e norte do México, mas Rugifrons Stiria torna-lo em grandes planícies. Todas as espécies foram mal definidos e, muitas vezes sobreposição de intervalos, para não mencionar os órgãos genitais pode altamente variável. É muito provável que a palavra final não tenha sido escrito sobre estas belas noctuídeos muito ainda.
Back from hiatus and back to the Genius of the Press insect-news-failure series! Fresh off the presses from last year, the 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!
