Today marks the birthday of one of the most influential and important insect authors; Robert Evans Snodgrass (1875-1962). Snodgrass’ special interest was insect morphology, especially within an evolutionary context, as he sought to not only understand how insects are put together, but also how those structures contributed to the evolutionary history of species. His 1935 opus, Principles of Insect Morphology, is still relevant in many regards (my 4th year Insect Physiology professor referred to it several times throughout the semester), and can be considered one of the most important entomology texts of the 20th century.
Being a morphologist, Snodgrass would be an expert in insect dissection in order to examine the intricacies of insect muscles, nerves and exoskeletons. That being said, I’m sure his techniques were pretty refined and not quite comparable to ripping out the wings of a butterfly, but unfortunately there isn’t a song title “Careful Dissection of the Flight Apparatus of Lepidoptera”, so we’ll stick to some hard rock!
If you’re interested in learning more about PIM (instead of HIM), check out this post by Trichoptera grad student Zach Burington on his excellent blog, Trichopterology!
This song is available on iTunes – Wings of a Butterfly – Wings of a Butterfly – Single
Haha I love this song. If you are in the mood for something even stranger there is the Japanese rock band BUCK-TICK’s Kagerou (Mayfly) and Onmyouza’s Hotaru (Firefly)