크리스 Grinter 별, on April 19th, 2011
 Source: Wikipedia It turns out that Richard Branson has a new idea; to save the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) by importing them to his private British Virgin Island. As the article points out Branson spent millions of pounds and years of effort to turn the island into “the most ecologically friendly island in the world”. But it appears Mr Branson has decided to forgo conservation science and rewrite it in a more PR friendly way. In come the lemurs despite the cautions of his own ecological assessment because he wants “…to create a second island habitat and the conditions on Moskito are perfect.” Perhaps Branson has a bizarro world dictionary where the definition of the word perfect is “something completely dissimilar from the original”.
OK sure, at first the idea sounds like a fine one – the lemurs are endangered, why not try to give them a second wild refuge? 잘, Dr James Lazell of the Conservation Agency has had 31 years experience in the Virgin Islands and has pointed out that “Lemurs are agile, dexterous, aggressive, omnivorous animals that could have a detrimental effect on these simple island ecologies. They eat absolutely everything – lizards, fruit, roots, 곤충, birds’ eggs.” Oh but don’t worry, nothing bad can happen when you introduce primates to an island (introduced primates devastate Florida Key). Branson knows that the lemurs will only “take the odd gecko” (like the rare endemic dwarf-gecko Sphaerodactylus parthenopion), not to mention they probably won’t spread to other islands since they “hate swimming” (ring tailed lemur swimming).
So why then the ring-tailed? Not because it is the most endangered (있다 lots of other more endangered lemurs), but because it is the most iconic. That is what really drives me up the wall about this ridiculous idea. Not only is he naively introducing a possibly invasive species into a sensitive island habitat – but because he is spreading a false message of conservation. Like a slow child Branson has rushed to the ring-tailed to save it while completely missing the entire idea behind conservation. The ring-tailed is a flagship species, one that draws attention to the devastation that is occurring in Madagascar. One cute cuddly animal to represent the staggeringly unique and diverse habitats of its homeland. But not if Richard Branson has anything to say about it. Why bother protect Madagascar when you can swoop in and create a new home for a primate everyone loves? 휴, crisis averted. Richard fiddles while Madagascar burns.
I suspect this freakish island zoo is simply masquerading as conservation and the real incentive behind it is commercial. Over the next few years there will be a handful of “luxury, carbon-neutral homes built on the island”. A pretty brilliant scheme to incentivize the purchase of homes that undoubtedly will cost tens of millions of dollars each – and you can pretend to feel good about protecting the world while you do it. After all the Virgin Islands lack any charismatic wildlife; nature sure does a terrible job of creating a billionaires wonderland. What comes next to the island?
Maybe… just maybe… Branson has Dr. Moreau moving in first.
크리스 Grinter 별, 4 월 제 18에, 2011 몇 주 전 나는 주말에 필드에 버클리 곤충학 클래스를 초대했다. Our destination was the 블루 오크 목장 준비 제도 이사회; 마운트 해밀턴에 그냥 샌 호세의 외부에있는 캘리포니아 대학의 시스템에 최신 보유 중 하나 (아래지도). It was a joint spider and beetle class trip, hosted by Charles Griswold 과 Dave Kavanaugh respectively. And despite a frost on Saturday night we managed to find some interesting insects. You’ve already seen my images of the Scaphinotus (Carabidae), but here is a larger set of images from both myself and colleague and fellow blogger 타마스 SZUTA.
 Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae?  Pholcidae : likely Pholcus sp.  Salticidae: Phidippus sp. Continue reading Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
크리스 Grinter 별, on April 6th, 2011 확인 – a few apologies for not having full images *yet* of the larvae in question (I will in a few days!). Over the weekend I was out with a group of Berkeley students on Mount Hamilton and PhD candidate Meghan Culpepper collected a few species of Scaphinotus and a some larvae! So the specimen from Monday was indeed the larvae of a Scaphinotus beetle feasting inside the shell of a native terrestrial snail. This challenge was a hard one since these predatory Scaphinotus larvae are rarely encountered and there are zero images of out there – and none of them feeding. Better luck next time!
For now, here is an undetermined Scaphinotus species. In the coming weeks I will have 4-5 species photographed and identified (by Meghan) – and the larvae will have to be sequenced for species ID. 계속 지켜봐 주세요.
크리스 Grinter 별, 4 월 4에, 2011 
반면 전날 분야에서 눈에이 사람을 가로 질러왔다, 여기 무슨 일이야? 주문 / 가족 / 속 수여 포인트 – 하지만이 그룹의 전문가도 아직 그 종을 알아낼 수 없습니다.
(추측이 올 때까지 나와 함께 필드에있는 모든 사람은 자신의 의견을 보유해야!)
크리스 Grinter 별, 3월 30일, 2011  라시아 클레티: 에이프릴 노빌의 사진, 사례
대부분의 경우 파리는 내가 지나치게 흥분하는 곤충이 아닙니다.. 그러나, 수수께끼의 가족 Acroceridae는 예외입니다. 나는 때때로 흥미로운 속을 공유하기 시작할 것입니다 – 가족의 형태는 놀랍도록 다양합니다.. Most of my days are spent at the museum inventorying our massive collection of over 16,000 Acorcerids (aka small-headed flies). That may not sound all too impressive when you compare it to other more abundant families (and it does pale in comparison to the over 17,500,000 other specimens we do have in the museum); but it turns out to represent many, if not most, 의 모든 known specimens for the entire family. While there are likely large assemblages of these flies in other institutions, the California Academy of Sciences can easily claim the record ever since receiving the collection of Dr. Evert I. Schlinger (who occasionally comes in to work from the museum).
Acrocerids turn out to be a rather difficult group to study because of how rare they are in nature, their parasitoid biology, and how difficult they can be to catch on the wing. Their large thorax is packed with muscles that rocket the fly through the air – so if you don’t catch them at a flower you’re left longing for a Malaise trap. Ev did tell me one story of learning to catch these on the wing in Costa Rica. You stand downwind from a colleague in the field – as soon as someone hears something zip past, you swing wildly hoping to snare the fly by chance… it does work every once in a while. 이 파리는 또한 성체 거미의 유일한 내부 기생충으로 알려져 있습니다. (Tachinid의 기록이있을 수 있습니다…). 위의 속, 네오라시아, Theraphosid tarantulas의 기생충입니다. (뭔가 아포노펠마). 유충처럼 파리는 거미의 다리 위로 올라가서 복부로 파고들어가 책 폐 옆에 정착하고 작은 호흡 구멍을 냅니다.. 그런 다음 거미가 거의 성숙할 때까지 참을성 있게 기다립니다.. 암컷 타란툴라와 함께, 파리는 수십 년 동안 휴면 상태가 될 수 있습니다.. 결국 영화 Aliens와 유사한 일이 발생하고 유충이 거미의 내부 장기를 먹고 번데기로 나타납니다.. 그러나 거미가 기생충을 가지고 있는지 여부를 알아내는 것은 해부 없이는 불가능합니다 – 따라서 호스트 기록을 얻으려면 살아있는 거미의 대규모 컬렉션을 유지 관리해야 합니다.. Parasitoid biology is just so cool.
The above specimen (라시아 클레티 a new, unnamed, 종) was collected in 1977 by Schlinger near the town of Alamos, 멕시코 – on flowers with the likely mimic model, a Chrysomelidae beetle (beetle people, any ideas beyond family?).
크리스 Grinter 별, 3월 24일, 2011 Better be careful of what you do while out in the countryside. Farms can be dangerous places, especially if you’re a photographer. Proposed legislation in Florida, titled simply “farms”, is attempting to make photography or drawings in, on or 의 a farm without explicit written consent a first degree FELONY (최대 30 years in prison). What could possibly be the justification for this legislation? Journalist Barry Doyle suggests the good Senator is tightly in the pockets of Agribusiness – looking out for those poor farmers who are targeted by animal rights groups or even worse – human rights groups! I tend to concur, this legislation is a disgusting piece of corruption. It gets pretty bad:
(2) A person who photographs, video records, or otherwise produces images or pictorial records, digital or otherwise, at or of a farm or other property where legitimate agriculture operations are being conducted without the written consent of the owner, or an authorized representative of the owner, commits a felony of the first degree…
I strongly encourage any of my Florida readers to write to Senator Norman and express your absolute disgust in his legislation.
14031 엔. Dale Mabry Blvd.
Tampa, 플로리다 33618
(813) 265-6260
Senate VOIP: 41200
I also encourage everyone else everywhere else to write to your US representative and exclaim your outrage over this possible violation of first amendment rights (only a proposed violation at this moment).
And just for good measure, here is a bad cellphone picture I took while in Oregon with lots of farms.
크리스 Grinter 별, on March 22nd, 2011 Usually I come across horrible entomology articles regularly enough that I save a backlog for future series. This hasn’t been the case over the last few weeks, I haven’t come across the normal array of terrible media crud. Maybe I just get jaded and stop looking as carefully – but this week I even came across a moth related correction from the Maui News. They fixed their error, but must have deleted the original article…
And for this week I found 이 문서 with the image below. Should be pretty easy to spot the weirdness (그들은 do at least manage to point out that the moth is 아니 the LBAM (light brown apple moth)).
크리스 Grinter 별, 3월 18일에, 2011 
아마도 세계에서 아메리카 들소를 찾을 수 있는 유일한 곳일 것입니다. (대. 물소) 야자수 옆 해변 근처에 서서. Santa Catalina에서의 일주일은 멋진 한 주였습니다., 그리고 계절에 맞지 않는 서리가 몇 개 있는 시원한 봄에도 불구하고, 괜찮은 수집이 완료되었습니다. 여기 몇 가지 재미있는 이미지가 있으며 한 가지를 바로 알아차릴 수 있습니다.: 야생화 밭이 없다! 그것이 밝혀지면서, 거의 한 세기의 염소, 돼지와 들소 방목은 섬에 대부분 풀과 선인장을 남겼습니다. 어느 순간 끝났다. 1000 들소와 수많은 염소 떼; 무엇이든 살아남은 것이 놀랍습니다! 오늘, 고맙게도 산아제한을 하고 있는 들소는 200마리 정도밖에 남지 않았습니다. (당신은 그것을 추측, 당신은 사람들 때문에 망할 물건을 쏠 수 없습니다 “사랑” 그들을 – 자를 수 없는 어리석은 유칼립투스처럼). 에 1924 작은 들소가 영화를 촬영하기 위해 데려왔다. 배니싱 아메리칸. 당연히, 프로젝트가 예산을 초과했습니다, 그 장면은 잘렸고 동물들은 집으로 돌아가기 위해 돈을 지불하는 대신 풀려났습니다.. 80 몇 년 후 당신은 오직 싸울 수 있는 섬만 남게 됩니다. “보존” 복원하지 않고. 슬픈 사실은 섬이 실제로 어땠는지 알 수 없다는 것입니다.. 고유종 섬여우라는 가설도 있다. (그 중 우리가 본 6!) 수천 년 전 이웃 섬에서 원주민에 의해. 환경을 어지럽히는 것이 우리의 본성인 것 같아요.
위에서 사진을 찍다보니, 이 짐승은 내 뒤에 걸어왔다. 실행되지 않았습니다, 나는 ~이었다!
크리스 Grinter 별, on March 8th, 2011 [cetsEmbedGmap src=http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.393039,-118.416824&spn=0.359452,0.715485&t=h&z=11 width=600 height=330 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=auto]
Tomorrow morning I’m off for a 10 day collecting trip down to Catalina Island. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to join Dr. Jerry Powell of UC Berkeley on a moth survey, and this will be my first time to any of the islands. The Channel Islands are known for their high levels of endemism, and none is more famous than the Channel Island Fox. There are also a handful of endemic butterflies and moths that I’ll be hoping to find, but at the very least I know it’s wildflower season and I’ve got my camera primed.
I will likely have little or no access to the internet while staying on the island, so hang tight for a week. Had I planned ahead I would have scheduled posts or a guest author! Please do stay tuned for some of my first images of the 2011 field season.
크리스 Grinter 별, 3 월 3 일에, 2011 
분명히 something in the Mazda 6 fuel line is warm and inviting for the yellow sac spider, 그들은 환기 시스템 위에 웹을 구축하기에 충분합니다. 4 실린더 차량 (그리고 아니라 6!). 문제가 간주되었습니다 “거미 침입” 자동차 회사에서, and the clogged vent lines then can lead to a cracked gas tank and the possibility of a fire.
“A certain type of spider may weave a web in the evaporative canister vent line and this may cause a restriction of the line”
So far only 20 cases are confirmed, but this problem is prolific enough that it has lead to a recall of over 52,000 sedans! I think it’s high time the major car companies hire entomology consultants – 결국, my retainer would be a lot less than the cost of that recall…
I consulted with our resident team of arachnologists here at the 사례, and the above image does appear to be a sac spider. It’s too hard to tell from the image, but it’s probably not an egregious taxonomic failure.
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