lightsinthedistance-modernlife

Let's just say that my summer project with assassin bugs is going well so far. More to come soon!

I decided to turn on the outside lights for about a half hour tonight to see if anything would fly up, and I got some good results! Right now I'll post the pictures that I took tonight, and I'll elaborate tomorrow. I caught a few of the beetles and am keeping them to hopefully identify later and get a closer look under better light conditions. It was about 52 degrees tonight, so still a bit chilly for more insects to be flying about, but once summer warms up more, there will be all sorts attracted to lights.

I've now been back in the United States for three days now, and each day I have made time to go out looking for insects. I've missed the familiar plants and temperate weather, and on top of that, I've had a lot of success, especially today. So far I've confined myself to my backyard, but that hasn't limited what I've found. I pulled off some dead bark from some staghorn sumac, and found some ants which had set up residence inside the plant. They quickly grabbed the ant larvae and ferried them away from view, and ran around feverishly trying to figure out what had happened. I was hoping for some beetle grubs, but this was fine too. I also found a firefly crawling around in the grass. It's still a bit chilly for most of the fireflies to be out, but I've seen a few. Hopefully it will only be a few weeks until they're out in abundance and flashing. Speaking of fireflies, if you haven't yet, check out Firefly Watch , a project to look at firefly abund...

A wheel bug from Costa Rica, preserved at the Museo de Insectos, University of Costa Rica, San José.   Let it be known that I am extremely excited for this summer. I applied for a few internships, but those didn't work out. I was disappointed, of course, but other opportunities popped up, ensuring that I won't be idle during my time off from classes. I applied for a grant from my college, and received it. Thanks to that, I will spend six weeks during the summer carrying out a project I designed. This will involve me romping around the college's field station with my exploring hat, bug nets, and a bag full of bug collecting equipment, investigating the assassin bug diversity at the field station. This is awesome for a number of reasons: I'll be investigating a question no one has yet researched I'll be acquainting myself even more with assassin bugs, a group of insects that is quickly becoming my favorite I will have ample time for exploration I'll find more th...

Nothing in Biology is ever as simple as it seems. That’s the beauty of it, and this is especially true whenever insects enter the picture. Last June, I was scouting out my backyard for insects and other things, and came across a small, brightly-colored insect: vivid green and orange, it was almost neon. So what did I do? I snapped two pictures of it and moved on, not thinking much of it.   Scudderia sp. on a leaf of Vitis sp. Obviously I wasn’t thinking very well that day. Returning to the pictures a little while later, I started to investigate to figure out what exactly it was. Truthfully, when I first saw it, I thought it was an assassin bug nymph. Actually, it’s a nymph of a bush katydid, genus Scudderia. An easy way to identify a Scudderia nymph is from their white and black-banded antennae. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with this particular nymph. According to Bugguide, there are eight species of Scudderia (in North America at least). Ohio has five of...

I stumbled across a very interesting article the other day, via Wired . It elaborated upon a study on the spotted salamander ( Ambystoma maculatum ) and its relationship with algae. I hope you’ve got a good grip on your chair, because you’re liable to fall out of your seat otherwise. It’s pretty sweet news. Algae is quite useful. It’s food for smaller organisms, and photosynthesizes, providing the rest of us with oxygen, which is a good thing. In the case of the spotted salamander, it’s an even more intimate relationship. The salamander lives with algae within its cells, which is the truly exciting news. Symbiosis between salamanders and algae isn’t anything new: it was even known in this salamander before the new study. But the crux of the matter is the degree of the symbiosis. Since the algae are within the salamander’s cells, that is a darn close relationship. In fact, such an intense relationship was previously thought to only occur between algae and invertebrates. This is the fi...

While using StumbleUpon yesterday, I came across a gardening website that was discussing Red clover ( Trifolium pratense ), a plant native to Europe that has become naturalized in the United States. While reading a little bit about it, I realized that I had never actually associated the small pink flowers with the actual clover itself.  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_clover_closeup.jpg Now, this realization was embarrassing, because I should have made the obvious connection and paid attention to my surroundings. But it was also eye opening that I have been surrounded by clover and these pink flowers all my life, but had never before thought about any connection between the two. Clover has been ubiquitous in my yard, and essentially any other place I've gone in my life, so it's not like this was just a small anomaly.  Red clover itself is pretty interesting. It's part of the legume family, Fabaceae , which includes soybeans, peas, and peanuts. One of the mos...