Les actualitzacions dels mapes i percentatges de contenció s'han fet al meu post anterior. Aquí està un mapa de la quarta foc que crema al sud-est d'Arizona, la Monument fire. Aquest és només 10% 17% 15% 27% contained and is burning in the southern end of the Huachuca Mountains into Mexico. I also just received the sad news that the home of Noel McFarland has been claimed by the fire. Noel is a well known and respected entomologist who has made a massive impact in the moth field. While I don’t have the full details (and I don’t believe anyone has been injured by this blaze); it is likely that his landmark collection of hundreds of thousands of Lepidoptera has been lost. I wish Noel the best of luck, and can only hope the loss was not total.
Com s'acosta juliol em sent d'esperar a la reunió de la Costa del Pacífic dels Lepidopterists’ Societat. Aquest any es durà a terme a Prescott Arizona, sobre 2 hores al nord de Phoenix. And as of this moment it is one of the few places in Arizonanoon fire. I’m sure you have all heard of the massive fires right now, but here is an update from a slightly biological standpoint. Most importantly we should all be thankful for the firefighters risking their lives to battle these wildfires.
For some reason I couldn’t link to the interactive maps directly from the InciWeb site, but please follow the links to explore further. While there are good interactive maps of these fires on Google Maps, they are a few days old. Below are screen-captures of maps less than 12 hours old.
Foc 1:The biggest one, The Wallow Fire és 20% 29% contained, human caused and has been burning for over 15 dia. I had been hoping to go collecting around the town of Greer and Alpine, but both have fire quickly encroaching. The White Mountains region of Arizona is a fascinating blend zone between southern desert species and Rocky Mountain ones – the rare moth I was hoping to find here, Alexicles aspersa, will likely evade me yet again this year.
He sabut per un temps que els escarabats i altres invertits en ocasions tenen els vertebrats en el seu menú, però jo no sabia realment què tan gran d'un animal que podria sotmetre a! Fins i tot quan la mantis estranya agafa un colibrí la diferència de mida no és tan substancial com es mostra a continuació. Aquest impressionant vídeo va ser publicat recentment a la línia gratuïta revista ZooKeys.
Aquí hi ha una de les figures del paper, il·lustrant més escarabats que s'alimenten de múltiples espècies d'amfibis!
Gil Wizen, Avital Gasith (2011). La depredació dels amfibis per coleòpters del gènere Epomis troba a la plana costanera central d'Israel ZooKeys, 100, 181-191 : DOI:10.3897/zookeys.100.1526
Whoops, és gairebé dimarts! Above isSchinia ligeae(Noctuidae) resting on its host plantXylorhiza tortifolia, la Mojave Aster. I photographed this about three weeks ago outside the town ofBig Pine, Califòrnia. Els aster eren gruixudes a les valls els cims nevats de Sierra, i les arnes eren abundants. Somehow these medium-sizedSchinia get away with being conspicuous and lazy, you don’t even need a net to collect them. Just walk up and tip them into a jar – I guess the pressure to evolve a more cryptic or evasive behavior is lacking.
Speaking of conspicuously lazy, I have been gone for much of May and hence the lull in blogging. Now that the weddings and spring field season are over, I’ll be back at the desk and back to blogging!
Per a les pròximes tres setmanes meus col·legues del laboratori Aracnologia a l'Acadèmia de Ciències de Califòrnia estan a Filipines! (no, no és gelós en absolut…) El viatge és part de l'expedició CAS Hearst, a massive effort spanning all of our research departments to survey the deep seas, shallow seas and terrestrial environment of Luzon. dr. Charles Griswold brought two of his PhD students – Hannah Wood and Natalia Chousou Polydouri – to help collect spiders and insects. Particularly, I’m looking forward to the Lepidoptera that Natalia will be bringing back! (I gave her a quick course on field collecting moths). Sadly I’m not there to photograph and collect this diversity myself; but we can all watch enviously as the teams post updates on their progress over the next monthon the expedition blog. There are already lots of great entries and images from the aquatic people – stay tuned for the insects.
Who can tell me what’s wrong below? Not only is it the obvious photo problem, but the author of the article takes some logical leaps to support his premise. Who can tell me what his logical fallacies are? I won’t link to the entire article quite yet because a well known Lepidopterist has already commented – so resist googling the article for the easy answer.
El nou al web aquesta setmana és un excel·lent recurs sobre el Mecoptera d'Amèrica del Nord. dr. Norm Penny ha elaborat una guia il·lustrada de totes les espècies nord-americanes amb imatges d'habitus i genitals. Encara que no sigui molt divers, els Mecoptera demostren ser un grup enigmàtic i fascinant. Preneu-vos un moment per explorar el lloc i identificar els vostres exemplars!
Igual que molts altres animals urbans, la papallona blava Missió (Icarioides plebees missionensis) és un que està en perill greu. Aquest petit vides blaus en petits fragments d'hàbitat juntament amb diversos milions de dòlars en el desenvolupament i al voltant de la badia de San Francisco. A century ago this butterfly was already starting to decline, with hundreds of acres of beautiful seaside morphing into sprawl. Today the coastal sage scrub has nearly vanished and what little remains is infested with invasive plants and animals.
The Mission Blue was one of the first animals listed on the Endangered Species Act, acchieving offical protection in 1976. Efforts over the last few years have focused onrestoring the habitat and the bluewithin it – with limited success. Abans 2009 the last blue seen within the city limits was on Twin Peaks in 1997 (and possibly the 1970’s before that). Today the SF Recreation and Parks Department along with Bay Nature has somewhat re-established the Mission Blue on Twin Peaks from healthier populations in the Marin Headlands and San Bruno Mountain (the only other locations the butterfly is known from). I believe last year they had around 30 individuals flying on Twin Peaks. This year the numbers are down, but on Friday I found three females ovipositing on lupine – while these females were probably transplanted a few weeks ago, it is hope for the future. Unfortunately the only males I saw were up in the Marin Headlands – and hopefully males were seen on Twin Peaks this year (pending 2011 data).
Not surprisingly, it turns out that reintroducing a species is a complicated game. The Mission Blue utilizes three host lupine species, Lupinus albifrons, formosus andvariicolor. Yet maintaining these native species amongst the invasives requires radical measures including heavily applications of herbicides (against fennel, pampas grass and french broom – but including 136 other invasive plants (Marin Flora)). It is unknown what effect the herbicides have on developing larvae (només 17% successfrom egg to caterpillar) or what it does to native ant populations that tend the caterpillars of the blue. Without native ants the caterpillars are much more likely to be predated, but even native ants are falling to the invading hoards of Argentine ants. And yet another key player is a newly found fungus that is killing lupine plants – devastating butterfly numbers in 2010.
Si compareu aquesta subespècie amb altres membres de la icarioides complex hi ha una notable diferència d'abundància. Plebejus i. moroensis de la costa central hi ha una papallona increïblement abundant dins d'un bon hàbitat. Està molt restringit, però sense enfrontar-se a les dificultats que té la Mission Blue. Guardo l'esperança d'un dels nostres últims blues de San Francisco – si es poden controlar les espècies invasores – no anirà pel camí del Xerces.
Ho sento pel temps d'inactivitat rar durant els últims dos dies – la Xarxa de Southern Fried ha experimentat un creixement meravellós que ha gravat severament nostres servidors. Aquest alt trànsit va passar a correspondre amb un moviment dels nostres servidors físics l'amfitrió estava duent a terme. El resultat van ser fitxers danyats que van acabar amb la suspensió del nostre compte.
Problema solucionat! Còpia de seguretat de pàgines, compte actualitzat, les coses haurien d'anar més ràpid que mai. Encara tinc problemes per resoldre les meves pàgines – potser en notareu algun 404 errors until I figure out what’s going on with those…
Tothom coneix el famós falcó del cap de la mort, però crec que és una pena que hem popularitzat un personatge tan fosc. L'anterior és un molt més alegre Neotropical Arctiinae des de la Guaiana francesa que sembla que s'està lluint una cara de pallasso. Lamentablement això no és el meu fotografia, però hauríeu de prendre un moment per explorar Els lepidòpters de França lloc web. Les seves fotos de les seves expedicions anuals em fan gelosa!
