Ak chcete znova naštartovať sériu pondelok Moth tu je kráska: Melemaea cupcake (Píďalkovití).
Táto vzácna krása bola predtým známa až z roztrúsených lokalít cez horské západ a len z niekoľkých málo jedincov každý druhý sezóna. 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!).
Nechajte to na Denveri spojiť dve veci, ideálne pre tento blog – entomológia a skepsa! Ak ste ho ešte nevideli tieto klipy potom chvíľu sa pozerať na video. Prinajmenšom to vyzerá, že je skutočný fenomén, 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… a 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, naozajturned my productivity into crap. But the good news is that I’ve just relocated to Denver for a job in entomology at theDenver Museum of Nature a Science! 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.
A Monday moth in fuzzy pink – includens (Saturniidae). These rosy maple moths are pretty common in southern Illinois, but always a stunner when they come to light.
Nie je to nezvyčajný mol, ale výnimočne vyzerajúci. Toto je catocala ilia (Erebidae) ((predtým Noctuidae)), a živí sa hŕstkou Dubov. Dostalo sa na mňa cez víkend v južnom Illinois, dole v Štátnom lese Trail of Tears. Rovnako ako u mnohých iných molí má tento rozšírený druh množstvo variácií, ktoré sa môžu ukázať ako odlišné – čaká sa na monografiu druhu…
Teraz som uložil niekoľko pekných obrázkov molí, takže očakávajte viac pondelkových molí! (aj keď je to piatkový mesiac).
The local news for most of the eastern US and Canada has been aflutter (má) recently with reports of the irruption ofVanessa atalanta – the Red Admiral butterfly. While this is a common occurrence every spring for these butterflies to migrate north from their overwintering grounds in the southern US, Čísla v tomto roku sú ohromujúce. Na našich dvoroch sú doslova tisíce admirálov.
Čo je teda tento rok iné?
Veľa sa špekuluje o teplom jarnom počasí (najteplejší marec v histórii na mnohých miestach) a často veľa dezinformácií spolu s nejakou entomológiou kresla. Väčšina spravodajských zdrojov, s ktorými som sa stretol, hovorí, že teplá jar umožnila týmto motýľom prekvitať a množiť sa v abnormálnom počte. To však nie je celkom možné, V. atalantaoverwinters as anadult. The southern states provide temps just warm enough for adultVanessabutterflies to hide in the fall and be the very first to awaken in the spring to get a jump start on mating. Aj keď boli motýle vo februári hore, hostiteľské rastliny ešte neboli hore (bodliaky); motýle na našich dvoroch sú z minulého roka.
Ale čo ak počasie zohralo úlohu v tomto cykle boomu?? Minulý rok bol rokom La Niña s našou krásnou a miernou zimou. Rok predtým bol El Niňo, most of the eastern US was assaulted with winter and we suffered at the hands of the epic Chicago “snowpocalypse”. Možno táto kombinácia dostatočne znížila počet obyvateľov 2010/2011 čo potom znížilo parazitoidnú záťaž, čo umožňuje väčšiu celkovú plodnosť motýľov v lete 2011. Prezimujúcim motýľom bola potom poskytnutá teplá zima, ktorá mohla umožniť nižšiu zimnú úmrtnosť. As the butterflies moved north this spring there were no frosty nights to cut into populations – just lots of hungry birds. Výsledkom by bol abnormálny prílev migrujúcich motýľov.
Dnešný mol je podhodnotený hnedý Crambidae, Loxostege brunneitincta. Aj keď to nie je nijako zvlášť strhujúci motýľ, má zaujímavý príbeh, ktorý ilustruje potrebu vedeckých zbierok a múzejných pôžičiek.. Ak si prečítate obrázok na štítku, všimnete si, že mora bola pôvodne zhromaždená v 1927 podľa E. 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 vzorky, 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.
Svižne 37 stupňa ráno v Severnom Illinois som sa rozhodol oprášiť svoj fotoaparát a preskúmať postup “jar”. trafil som Lesná rezervácia Rollins Savanna podľa 6:30na, práve včas, aby prvé svetlo roztopilo škvrnitý mráz. Pred týždňom a pol sa teploty posúvali do vyšších 80-tych rokov a leto bolo v plnom prúde. V typickej móde v Chicagu veci netrvali dlho, počasie sa vrátilo do svojej vrtkavej jarnej podoby s búrkami a (čo sa teraz zdalo) štipľavý chlad.
Napriek a 3 hodinová túra Natrafil som len na jedného motýľa – červený admirál, Vanessa atalanta, a asi pol tucta psích kliešťov (Dermacentor sp.). Žobráci si nemôžu vyberať, Vonku nebol takmer jediný hmyz. Mohol by som aj fotiť vtáky…
Úplne prvými a najhojnejšími vtákmi boli lastovička stromová, Tachycineta dvojfarebná. Títo dvaja práve vítali úsvit a naťahovali svoje nožičky. Zdalo sa, že sú dosť trpezliví, dobrá fotografia prvého vtáka vôbec!
Préria nie je úplná bez zboru Redwinged-Blackbirds.
Napriek môjmu najlepšiemu úsiliu je to jeden z najlepších obrázkov Sandhill Crane, aké som mohol získať. Ak sa preklikáte cez moju súpravu Flickr, nájdete ešte jednu, ale priplížiť sa k nim v močiari bolo dosť ťažké. Vtáky zatiaľ neberiem…
Tento Kojot mi umožnil priblížiť sa, Vyzerá to, že na predmestí sú dobre kŕmené.
Späť na pondelkové mora! This beautiful insect isStiria dyari (Noctuidae) zhromažďujú na výlet februára mimo Catavina, Baja California Mexiko. Domnievam sa, že hostiteľské rastliny sú stále neznáme, but all of the moths in the genusStiriahave these brilliant yellow forewings that help camouflage them on the stem of a yellow flowered plant. Existuje 7 currently described species most of which are found in the SW United States and northern Mexico, ale 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.
Späť z prestávky a späť k sérii hmyzích správ o zlyhaní Genius of the Press! Čerstvé z tlače z minulého roka, ministerstvo životného prostredia, Potravinárske a vidiecke záležitosti v Spojenom kráľovstve boli zatvorené pre masívne zamorenie šatových molí. Tu zobrazený obrázok z “Národ” príbeh má ďaleko od poriadneho šatového mola (Tineidae) – vyzerá ako nejaký druh Noctuidae.
Ale je ťažké viniť ich za to, že sa mýlili, keď britské spoločnosti na ničenie škodcov ani nevedia, čo je to mol. Tu je Instakilova verzia z “motýľ” to je zhodou okolností Plusiinae noctuid.
A víťazom neúspešnej identifikácie je táto iná britská spoločnosť “Hawk Force“. Dokonca ani mol – ale motýľ skipper!
