lightsinthedistance-modernlife

Ohio's had a warm December so far, and I have only seen a few snowflakes here in southeast Ohio. This week has been moderately warm, with temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s (Fahrenheit, that is). We've had a few cold snaps, so I've pretty much stopped looking for any arthropods, except for lady beetles and marmorated stink bugs in my home. Then I went outside to retrieve the mail today. I spotted something moving on the porch and took a closer look: it was a centipede! I ran inside to retrieve a vial, almost falling in the hallway due to my wet shoes (it rained today) and frightening the cat, which ran into the living room. I apologized and ran back outside, just in time to catch the critter before it left the porch and disappeared into the yard. I took it back inside and examined it: it was one of the largest centipedes we have in Ohio, Scolopocryptops sexspinosus . It's in the family Scolopocryptopidae and only has 23 legs--not 100 (no centipede has 100 legs, de...

After my college graduation last May, I've been using my free time to go back through the bug collections I did while still an undergraduate. I had a lot of material left over--both dry specimens and ethanol specimens, along with photographs and lists to organize. I never quite had the time to do it while taking classes (or at least, that's what I tell myself), so I'm very glad I can take care of it now. I've had this blog post about respecting your specimens gnawing at me since I read it during the summer, and felt a bit guilty. I had some pretty crappy labels with my specimens, or even worse, no labels at all! For some, I could remember exactly where I was standing when I collected them, so it wasn't a huge problem. But for others...well, those just had to be thrown out as useless. Some of my specimens were new to the collection and represented unique information, so I wanted to make sure they were properly labeled and taken care of. With that mission in mind, I...

" Yet the law of priority compels its adoption, and one's regret is perhaps to a certain extent lessened by the satisfaction derived from abolishing a name so ill-formed and so ill-sounding as Opisthemega . " -R.I. Pocock The above is taken from a manuscript clearing up confusion about the genus Theatops , which includes a few large centipedes with surprisingly fat terminal legs. It's burying into the ground here, with the terminal legs trailing at the top of the picture. Yes, it can pinch with them. There are many hidden gems like these in scientific publications, and it's always a joy to come across them. You're reminded that the entomologists writing them are people too. And I must agree, Opisthemega is a terrible name. Reference: Pocock RI. 1888. Annals And Magazine of Natural History. 1:283-290. Link.

Quick! Describe centipedes in one word! You said "optimistic," right? Because the face on the back of this centipede's head is super happy, even when suspended in ethanol. This is a centipede in the genus Strigamia , collected last October from leaf litter when I was searching for millipedes. I wonder if other species have different faces...

It's time for a musical Science Video Friday, courtesy of a fan of house centipedes, Scutigera coleoptrata . I was very pleased after I found this video--not only is it about our many-legged friends, but it's very good and catchy. I sometimes find myself singing it from time to time. And some of the photos he features are pretty cute.

I had an unexpected encounter with a centipede today around lunchtime. I walked into the restroom and glanced down at the floor, where I found an inch-long centipede....and I was pretty excited. Unfortunately, it was dead, probably due to being stepped on. If nothing else though, that made collecting it easy for me. Have you ever tried to catch a fleeing centipede? They're ridiculously fast and not an easy catch. After putting it in a plastic bag for safekeeping and eating some lunch, I headed off to the lab, grabbed my centipede ID guide, and threw it under a microscope. It's a little intimidating, measuring out to about an inch long. Earlier this summer, I attended an advanced naturalist workshop at the Edge of Appalachia preserve in West Union, Ohio that focused on the centipedes and millipedes (and isopods), which gave me the skills I needed to tackle Myriapoda identification. It was led by Bill Shear , from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, and boy did he know a lot ab...