A ghost is born

Welcome to the new year, and nearly a full year of blogging! It’s amazing how fast the time flew by, but again it always does. As you likely noticed December turned out to be my weakest posting month with a whopping 2 posts. Resolution: more posting!

Now I haven’t started blogging about music (for those . . . → Citeste mai mult: A ghost is born

Biology of a Ghost

This moth is just about as rare as its paranormal namesake (except that it’s real) – it’s a Gazoryctra sp. in the family Hepialidae. They represent a basal lineage of the Lepidoptera and are commonly known as ghost moths or swift moths. Ghostbecause males of some species are known to fly in . . . → Citeste mai mult: Biology of a Ghost

Just too Easy

Natural, it was named Phallus drewsii. This comes form the list of the top 10 species named in 2009, complied by Arizona State University (not a very good list if 7 of my new species weren’t on there…). While I tend to avoid phallic and O’Keeffesque botany, this one I couldn’t resist because it . . . → Citeste mai mult: Just too Easy

Taxonomie Fail

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 . . . → Citeste mai mult: Taxonomie Fail

S-ar putea să conduc prea mult

Norii s-au spart în această după-amiază în San Francisco și soarele a început să strălucească. Vremea caldă care a venit a indus un sentiment prea familiar, una pe care ar trebui să fiu afară să adun insecte și să nu stau în casă! În timp ce am fost deja în câteva locuri în această primăvară, I have a long season of collecting . . . → Citeste mai mult: S-ar putea să conduc prea mult

Aquamoth!

Un alt animal uimitor de Hawaii – o omidă complet amfibiu (publicat în martie 22 PNAS). În timp ce există o Lepidoptera acvatice câteva, toate au branhii care îi țin limitată la apa (te superi, vorbim doar despre stadiul larvar). În cazul în care fluxul lor seacă, la fel omida. . . . → Citeste mai mult: Aquamoth!

Inaugural post

Așa, how do I begin a new blog? Tough question, but perhaps this is a good time to show off a fun new species. This moth was collected last year outside of Santa Barbara, CA. The massive wingspan, at 15mm, makes it pretty large for a Gelechiid moth. The genus, Gnorimoschema (pronounced nor-a-mosh-ma), . . . → Citeste mai mult: Inaugural post