My sister sent me this video clip on the different stages of depression, so I thought I would share…

Another week out in the field for work and I have another group of insects to share with y’all. Bark beetles are often described as being the most destructive group of insect pests that attack coniferous trees. They attack conifers using 3 main methods:

Those that mine just beneath the bark leave characteristic engravings on both the wood and the inner side of the bark. The engravings can be broken down into 3 different types:

Some bark beetles attack perfectly healthy trees and others attack trees that are already weaken or stressed, but their feeding activity rapidly kills the tree. What’s more is that the pine engravers (Ips spp.) also introduce a fungus, blue stain, to the tree. The fungi spread into the xylem and block the water flow. As an aside, what’s kind of cool is that the longhorn beetles in the genus Monochamus also attack these same trees and they transmit a little nematode (microscopic roundworm) to the tree that feeds on blue stain fungi.

Unfortunately there isn’t much that can be done for controlling these little buggers, except for cutting down and removing infested trees. Different pheromone lures, traps, and chemical insecticides have been tried, but thus far they have not been all that successful.

Virginia:

I found what looks like an antlion larva in a puffball (mushroom). Any idea what this might be? In a nearby puffball there were numerous spheroids each containing its own small white pupa a little over a mm in length. Any idea what these might be? I collected one of the puffballs and have it in a container and I took some pictures.

To be honest I don’t know much about insects that are associated with mushroom fruiting bodies. But I do know that there are beetles called ‘puffball beetles’. There is a picture here at BugGuide.net of the different life stages, does this match what you saw?

Unfortunately, I have not been successful in finding information about this species’ biology, but perhaps someone else who visits this site will be able to chime in.

And in case you were wondering…I don’t have pink carpet. I live in an apt that gets very little natural light so all of my plants have been dieing. My lovely fiance rigged me up all these grow lights for the plants…which is what is making the carpet look pink in the picture.

So a friend of mine sent me a link to this video figuring I would get a kick out of it…

He was right Thanks for the laugh, Timmy.

While this video is a spoof, the experiments that the video is based on are not. In 1948 a zoologist by the name of HM Peters was studying webspinning in spiders and was trying to figure out how to get the spiders to build their webs during the day and not in the wee hours of the night. Dr. Peter Witt, a pharmacologist, suggested he try amphetamines. While the amphetamines didn’t alter the time of day the spiders were building their webs the drug did alter the structure of the web.

“Then Witt tried mescaline, strychnine, caffeine, and others. Low-dosed caffeinated spiders produced a smaller but wider web with a normal spiral but radii at oversized angles. At higher doses, like with the other drugs, web regularity got distorted. Only with low doses of the hallucinogen LSD-25 did the spiders spin webs of greater regularity.” (R. Foelix, Biology of Spiders)

Dr. Peter Witt has also written a book on spider communication

Science can be really fun sometimes

The last couple weeks have been kind of an odd haze to me. There has been a lot of death swirling around my family. Around this time last year my grandma passed away, so this has been the first Christmas without her and without the normal family traditions. My second cousin was killed in Iraq (hit by a rocket) the week before Christmas and my great uncle passed away the week after Christmas (cancer). A woman I went to high school with was murdered on Christmas day, I can’t say that I knew her well, but I imagine Christmas will be forever ruined for her family. Oh and I made a stupid mistake and cut of finger on accident and ended up getting stitches. This is probably the first year that I can ever remember being glad Christmas is over. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the time that I did get to spend with the family that was local and one of my sisters that flew in from the Air Force Academy in CO.

My new year resolution? I resolve to continue in the journey of finding my place in this world. And being happy with what I find.

So, today is the Gerald M. Ford day of mourning for federal employees….which means I didn’t have to work today. So, thanks to Ford I spent the morning birding at some new spots on the Cape. I received an excellent book as a gift from a friend of my mom, “Birds of Cape Cod and the Islands” by Roger S. Everett. There is some beautiful photography and what’s more, Everett detailed most of the places he found the particular birds. This is good for me since I have been having trouble finding successful spots. I knew today was going to be a good day when on my way to my first destination I saw a huge flock of snow geese flying over head.

Unfortunately, the quality of my pictures are kind of sketchy, partially because of the quality of camera, but mostly because my index finger has 5 stitches and is still bandaged up, which has made for some frustrating moments while trying to focus my camera.

A common eider was my second spotting for the morning. My bird book describes their sound as a “low crooning and short growl” so I had to go to the Cornell website to hear it for myself since the fellow in front of me did not vocally perform. Check it out, I think you will get a giggle out of it.

My next spotting was of male and female Buffleheads. Unfortunately, none of my gazillion shots of the males turned out. Bummer. The males have what is described as a ‘white scarf’ around their black head. But here is a pic of one of the females, they are quite different with a white ear spot instead.

Next, I saw one of my favorite birds, but only for a brief second. A male Northern Harrier was swiftly scanning the tall grasses of the marshes; I was able to get this one lone picture of him before he disappeared behind the dunes for good.

I don’t know why I am so fond of the Northern Harriers, but I have been trying for a while now to get a good picture of a particular male that I see every week on my way to work. I work on a military reserve base and there are a ton of open fields there. Several days a week I see the same (I think) male scanning a particular field near my building. Practically every morning at the same time I spot him…sometimes chasing an odd sparrow, sometimes just gliding casually over the fields, and sometimes just perched on the top of a pitch pine watching his field. I have had no luck on getting a picture of him though, camera shy I guess.

Something that I am always trying to get a good picture of is a great blue heron. They are constantly eluding me though, they are pretty skittish. But this morning, after I left my first destination and was on my way to a second location I spotted this GBH.

This bird was being so photogenic and patient with me that I ended up causing a traffic congestion (you caught me, I was doing ‘drive by birding’)….several cars stopped to watch the bird as I was taking pictures of it. This eventually unsettled him enough to find a new spot.

For my last destination of the day, I went back to the spot where I saw the red-breasted mergansers in attempt to get a better picture, but no such luck.

All in all, it was a beautiful morning for being January in the Northeast.