The British Wildlife Photography Awards were announced this week, and one of the Highly Commended award winners in the Wildlife in HD Video is pretty great.
Apparently it can’t be embedded, so go watch “A Passion for Bees” by Tim Balmer and come back. I’ll wait.
I was browsing Malcolm Campbell’s (highly recommended) weekly science link collection this morning, and came across an article in Nautilus on the newly described olinguito species. I was really enjoying the article, until the third to last paragraph, which triggered a bit of Twitter rant. Continue reading »
Dear io9,
I appreciate all the work you do to bring science news to a large and enthusiastic audience, and I’m a frequent reader myself, but as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately in a recent post one of your authors blew it in a big way.
In “Too many fly bites can lead to death by bug-spit poisoning”, Esther Inglis-Arkell repeatedly states that black flies inject their larvae into the bodies of the birds or people their feeding off of, and that humans are carriers of their young.
No. Just, no.
Black fly larvae are 100% aquatic, living in streams, rivers & flowing water all over the world. In some places — like northern Canada, so infamous for its black fly populations there have been songs sung about them — rivers and streams can be black with fly larvae attached to rocks and other material under the water (check out this post by Crystal Ernst to see just how many larvae can be found in the cold waters of the Great White North).
Yes, like most blood-feeding invertebrates, black flies employ anti-coagulant-laced saliva to keep the good times flowing, but there certainly aren’t fly babies in that spit. Some species of black fly in Africa and South America can transmit a nematode parasite through their saliva (Onchocerca volvulus, responsible for River Blindness, a non-fatal disease), and, as evidenced by the paper that inspired Inglis-Arkell’s post, too much fly saliva can be a bad thing, but to fear-monger that there could be fly larvae swimming in your blood isn’t cool.
Now, I recognize that Inglis-Arkell acknowledged her mistake in response to a commentor who also pointed out the error, but that acknowledgement is buried in the comments, and, unless a reader goes looking for it, will likely remain unread. Why not correct the post (preferably in a way that doesn’t hide a mistake was made) or at least add a footnote that clearly states the author’s mistake? That’s the great thing about web publishing: you can immediately clear up mistakes when they’re uncovered instead of waiting days to print a retraction or correction like in the olden days (i.e. less than 10 years ago). Your web stats show that more than 36,000 people have read articles by Ms. Inglis-Arkell today alone, meaning there are a huge number of people potentially leaving your site with a horribly inaccurate impression of black fly biology.
And that’s the real shame, because despite their bad reputation, black flies are fascinating creatures and are actually kind of cute, especially when they’re biting someone else.
Simulium (Psilopelmia) bicoloratum from Ecuador (Simuliidae) feasting on my blood.
UPDATE 2013-03-10 20:30: That was fast! Less than 15 minutes after I tweeted a link to this post, io9 responded saying they were correcting their original article, and included links to those who pointed out the problem! Well done io9, well done!
I’m currently sitting in a nearly deserted terminal at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport waiting to make the first leg of my trip to the ScienceOnline conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. To say I’m excited would be an understatement (I’ve been up since 2:15 this morning and am banking on some serious adrenaline today…), as I’ve been looking forward to getting a chance to attend this conference since I first heard of it 2 years ago.
Why am I so excited? ScienceOnline has become the place for people who are passionate about science communication to get together, geek out, and come up with all kinds of new projects to help share exciting science with the world. As far as I can tell, it’s like if the Manhattan Project collided with Woodstock, but without the risk of total annihilation or psychotropic acid (I hope). I followed along remotely last year, and got really excited about all the cool stuff being discussed, so when registration opened this fall, I knew I had to try and make it (and luckily for me I managed to register in the first lottery window)!
While I’m excited, I’m also incredibly nervous. A lot of the people who will be attending the meeting are people who I look up to in the community, and to get the chance to hang out and talk to them about science is going to be amazing. To me, being a part of this conference will be like taking batting practice with Mickey Mantle, or jamming with The Beatles. Yet, while I tend to be on the quiet/shy side of the spectrum in real-world interactions, I already feel like I’m meeting old friends, in part because I’ve interacted with many of them via social media, but largely because the organizers and participants strive so hard to make it a welcoming environment where everyone is on equal footing, with no special distinctions separating science communicating giants from n00bs like me.
That doesn’t mean I won’t turn into a total fanboy when I meet people for the first time (David Quammen! Ed Yong! Bora!! SO MANY OTHERS!) or even people who I’ve met before (they’re all freaking awesome), but I’m going to do my best to “Keep Calm and Carry On”. So for anyone attending ScienceOnline this week, I apologize in advance for the starry-eyed gazes and toe shuffling when we first meet, but I’ll channel that excitement into discussing all things science as quickly as possible!
Anyways, my plane is about to start boarding, but I’ll be trying to post highlights and various observations/epiphanies here throughout the week, as well as on Twitter and Instagram (morgandjackson). I’ll also be taping a special episode of Breaking Bio so that I can share the experience with everyone. And if you’re intrigued by the whole thing, follow along and participate from home with #Scio13 on Twitter!
Yesterday Scientific American published “Men and Women of (Limited) Letters: Must-Follow Twitter Accounts of 2013“, a list of the Top 20 science-related Twitter accounts which they think everyone should follow. It’s a great list and I 100% recommend following everyone on it if you use Twitter (and if you don’t yet, then it’s a great place to start), but I noticed a heavy bias towards the physical sciences, and a distinct lack of biologists among the recommendations.
Seeing as biology is the best, I figured I’d put together my own Top 15 list1 (in no particular order) of Tweeting Biologists who will undoubtedly make 2013 a fun, educational and most-definitely squishy year! Continue reading »
Some how it’s already December 31st, which besides being terrifying that another year has come and gone, also makes it time for a look back at the year that was — because honestly I feel like I blinked and missed it all!
2012 was a crazy year for me. Between finishing up the field guide, developing & teaching my first college-level course, starting my PhD and travelling to several meetings and workshops across North America, I saw and did a lot of new stuff that I’m grateful to have been able to do, and feel like the year was a pretty productive one overall (although I failed to get a few papers out that I had hoped to and which continue to hang over my head…).
In addition to the “traditional” measures of academia, 2012 was a big year for alternative projects as well. I joined up with Crystal “The Bug Geek” Ernst to start the ESC Blog, started co-hosting a podcast with some really awesome people, participated in a journal club made possible because of social media, and interacted with a ton of amazing people online, who all inspired me, stimulated my mind and provided a much needed stress release!
Here at the blog I found myself battling periods of writing cramps and unwanted mental vacations, but still managed to come up with 79 posts (including this one). As for readers and visitors, 2012 was a banner year for my blog, with more then 25,000 people from 160 countries & territories stopping by to read articles or look at photos. In case you’re interested, my most read posts this year were:
For comparison, the 3 posts which I enjoyed writing the most were:
I tried out some new ideas this year, stirred a few pots, and feel like I’ve made some pretty decent advances with my writing overall. No complaints there!
The one area that I feel like I failed at in 2012 is taking the time to pick up my camera! I only kept 1350 photos this year, and a large proportion of those don’t meet my standards for sharing here, or are of family. The number of bug photos I took would have been much lower had I not been at BugShot, which gave me a big kick in the pants to get out there and enjoy some free time. While I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked, I did come away with some that I’m quite happy with. Some of these I’ve previously blogged, but most of these have been locked away in my hard drive until now, so enjoy!
Favourite Photo of the Year
Phymatid waiting for dinner – Archbold, Florida
Favourite Fly Photo of the Year
Laphria index (Asilidae) – Guelph, Ontario
Favourite Photo of a Newborn Fly
Triumphant Eurosta solidaginis fruit fly (Tephritidae) – Guelph, Ontario
Favourite Photo of a Fly Annoyed by my Presence
What are you lookin’ at? Euaresta festiva fruit fly (Tephritidae) – St. Catharines, Ontario
Favourite Bug Porn Photo
Euschistus servus stink bugs (Pentatomidae) having a good time – Norfolk County, Ontario
Favourite White Box Photo
Conura sp. (Chalcididae) – Guelph, Ontario
Favourite Photo Using Techniques Learned from another Bug Blogger
I ended up with SO MUCH SAND DOWN MY PANTS after using Ted MacRae’s patented Tiger Beetle Stalking Crawl… Cicindela scutellaris – Norfolk County, Ontario
Favourite Photo of a Bug Blogger Caught Posting to Twitter
Hahahaha 😀 – The Bug Geek – Knoxville, Tennessee
Favourite Photo of a Parasite Freshly Excavated from a Lab Mate’s Foot
Chigoe Flea (Tunga penetrans) female – Guelph, Ontario (originally “collected” in Guyana). Look for a full write up and photo essay about this creepy insect soon (I promise).
Favourite Landscape Photo
Fireflies under fiery skies in my parent’s back yard – Camlachie, Ontario
Favourite Photo of an Insect Sitting on Santa’s Lap
All I want for Christmas are my 2 front wings! Manduca sp. (labelled Tomato Hornworm at the pet shop) posing with Santa – Guelph, Ontario
Favourite Photo that Keeps Me Taking Photos Because I Just. Barely. MISSED IT!!
The one that got away — from me at least, I’m pretty sure that wasp is doomed. If only I had focused a few millimeters closer to me… Sigh
And finally…
Favourite Photo of My Wife, Who Makes it All Worthwhile
My wife Renee and I enjoying a short vacation at the cottage. A good reminder that there’s more to life than work and to take some time to relax with the people you love.
Well look at that, I’m actually getting a Flypaper out on back-to-back weekends! That means this one is pretty short, but with the semester just starting, that means you’ll still have plenty of time for homework/grading/lesson prep! OK, that’s not really a great alternative, sorry.
General Entomology
DEET: good for keeping mosquitoes away, bad for mixing in your drink. The tragic story of two Canadian tourists in Thailand.
A new IUCN report suggests 20% of invertebrates are at risk of extinction. Holy crap.
Wolbachia is a strange bacteria that makes insects do crazy things, like eat their own brains.
Do you know what the label around the neck of a ketchup bottle is for? The answer will probably surprise you.
I could probably include every post by Piotr Naskrecki in these weekly roundups because his writing and photos are so damn good, but I’ll keep it to just these two this week; The benefits of constant rain & Leaf-eating Leaves.
September 1, 2012. Can anyone explain to me where the summer has gone? It feels like just yesterday that the snow was melting and I had grand plans of exploration, doable to-do lists to do, and plenty of time to enjoy the summer, but now BugShot is finished, a new crop of undergrads are moving into the University of Guelph residences, and the fall entomology conference circuit is quickly upon us!
Good thing I can bank on the Bug-o-sphere to keep the summer flowing throughout the year.
Perhaps I should have named this The Biweekly Flypaper since it seems summer activities are conspiring against me, but hopefully I can get back on track soon.
(Inter)National Moth Week (NMW)
I don’t know if you noticed, but the Bug-osphere took (Inter)National Moth Week by storm and scaled new heights with their mothy contributions! Here’s but a sampling of the moth-related postings from my fellow bug bloggers.
A Bug Blog talked about a bat-sensing moth, as did the group behind the Audubon Field Guides.
OMAFRA’s Field Crop News explained how you can recognize butterfly and moth damage in your soybeans and corn crops.
The Bug Geek started off with some of her unidentified moths, and ended with a moth with a special surprise.
The Home Bug Gardeners posted some great moths all week, and eventually found themselves as new moth-er enthusiasts.
The National Moth Week team had a whole suite of great posts during the week, as well as showing off some cool moth sidewalk art spotted in Ottawa.
Itsy Bitsy Beetle found a little moth street art of her own on a wall in Berkeley California.
Brian Cutting showed off some of his tropical moth photos and ended Moth Week with a bang!
Bug Eric’s Wasp Wednesday turned into Not Actually a Wasp Wednesday in honour of NMW.
Matt “the Biology Geek” Bergeron got ambitious and took on the micro moths.
The Dragonfly Woman fought the elements to share moths with the public at an official event at her new job.
And of course CaterpillarBlog joined in on the fun attending a mothing event organized by her and her lab mates. Continue reading »
Exciting news since the last Weekly Flypaper: Piotr Naskrecki, orthopteroid taxonomist, photographer, and author (Relics and The Smaller Majority) has started a new blog — The Smaller Majority. So far Piotr has been killing this whole blogging business, with fascinating posts on tropical entomology and macrophotography tips. I’m pretty sure I bookmarked every post he made for future reference, but here are a few of my favourites:
Now onto the rest of the best from the last 2 weeks!
General Entomology
If you ever need a gift idea for the Dragonfly Woman, she’s got a nice wishlist of field guides that any nature nut would appreciate.
Speaking of gifts, we’re right in the midst of wedding season, and if you need nuptial gift ideas, why not take a page out of the insect world.
Erica McAlister, the Diptera curator at the Natural History Museum, London, takes you on a backstage tour of the NHM insect collection and shows off some spectacular specimens, including a grasshopper hugging a mouse. Seriously.
What’s the biggest bug? The North Carolina State University Insect Collection has a couple of options to answer that.
Entomology is a hobby all unto its own for some people, but it also happens to be a sub-hobby for some fly fisherman!
My wife and I had a date night this week and went to see The Amazing Spider-Man. I really enjoyed it, but was a little disappointed that Peter Parker didn’t snack on a fly or two at some point in the movie. Even if you’re not an arachnid-infused superhero, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t consider eating bugs as Doug Yanega explains to the University of California Food Blog. The Weird Bug Lady even has a tasty sounding recipe for entomological power bars to get you started!
Flies – Diptera
Apparently I missed the memo about Photo Bombing blogs, as Matt Bergeron, Dave Stone and Alex Wild all showed off gorgeous photos of bombyliid bee flies.
Brian Brown is having a pretty good month for publications, with his latest discussing phorid flies which are parasites of endangered ants.
Researchers have bred “super” smart fruit flies which can count. I for one, welcome our new Dipteran overlords.
Black flies take the majority of bad press for Northern pests, but don’t forget to watch out for moose flies while in Alaska.
Robber flies are popular with a lot of people, including devoted beetler Ted MacRae. And with their own special facial hair, the mystax, it’s no wonder.
The Geek demonstrates that sometimes when you’re photographing flies, you’re only able to snipe one photo before they take off.
Beetles – Coleoptera
Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) has continued it’s inevitable march across eastern North America, this week being detected in Connecticut for the first time. What’s important about this is that Cerceris fumipennis, a solitary wasp which specializes on buprestid jewel beetles, was the first to detect it’s presence in the state. This is the sort of Bio-surveillance that Phil Careless and the rest of Team Cerceris had hoped for, and now hopefully more government agencies will invest in expanding this simple monitoring tool.
Cerceris fumipennis is also a useful tool for collecting other jewel beetles besides EAB as Ted MacRae recently found out.
Of course you don’t need to always rely on other species to find your jewel beetles for you, as the Geek reminds us to always look.
Some people can be picky eaters, but the same holds true for dung beetles, with species preferring different types of brown sauce, and Bug Girl is on it.
Why might it matter what type of dung a beetle prefers? Because places like Australia and New Zealand don’t have any native dung beetles, making agricultural waste a significant problem. Becky Crew has a nice feature on the work being done to bring dung beetles to New Zealand.
Not all scarab beetles like to feed on dung though, like these Green June Beetles that Derek Hennen found in his yard.
With summer comes the opportunity to watch fireflies flashing in the night. Check out this nice flash guide to see if you can recognize any of the species in your backyard, and contribute to a citizen science program.
Ants, Bees & Wasps – Hymenoptera
This photo of a flying bumblebee by Adrian Thysse might be the best of it’s kind that I’ve ever seen.
The Gratton Lab at the University of Wisconsin – Madison is working on an automated bee identification project.
Urban beekeepers in Edmonton are pushing for changes to bylaws that keep their hives in hiding.
Meanwhile in Edmonton, Matthias Buck has discovered 2 new species of paper wasps right under our noses.
The School of Ants is holding a student essay contest with a nice cash prize.
Eric Eaton shows that solitary wasps can be used for monitoring other insects, like stink bugs (potentially including the mega-pest Brown Marmorated Stink Bug) or membracids.
Moths & Butterflies – Lepidoptera
National Moth Week is coming up this week, so expect most of the bug-blogosphere to get a little scaley!
The Dragonfly Woman started a little earlier by announcing an event she’s helping with at her new job.
Other Insect Orders
Troy Bartlett thinks ants mite do a better job of taking care of their herds of membracids.
Ever wondered why your car attracts some insects like dragonflies and horse flies? The Dragonfly Woman has a great explanation.
It looks like the Cleveland Museum of Natural History is becoming ground zero for mantid research in North America.
The Neuroptera are an amazing group of insects with incredible diversity. Jonathan Wojcik provides a nice overview of that diversity, and introduced me to an amazing group called the Spoonwings (family Nemopteridae). Brian Cutting showed off a member of another one of my favourite groups, the Mantis flies, while Derek Hennen found a spectacular antlion adult.
Spiders – Arachnida
“Oh look at that lovely lady beetle! It looks so cute and cuddly and OH MY GOD!!!”
Next time I go to Chicago, I’m definitely rewarding the Chicago Hilton with my business for being so awesome with their natural history and outreach!
I hate when I get a spider web across my face while out walking in the woods, but I think I might have to learn more about spiders and their webbing from a book Bug Girl recently reviewed, Spider Silk by Leslie Brunetta and Catherine L. Craig.
Now if all spiders lived among the canopy of trees like this Hentzia mitrata that Chris Buddle and colleagues are studying, then I wouldn’t have to worry about silk wrapping my face…
Speaking of Chris, he went, he saw, he videoed; Beringian pseudoscorpions in the Yukon that is!
Taxonomy & Systematics
A parasitic isopod was recently described and named after Bob Marley. Too bad the authors messed up and published the name a few months earlier in an ecological paper before formally describing it. Everybody repeat after me — in taxonomy, the order in which you publish or publicize MATTERS.
Of course, because this species was named after somebody famous, the media took off with it and the BBC published a top 10 list of what I’m now going to start calling “Celebronyms”. Have I mentioned how much I hate these top 10 species lists lately? Because I do. With a passion. Ugh.
Where should money be invested to solve the taxonomic impediment? Quentin Wheeler of Arizona State University thinks technology leads the way (i.e. the University of Arizona’s new funding to revitalize and digitize their collection), while Bob Mesibov of the Queen Victoria Museum (Tasmania) argues that more taxonomists need to be hired first. Me? I think technology will be useless if there’s no one around to develop, maintain and actually use it. I’ll also need a job in 3-5 years, so I might be a bit biased here.
The Willi Hennig Society Meeting was held at the end of June, and Itsy Bitsy attended. So did Salva at Computer Cladistics, who has a fantastic detailed review of the conference.
Kevin Peterson is literally uprooting the mammal phylogeny with a new technique he’s developed. My question is what makes this new technique more accurate to the true evolutionary history of the mammals? Micro-RNA is also being used to study Diptera evolution, but I can’t understand why it’s considered more “accurate”. It’s a wonder I get any sleep at all with these types of questions rolling around in my head…
Does the way that we traditionally draw and think of phylogenies (i.e. a “tree” of life) block us from considering new ideas on relationships?
Academia
My post on Citations, Social Media & Science gathered some attention last week, including that of the researcher who’s improperly cited blog started the whole discussion. The author of the paper also stopped by and explained they tried to include the citation, but the publisher wouldn’t allow a blog to be cited like a journal. I’m not really sure why a publisher has so much control over the content of a journal rather than the editorial staff of said journal, but I find it troubling.
This is pretty handy for people just starting out in academia/grad school – Field Guide to Scientific Conferences: An Ecological Review.
Also handy, this complete walkthrough by Steve Hamblin on laying out and developing a poster for a conference. Many, many good tips here for balancing form and function. It’s also a pretty interesting view inside the head of a Post-Doc…
It’s good to remember that it matters how you write in academia, not just what you write.
Science Communication & Social Media
Bora Zivkovic (aka the Blogfather) drops a massive backgrounder on the history and rise of science blogging.
I’ve seen a bunch of people start blogs only to watch them peter out after a few weeks/months. As a blogger who has a relatively small (yet loyal) readership, I can sympathize with this post on Why Blogs Fail.
Here’s 10 Apps That Put Science In Your Pocket.
Dr. Olin Sander compares Twitter popularity during the recent Evolution meeting in Ottawa to a sage grouse lek. Awesome.
Photography
Ted MacRae demonstrates why the placement of your lighting sources and choice of background can have a dramatic effect on a photo’s feel.
Alex Wild has a nice flowchart of his digital darkroom workflow.
Adrian Thysse has a lovely interview with renowned nature photographer Heather Angel.
Other Fun Stuff
David Winter does a great job of explaining why red heads are here to stay. Looks like my wife won’t be getting rid of me that easily!
This fish grows ant-shaped appendages to get laid. I feel like there’s an inappropriate joke in here somewhere…
Who needs cable TV when you can get all kinds of drama & comedy from social media?
Aquaman makes a terrible marine mammal. He also makes a terrible superhero.
What would happen if a pitcher threw a baseball at 90% of the speed of light? I suspect he’d be investigated for Perfomance Enhancing Drug use and never make it into the Hall of Fame.
Video of the Week
Carl Zimmer was a plenary speaker at the annual meeting of the Society for the Presevation of Natural History Collections a few weeks ago, and they just posted his talk on YouTube. It’s long (more than an hour), but it’s an interesting talk and well delivered.
Further Reading
Bora Zivkovic – The Science Blogging Weekly, July 13th 2012 – (I made the Top 10 posts list! W00T!)
Ed Yong – Missing Links, July 14, 2012
Ed Yong – Missing Links, July 21, 2012