Updates to the maps and containment percentages have been made to my earlier post. Here is a map of the 4th fire burning in SE Arizona, theMonument fire. This one is only10% 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.
I’ve known for a while that beetles and other inverts occasionally have vertebrates on their menu, but I didn’t really know how large of an animal they could subdue! Even when the odd mantis grabs a hummingbird the size difference is not as substantial as is shown below. This impressive video was published recently in the free onlinejournal Zookeys.
Here is one of the figures from the paper, illustrating more beetles feeding on multiple species of Amphibians!
Gil Wizen, Avital Gasith (2011). Predation of amphibians by carabid beetles of the genus Epomis found in the central coastal plain of IsraelZookeys, 100, 181-191 : ดอย:10.3897/zookeys.100.1526
อ๊ะ, it’s almost Tuesday! Above isSchinia ligeae(Noctuidae) resting on its host plantXylorhiza tortifolia, theMojave Aster. I photographed this about three weeks ago outside the town ofBig Pine, รัฐแคลิฟอร์เนีย. The asters were thick in the valleys below the snow capped Sierra, and the moths were abundant. Somehow these medium-sizedSchiniaget 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!
For the next three weeks my colleagues from the Arachnology lab at the California Academy of Sciences are in the Philippines! (no, not jealous at all…) The trip is part of the CAS Hearst expedition, a massive effort spanning all of our research departments to survey the deep seas, shallow seas and terrestrial environment of Luzon. ดร.. 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.
ขออภัยสำหรับการหยุดทำงานแปลกในช่วงสองวันที่ – ผัดเครือข่ายภาคใต้ได้รับการประสบการเจริญเติบโตที่ยอดเยี่ยมที่ได้รับการเก็บภาษีอย่างรุนแรงเซิร์ฟเวอร์ของเรา. การจราจรสูงนี้เกิดขึ้นเพื่อให้สอดคล้องกับการย้ายของเซิร์ฟเวอร์ทางกายภาพของเราเป็นเจ้าภาพได้รับการดำเนินการ. The result was corrupted files that ended with our account placed on suspension.
Problem fixed! Pages back up, account upgraded, things should be running faster than ever. I’m still having problems resolving my pages – you might notice some 404 errors until I figure out what’s going on with those…
