lightsinthedistance-modernlife

I was asked recently what my favorite millipede is. That's not an easy question, but I was forced to pick one, so I thought about it for a bit and then figured, why not share it with everyone? I find myself doing more tweeting than blogging lately, but Twitter is terrible for long form responses. There are about 12,000 described species of millipedes, and I've seen maybe 70 of them in life or in photos, so I'm drawing from a limited pool of millipede diversity. Even so, I know of many amazing species. Is my favorite something like the shocking pink dragon millipede, Desmotyxes purpurosea ? Desmotyxes purpurosea from Enghoff et al 2007 . Read the paper, it's really neat! Or maybe my favorite is another tropical millipede. After all, Psammodesmus bryophorus , a millipede I've blogged about before , has mosses that grow on its back! Photo from Martínez-Torres SD et al 2011. You won't be disappointed if you browse photos of millipedes from the tropics. There are ...

Science Video Friday comes to you today as a double feature! One of the neatest topics within entomology is bioluminescence, the process by which insects can create their own light. The first insect you probably think of when you hear that is the firefly. Those of us in the eastern US are fortunate enough to live in areas where fireflies also live: west of the Rockies, you don't really find them. Fireflies can flash in a variety of colors, including orange, yellow, and even blue ! The color of their flash is one way they recognize their own species in the dark, so if you see fireflies in your yard at night and there are two different colors flashing, you have at least two separate species. Now it's time to learn a bit more about fireflies, with the wonderful series "Meet the Lampyridae." Enjoy!