Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
April 11, 2008
One of the most important collections of South American plants is being shut down. The Utrecht Herbarium in the Netherlands houses nearly 1 million specimens and 10,000 types. When the museum closes we will lose a wealth of knowledge about the flora of a diverse and endangered part of the world…
April 11, 2008
Temnoscheila Bark-Gnawing Beetle, Arizona
Trogossitidae
This colorful insect arrived to a blacklight in my backyard a couple of years back, right when I first moved to Tucson. Previously I'd encountered Temnoscheila only under the bark of dead trees, where they apparently prey on the larvae of…
April 10, 2008
Not much posting this week. I've been busy getting genetic data from a new batch of specimens for the Beetle Tree of Life project, a process that's always slower than I expect.
Fortunately it turns out that the internet has sites other than mine, and some of those even have interesting things to…
April 7, 2008
Deserts are difficult places to live for more reasons than just drought and heat. During dry seasons deserts are relatively inactive, and there's not much around for animals to eat. To survive times of dearth, several lineages of desert ants have taken to harvesting plant seeds in the brief…
April 6, 2008
How does a newly speciating ant prevent backcrossing with its parental species? A new study in the journal Evolution by Schwander et al. investigates four hypotheses using the Pogonomyrmex rugosus/barbatus hybrid speciation system, finding support for three of them. Apparently the daughter…
April 4, 2008
Check out Khaleph's pictures of a Lasius queen killed by a Tachinid fly parasitoid.
April 4, 2008
Epicauta pardalis - spotted blister beetle
Tucson, Arizona
Here's a beetle so toxic it can kill a horse. The horse doesn't even need to ingest the beetle, it just needs to ingest something that the beetle bled on. Blister beetles produce the defensive compound cantharadin- the active…
April 3, 2008
Back in 2002 when I used the Nikon Coolpix 995 for everything, I would occasionally play around with the camera's very basic video mode. The 995 made small, grainy movies without sound, and most of the videos I took are, well, pretty bad. But the camera had impressive macro abilities, which meant…
April 2, 2008
Acromyrmex versicolor - the desert leafcutter
Here's the original:
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100
MT24-EX twin flash diffused through tracing paper
Photoshop modification (top photo): desaturated yellows
increased contrast, burned edges,…
April 1, 2008
If you watch this video about a new technology for visualizing insect fossils hidden in opaque amber, pay special attention around 0:36-0:44. There's a brief 3D image of what is clearly a well-preserved sphecomyrmine ant. The clip is excerpted from a detailed demonstration here, showing the…
April 1, 2008
If you've been paying attention to cinematography or photography the last few years, you'll undoubtedly have noticed the popularity of a particular grainy, desaturated, slightly surrealistic style. This look was popularized in films like 300 and Saving Private Ryan, and has become commonplace in…
March 31, 2008
via Google Trends. Blue is ants, red is beetles:
Ants win, even in the face of the beetles' 20-fold species advantage.
That seasonal pattern is striking, no?
March 30, 2008
If you've ever spent time photographing ants the above shot will look familiar: off-frame and out of focus. Because ants are small and speedy, they are among the most difficult insects to photograph. Just capturing an active ant somewhere in the frame can be regarded as an achievement, never…
March 29, 2008
Last year I mentioned the antics of Mr. Dewanand Makhan, an amateur taxonomist whose enthusiasm for publication rather outstrips any penchant for quality control. This week a team of myrmecologists has stepped in to reverse some of Makhan's errors:
All that [Makhan] has done is sample some of…
March 28, 2008
Rhipicera femorata
Victoria, AustraliaÂ
Here's an insect with exceptional reception: Rhipicera, an Australian Dascilloid beetle. Little is known about the biology of this species, but its North American cousins in the genus Sandalus are Cicada parasites- and there are certainly plenty of…
March 27, 2008
Jo-anne's father Keith sends these lovely photos of a swamp wallaby that frequently visits their house outside Melbourne:
March 26, 2008
The famous Cambrian Explosion- a rapid diversification of animal groups about 550 million years ago- assumes a rather diminished significance when mapped to the full Tree of Life.
update: yes, I made the diagram myself, by modifying this.
March 26, 2008
This may come as a shock to my regular readers, but I agree with Afarensis that Arthropoda is clearly the best animal phylum.
March 25, 2008
Mycocepurus smithi, in the fungus garden
An exciting week for ant aficionados! A new study by ant phylogenetics gurus Ted Schultz and Seán Brady provides the first detailed picture of attine evolution. These New World ants have long attracted the attention of biologists because they, like our…
March 24, 2008
Tribolium castaneum - Red Flour Beetle
The genome of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum was published today in Nature. This latest insect genome is interesting not for what it says about beetles but for what it says about another model species, the venerable fruit fly. The more we learn…
March 23, 2008
Rather than blather on about my Easter Sunday, I'll just share a few images from a morning hike in Tucson's Rincon mountains. Winter rains have given way to wildflowers, and in particular the Encelia brittlebush was spectacular.
Prickly pear:
A hoverfly guards his territory:…
March 22, 2008
Fry & Laurie on the inanity of academic discourse:
March 20, 2008
Chauliognathus lecontei - LeConte's Soldier Beetle
Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona
Soldier Beetles are named for their bright colors. Larvae are predaceous, but adults are commonly seen feeding from the nectar and pollen of flowers.
photo details: Canon 100m f2.8 macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/6.3,…
March 19, 2008
In our front yard we've got a busy nest of Pogonomyrmex rugosus seed harvesting ants. Warming weather brought them out for the first time last week, and every now and again I go out to see what they're up to. Lots of digging, it seems.
Pogonomyrmex is greek for "Bearded Ant", named 150 years ago…
March 16, 2008
Pheidole creightoni major worker, California
After reading a couple times through Corrie Moreau's hot-off-the-press Pheidole evolution paper, I am pleased to give it a thumbs-up. The paper is behind a subscription barrier, so I have distilled the results into an informal summary:
Pheidole is…
March 16, 2008
Raindrops on Opuntia cactus
Tucson, Arizona
photo details:
Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon 20D.
f/7, 1/100 sec, ISO 100
hand-held, natural light
contrast boosted in PS
March 14, 2008
Hololepta Clown Beetle (Histeridae)
Arizona
If Oscars were awarded for Most Aesthetically Pleasing Sculpturing on an Insect, hister beetles would make the short list. Especially Hololepta, which not only shows the trademark histerid shininess but also has a flattened, paper-thin body. Michele…