From a peppermint Pericopinae. I recorded this video on-site in northern Costa Rica a few years ago. When I reached down to pick up this moth, it was hard to avoid noticing the behavior. The moth, Chetone angulosa (Erebidae: Pericopina) ((used to be Arctiidae)), has a common defensive mechanism for this group – they . . . → Read More: Moth Perfume
 5 comments - (Comments are closed)  Entomology  Butterflies, Defensive Behavior, Entomology, Hazards of Collecting, Lepidoptera, Moths Recently came across some ridiculously horrible taxonomy from China (.pdf). If you scroll down a bit you can see the english translation. At first glance this looks like a standard taxonomy paper with bare-bones species descriptions. You might even think to yourself, “huh, wonder why they are describing species from only one specimen”. Not the . . . → Read More: Taxonomy Fail Share this! 4 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Butterflies, Crank, Entomology, Lepidoptera, New Species I’ve been a bit remiss at posting regular challenges, so I’ll try to pick up the pace. Who can tell me anything about this butterfly? The most you’re getting is that it is from the Western half of the US. Credit for family, genus or species and ridiculous credit for subspecies and where it is . . . → Read More: Butterfly of the week Share this!(photo credit) The monarchs have started their spring migration north and you might even see one soon (not exciting if you live in FL or HI where there are year-round residents, or in CA where there are separate overwintering spots). Reports from their winter locations in Mexico however are dismal; with possibly the lowest . . . → Read More: Off with their heads! Share this! 2 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Barcoding, Butterflies, Conservation, DNA, Entomology, Lepidoptera, Monarch Published in the Santa Barbara News Press, Winter 2009. Who can tell me what’s wrong with these captions? Page scan credit: Stuart Wilson. Share this! 2 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Bad Science, Butterflies, Entomology, Lepidoptera, Media Not the typical butterfly – but this is the protein folding structure from a South American hemorrhagic fever – the Machupo virus. The article was found on Science Daily. A striking resemblance to a butterfly, maybe even a Hesperiidae (photo from Butterflies of America). . . . → Read More: Butterfly of the week Share this!
Know this butterfly? It’s OK, no one really does. It is in the genus Apodemia (Riodinidae), but the taxonomy of this group is a disaster… and don’t even get me started on the subspecies. This specimen was photographed in September, meaning it is most likely to be Apodemia mormo (mormo) based . . . → Read More: Stupid buttefly of the week Share this!Despite being pretty disinterested in butterflies, they are pretty to look at. Here is a really great video by a guy I know down in Southern CA. His time-lapse videos of lepidoptera life cycles are pretty impressive, and this one in particular is beautiful. If you cut to about 3:00 in, you will see dozens . . . → Read More: Time-lapse butterflies Share this! |
Skepticism |
