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
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It was a beautiful day today in the bay area, so I headed up to Napa and the Pope Valley. I was scouting some new territory for a small flower moth, Heliolonche celeris, that apparently is waiting for more contiguous nice weather to emerge. This season has been a bit tardy because of all of . . . → Read More: Moth tasting in Napa Share this!Another installment of Genius of the Press, and perhaps a bit of a softball. (Yikes these are easy to find) Who can tell me whats wrong with this article? Share this!The clouds broke this afternoon in San Francisco and the sun began to shine. The upcoming warm weather induced an all too familiar feeling, one that I should be out collecting insects and not sitting indoors! While I have already been to a handful of places this spring, I have a long season of collecting . . . → Read More: I may drive too much Share this! 5 comments - (Comments are closed)  Entomology  Collecting, Entomology, Hazards of Collecting, Lepidoptera, Moths, New Species A continuation of the aquamoth series, this time with video from Science Friday! Yes, I have to link it because wordpress won’t embed… Thanks Ted, figured it out! Share this!A few images from my weekend mothing trip down to Shell Creek, San Luis Obispo County. Early spring along the central coast is stunning, and the back roads were packed with flower watchers. There were dozens of cars occupied by families out for a weekend drive, many had packed lunches and sat to watch the . . . → Read More: Rivers of Gold Share this!I came across the full-text PDF of the amphibious moth article and extracted the tree showing the radiation of this species group and probable evolution of the amphibious traits. Interesting to note the case shape, and each moth is endemic to its own volcano in the Hawaiian archipelago. This is a Bayesian analysis of . . . → Read More: Aquamoth part 2 Share this!For all those who abstained from voting (I want to assume some readers must have known the identity of our mystery caterpillar, but were too lazy to comment), here is the answer (after the break).
. . . → Read More: Answer to last week’s Genius of the Press Share this!Another amazing animal from Hawaii – a completely amphibious caterpillar (published in the March 22 PNAS). While there are a few aquatic Lepidoptera, all of them have gills that keep them restricted to the water (mind you, we are talking only about the larval stage). If their stream dries up, so does the caterpillar. . . . → Read More: Aquamoth! Share this!Spring has come to northern California and moths are on the wing. I took a quick trip up to the Sierra foothills over the weekend and hiked up the steep slopes above the American River. Above is pictured Xanthothrix ranunculi f. albipuncta (Noctuidae: Stiriinae). It happens to be sitting on a beautiful california . . . → Read More: California Spring Share this! |
Skepticism |
