I am probably the only woman you will meet that will admit to chasing bugs around in a public bathroom. Yup, I was takin’ care of business when all of the sudden this little rove beetle (Staphylinidae) scurried across the floor in front of me. And yes, I am the one who followed the beetle through the different stalls until I was able to nab it for some pictures. Guess what they have those big jaws for?

If you guessed for hunting other insects than you would be right on. Rove beetles are predators and are easily distinguished from other beetles because of their very short elytra (hardened forewing)…hence the exposure of most of the abdomen in the picture above. Rove beetles are fairly small, with most being < 30mm and there are so many different species (around 46,000) that this family is actually one of the (if not the) largest families of beetles. They are also an ancient group of beetles with fossils dating back 200 million years ago from the Triassic period.

You’d be amazed (or maybe not so much?) at what you can find creeping around in a public bathroom.

My nerdery does not stop for holidays. While at my moms for thanksgiving, I spotted a couple of my invertebrate friends.

The silverfish (Thysanura) pictured above wasn’t in a rush to go anywhere. Silverfish are a common household dweller. There is a very nice little post about silverfish over at David Nelson’s Photoblog. Silverfish are estimated to have existed for 300 million years, dating back to the Paleozoic Era.

On to the “mothy” weather.

If you were to take a drive at night out here on Cape Cod this time of year, you might mistake the small flutterings in the beams from your headlights as flurries from a light snowfall. You’d be wrong; they are winter moths (Operophtera brumata). Though in all honesty, they really are as thick as a light snowfall to drive through. We have Europe to thank for these little buggers, since they are an invasive pest from that country.

Despite being major defoliators of oak, maple, ash, and crabapple, winter moths are kind of cool in their own right. The adults emerge from their pupal cases in the soil in late Nov. and are active until about Jan. Females are actually wingless and don’t fly. The hairy/fringed appearance on the wings of the males is due to elongated scales. Females usually make their way up the base of trees and release a sex pheromone that attracts many-a-male. Once she has mated, the female lays her eggs in the crevices on the bark of the tree. The larvae hatch around spring and go to town munching away on the buds of the tree. The larvae participate in a behavior called “ballooning”, wherein they become air buoyant by hanging from strands of silk and dropping to other buds/plants using that silk strand. You might most easily recognize the larvae in your backyard if I used the term “inchworm” to describe them. The winter moth is in the family of inchworms (Geometridae…get it, geometrid, inchworm?). Then, when the larvae have had enough to eat, they drop to the ground and burrow into the soil for pupation around June. They stay there until Nov. and the whole cycle starts all over again.

Hello folks,
Apologies for the slow posting, but thats what happens when Comcast decides it wants to give me only patchy connectivity (with no explanation). Hopefully the techy-guy who is coming over to take a look at it today will offer up better advice than the lady I talked to on the phone. She told me I was just to tighten the plugs and it would be fine.

The holidays also add to some slow posting. The turkey was awesome this year, especially since I did not have to make another failed-attempt at cooking it. And doubly-especially because I have been anticipating this day since July where I had been seeing the little gobblers in the field while I worked.

Anyhow, the above picture is of a family-coveted plate. It is a plate my grandma (who passed away last winter) used to serve her thanksgiving dinner on for as long as I can remember. I am pleased to announce that it is one of the grandma-related battles my mother won and has been proudly on display in her house all fall. Much kudos to you, mom.

And double the kudos to the wonderful turkey, this 22lb “Tom”, as my mom so fondly refers to the bird as, was devoured in just a days time.

Cant’ wait for next year…

K. Downz (a.k.a., my baby sister):

Why the heck do we have bugs? They’re gross, they’re hairy, they’re ugly, and they are just plain annoying!!!!

Haha, well unfortunately a lot of people share the same sentiment towards insects. A lot of our ill-conceived notions and even phobias of insects come from 3 main reasons.

Are insects all that bad and deserve the reputation they have?? Nope. At least not in my opinion. They are hairy and “ugly” for functional purposes, not as a scare tactic, per se. The hairs are actually sensilla, or sense organs, and help relay information from the environment (tactile, olfactory, auditory) to the insect’s central nervous system. I don’t know that I have ever seen an ugly bug, but the big eyes, big jaws, the spines and horns…all functionally based (i.e., better hunting, protection, and camouflage).

As far as insects being annoying and pesty, well, they are just going about their business. Trust me, they waste no time playing…each day is about finding food, finding a mate, producing offspring, and making it to the next day. Most insects really can’t even harm you. We would be very much out of luck without insects carrying about their daily routines as pollinators of most of our crops and plants or decomposers of decaying animal and plant matter. Insects serve as food for many animals and even many human cultures, past and present. So without them, many food chains would collapse.

We need insects, despite whatever fears they evoke in us.

Amanda:

I have a dear friend who just recently graduated with a chemistry/forensic science degree. She did her internship with a forensic entomologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and now wants to go back to school for entomology (though she’s been fascinated with bugs for years now!!). My question is, I want to give her a gift of a microscope, as she has a growing collection of insects she’s gathered on outings, and wants to go to school for it, but don’t know what kind. From what little I can gather, it seems that a stereo or dissecting microscope would be best…am I even in the right ballpark with that? Any help would be great!! Oh, and I loooove your photos!

You are definitely in the right ball park with a stereo/dissecting microscope. I must say though, a microscope would be a really nice gift to give someone. And like any piece of techno-equipment there is a range of brand names that are good and of course a vast range of prices depending on the quality of scope. For instance, a couple months ago I ordered a stereo microscope (a Nikon) for the lab and the price was about $4,000. The quality of scope also depends on what the use is for. I suspect you are not intending to buy a 4 thousand dollar microscope for your friend (if you are, than I am in the business of looking for some new friends :)).

I think that for just a general dissecting microscope for the purpose of checking out specimens for ID purposes etc., that BioQuip would be a nice starting place. See here for a list of their stereo microscopes.
You probably don’t want the boom scopes, that just means it has a long arm that reaches out to hold the scope so that there is more moveability under the scope. As far as the optics range goes, again, it depends on the purpose of the scope. And I much prefer to have the ocular pieces positioned over the stage (opposed to behind the arm of the scope) as it is more comfortable for dissecting, so personally, I’d look for a scope that at least had that.

Hope this is a nice starting point for you. If you are looking for more details on the specs and looking for a better quality one, like one you could hook a camera up to and take pictures of things under the scope, I would look into some of the Nikon’s, but probably check a couple different companies that carry the Nikons because you might be able to get better deals on them depending on the place. But definitely feel free to ask more questions if this doesn’t help.

Yesterday was a federal holiday…couldn’t tell you which one, but it gave me the opportunity to do some wildlife viewing that does not consist of an invasive pest.

Since all the droves of tourists have finally left the cape (apologies to past and future visitors), I decided it is finally quiet and peaceful enough for me to explore some of the trails along the salt marsh flats. This of course took place after I got some quality time in with the new XBox 360 game, Call of Duty 3. Yup, I am doubly a nerd.

It was very quiet until I heard the familar chattering of several accipiters above. This particular red-tailed hawk was quite insistent on staying right over my head, hence the view in the picture.

Which reminds me, I have a bone to pick. Josh loves to get his world news from 2 popular shows, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report (both on Comedy Central, if that tells you anything). I’ll admit it, they’re a good laugh

When a lot of older movies used images/scenes of bald eagles they superimposed the sound a red-tailed hawk (see here if you don’t remember what a red-tailed sounds like. Once there, scroll down and click on the sound bite). To their credit, bald eagles don’t exactly sound as cool, in fact, they sound pretty wimpy (see here, and click on the sound link). Any bird enthusiast will echo this issue of using the red-tail’s call for the bald eagle in movies. However, I thought this was a thing of the past. I haven’t noticed any movies lately deliberately misusing the call, most actually just show a shot of a red-tailed now.

Not Steven Colbert of the Colbert Report though. In the intro to his show, he has a bald eagle swooping in all mean and tough, like some kind of truth hunter for world news, and of course, it is accompanied by the call of a red-tailed hawk. For shame. Don’t be fooled dear blog readers and tv viewers. Anyway…

This is all to say that the red-tailed hawk still stops me in my tracks and gets me to look to the skies.

Once I was able to get my head out of the clouds I was able to notice plenty of 6-legged friends. This Lampyridae (A family of the beetles, better known as the fireflies/lightening bugs) caught my eye. I’m sure you have seen some of the other species that light up at night (also known as ‘bioluminescence’). They are able to light up because of a chemical reaction (between luciferase and luciferin) that takes place in their abdomen. Anyway, I think the particular species that I saw was a diurnal firefly. The ones that light up at night do so in order to attract/find mates. And each particular species has its own flash patterns.

As soon as I took the picture, something way cooler caught my eye. Right next to the lamyrid are some very tiny (< 5mm) creatures, you can just barely see them in the picture. These little darlings are collembolans. They are not considered your classical 'insect' (Hexapod, but not Insecta) but are entognathids (meaning their mouthparts are retracted inside of their head). Specifically, these little guys are globular springtails.

Not the greatest picture of them, but they are not exactly the easiest thing to get close to, and for a good reason. Springtails have a special structure, called a furcula, attached and tucked underneath their abdomen. When they are distressed, it springs out and makes them fling away. Actually, there is an excellent new series by David Attenborough and the BBC, “Life in the Undergrowth”, that has some really neat footage of springtails in action. Some species also do a little mating dance and there is a short clip from that series with Attenborough here for your viewing pleasure (click on the ‘dancing springtails’). All of the clips there on that page are definitely worth checking out.

Anyhow, I digress. There were a couple other insects that I met on my hike, including this stink bug (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae, probably Bromchymena).

Stink bugs are known for their shield-like body and, as their name implies, the ability to produce a stinky odor when threatened. Most tree stink bugs are predators of other insects and use their piercing-sucking mouthparts to impale into their prey.

I did manage to make it to the shore. So for my unfortunate family, friends, and readers who happen to be land-locked…here is a view of the Atlantic yesterday. Its too bad I can’t include a file of the way the sea and salt smelled, it was a gorgeous day that invoked all of the senses.

And, since it was Friday, we can’t forget about Gunther.

Thanks to a reader, one of the pictures in my gallery has been positively identified as a Long-Tailed Dance Fly (Empididae, Rhamphomyia longicauda).

I had been out hiking after a rain storm and this particular fly was sipping up the water that had pooled on the leaves of some shrubs. These flies have some very neat mating rituals. Females sworm together in groups called mating leks. Males come to the leks with a nuptual gift (food) in exchange for being able to mate. Males have a preference to mate with females that have larger abdomens. Entomologists think that they prefer larger-abdomen females because the more swollen they are, the more mature and ready the eggs will be, and the better the chance that he will sire the offspring.

Females are tricky though (of course) and have a way of fooling the males into mating with them and getting a free meal. Females puff up their abdomens so they appear more swollen than they actually are. I couldn’t find a nice picture (really any picture) on the web of the puffed abdomen to link to, so if you have access to this Nature article you can click on the link and read more. The picture below is taken from that article (Tromans, A. 2000. Entomology: Love is Not Puffed Up. Nature 404:138) in case you can’t access the article.

Its his favorite time of year.