Ammonite
Showing posts with label Insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Insects. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Beautiful Bugs!
I thought I'd post a couple photos I took while I was on my camping trip in Northern California. There were a LOT of bees, and yellow jackets up there, but there were also some really beautiful "bugs". It truly is amazing how many weird and beautiful things you can find when you just take a second to look.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Bee's and Things
As the summer has finally made it's debut, so have the insects. I noticed bee's hovering ominously over my patio two weeks ago, and haven't swept since then. My plants are paying the largest price since I've been too afraid to go out an water them. I contacted the property management company, and after a considerable rigamorole (How go you spell that??? rigor marol...rigger ma- never mind? ) The pest guy finally showed up, just moments ago. I showed him the spot which hardly needed pointing out since it was the only place on the patio that heinously creepy insects were flying in and out of.
He immediately informed me they were not bees but yellow jackets. How he was able to discern that from a distance I guess I'll never know. It probably has something to do with the fact that he's been exterminating for more than twenty years. He informed me that honey bee's aren't so bad. They go about their business and don't get in the way, or sting, as long as their hive is left alone.
I lost him at the word "hive" which made me shudder and wish eternal damnation on anything black and yellow with wings.
But anyway, my particular infestation is not of the charming and non-hostile honey bee sort. They are yellow jackets, and according to him, are of an entirely different breed. They are the the criminals of the stinging insect world, posing as innocent pollen munching bee's, but in reality they are an aggressive, confrontational variety of wasps. Eeesh! Freaks me out even to type that.
The pest guy needs to wait until it got dark to...spray them, or slice them to pieces with a samurai sword or how ever it is that exterminators get rid of unwanted creatures. (I prefer the latter, but will settle for anything that makes them go away.) So hopefully I will have my patio back by tomorrow!
He immediately informed me they were not bees but yellow jackets. How he was able to discern that from a distance I guess I'll never know. It probably has something to do with the fact that he's been exterminating for more than twenty years. He informed me that honey bee's aren't so bad. They go about their business and don't get in the way, or sting, as long as their hive is left alone.
I lost him at the word "hive" which made me shudder and wish eternal damnation on anything black and yellow with wings.
But anyway, my particular infestation is not of the charming and non-hostile honey bee sort. They are yellow jackets, and according to him, are of an entirely different breed. They are the the criminals of the stinging insect world, posing as innocent pollen munching bee's, but in reality they are an aggressive, confrontational variety of wasps. Eeesh! Freaks me out even to type that.
The pest guy needs to wait until it got dark to...spray them, or slice them to pieces with a samurai sword or how ever it is that exterminators get rid of unwanted creatures. (I prefer the latter, but will settle for anything that makes them go away.) So hopefully I will have my patio back by tomorrow!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Caribou
I've been busy this past week. Occupied to the brim at work, but also with contemplations about various things that I have read, or learned about on TV. (I've recently discovered that I can watch Netfix on my iPhone while at the gym!) And, for those of you who don't know it already, I am officially on vacation for the next week!
I recently read a book called Midnight Wilderness by Debbie Miller, in anticipation of my littlest brother moving to the Arctic. I thought it would be neat to learn a little something about the place that Jay is going to call home for the next few months. Simultaneously I have been watching a 6 part documentary series on the history of India. And the culmination of all of this input has led me to this realization: If I believed in Hinduism, the last thing I'd want to be reincarnated as is a caribou. And after I explain why, you'll feel the same way I am sure. (Note: No not continue reading if you are eating...this will seriously gross you out.)
Caribou are actually North American reindeer. And in general I have an affinity toward reindeer because a.) they propel Santa's sleigh, and b.) their fur make the best mittens and sleeping bags on the planet.
But I recently learned something about the less romantic aspects of Caribou life. And by less romantic I mean super gross, and quite traumatic from human standards.
OK, but before I get all gnarly on you, I'd like to point out a couple neat things about caribou (this is all from the above mentioned book by the way). Caribou have specially designed wide and flat hooves that help them maneuver through the snow. They have nature made snow shoes. They also have hollow hair (like polar bears!) which simultaneously makes them more buoyant while traversing swollen springtime arctic streams, and aid in minimizing heat loss during the cold of winter.
But moving onto the part that horrifies me. The arctic is one of those few places left on earth were nature is sovereign. And so we immediately think of silver foxes, handsome caribou, thousands of migrating birds, or the afore mentioned majestic polar bears. But what we neglect to acknowledge are the BILLIONS of insects that flood the tundra every spring in an evolutionary race to procreate.
We've all seen documentaries of the millions of birds, totaling to hundreds of species, that make the incredible journey to the arctic in spring to nest and lay their young. And if you are at all like me, you just assumed it was a random thing that birds do, for no specific reason. Well, it turns out it's not random. The entire reason that birds fly thousands of miles to lay eggs is specifically because of the disgustingly huge amount of insects that are available and ready for consumption. And that's great...for birds. But we're talking about caribou right?
All of the pests that are so delicious to birds have to find a way to survive the winter. I'm sure it's pretty sweet to be a fly when the weather is above freezing, but how can you survive as a fly when the temperature dips to 40 below zero?
Uggg. Well, caribou are the answer. As wrong as it seems to us to subject an innocent mammal, that already has a rough go of life in sub zero temperatures to another hardship, that is the answer.
Those tasty warble flies (that sustain many bird species) lay their eggs in the soft fur on the belly of a caribous stomach in the warm months of the year. Then as the larva grow, they burrow and penetrate the skin of the caribou. Eventually they make their way under the skin into the intestines and make their way to the back of the animal. It's the area that gets the most warmth, but it's still protected by the warm hollow hair. The larva stay there, all fall, all winter, munching away at the walls of their foster home, waiting for spring time. By the time the snow has melted each larval individual is maybe a half inch in length. And they are by no means alone. When the weather truly changes, hundreds, or thousands of squiggly disgusting wormy larvae cut their way through the skin of their host caribou to breathe fresh air for the first time, and to begin the process anew. To begin another hijacking of a new caribou.
And as horrible as that sounds, there is still more in store for our friendly caribou, minding it's own business, just trying to survive in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
We haven't mentioned the Botflies. Shoot. If you thought warble flies were bad...botflies lay their eggs and grow in the nasal passages and lungs of caribou! Caribou are often heard coughing and sneezing.Apparently it's not dust they are trying to get rid of. It's botfly eggs and larva. Uggg.....
So there you have it (and consequently the reason why I would not want to be reincarnated as a caribou, or reindeer ...or whatever!).
Sometimes I get bent out of shape because I have to wait in line at the grocery store, or pay an extra 7 cents a gallon for gas. But that, and every other complaint I can think of, seems so ridiculous when I think about what a caribou has to live through.
I recently read a book called Midnight Wilderness by Debbie Miller, in anticipation of my littlest brother moving to the Arctic. I thought it would be neat to learn a little something about the place that Jay is going to call home for the next few months. Simultaneously I have been watching a 6 part documentary series on the history of India. And the culmination of all of this input has led me to this realization: If I believed in Hinduism, the last thing I'd want to be reincarnated as is a caribou. And after I explain why, you'll feel the same way I am sure. (Note: No not continue reading if you are eating...this will seriously gross you out.)
Caribou are actually North American reindeer. And in general I have an affinity toward reindeer because a.) they propel Santa's sleigh, and b.) their fur make the best mittens and sleeping bags on the planet.
But I recently learned something about the less romantic aspects of Caribou life. And by less romantic I mean super gross, and quite traumatic from human standards.
OK, but before I get all gnarly on you, I'd like to point out a couple neat things about caribou (this is all from the above mentioned book by the way). Caribou have specially designed wide and flat hooves that help them maneuver through the snow. They have nature made snow shoes. They also have hollow hair (like polar bears!) which simultaneously makes them more buoyant while traversing swollen springtime arctic streams, and aid in minimizing heat loss during the cold of winter.
But moving onto the part that horrifies me. The arctic is one of those few places left on earth were nature is sovereign. And so we immediately think of silver foxes, handsome caribou, thousands of migrating birds, or the afore mentioned majestic polar bears. But what we neglect to acknowledge are the BILLIONS of insects that flood the tundra every spring in an evolutionary race to procreate.
We've all seen documentaries of the millions of birds, totaling to hundreds of species, that make the incredible journey to the arctic in spring to nest and lay their young. And if you are at all like me, you just assumed it was a random thing that birds do, for no specific reason. Well, it turns out it's not random. The entire reason that birds fly thousands of miles to lay eggs is specifically because of the disgustingly huge amount of insects that are available and ready for consumption. And that's great...for birds. But we're talking about caribou right?
All of the pests that are so delicious to birds have to find a way to survive the winter. I'm sure it's pretty sweet to be a fly when the weather is above freezing, but how can you survive as a fly when the temperature dips to 40 below zero?
Uggg. Well, caribou are the answer. As wrong as it seems to us to subject an innocent mammal, that already has a rough go of life in sub zero temperatures to another hardship, that is the answer.
Those tasty warble flies (that sustain many bird species) lay their eggs in the soft fur on the belly of a caribous stomach in the warm months of the year. Then as the larva grow, they burrow and penetrate the skin of the caribou. Eventually they make their way under the skin into the intestines and make their way to the back of the animal. It's the area that gets the most warmth, but it's still protected by the warm hollow hair. The larva stay there, all fall, all winter, munching away at the walls of their foster home, waiting for spring time. By the time the snow has melted each larval individual is maybe a half inch in length. And they are by no means alone. When the weather truly changes, hundreds, or thousands of squiggly disgusting wormy larvae cut their way through the skin of their host caribou to breathe fresh air for the first time, and to begin the process anew. To begin another hijacking of a new caribou.
And as horrible as that sounds, there is still more in store for our friendly caribou, minding it's own business, just trying to survive in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
We haven't mentioned the Botflies. Shoot. If you thought warble flies were bad...botflies lay their eggs and grow in the nasal passages and lungs of caribou! Caribou are often heard coughing and sneezing.Apparently it's not dust they are trying to get rid of. It's botfly eggs and larva. Uggg.....
So there you have it (and consequently the reason why I would not want to be reincarnated as a caribou, or reindeer ...or whatever!).
Sometimes I get bent out of shape because I have to wait in line at the grocery store, or pay an extra 7 cents a gallon for gas. But that, and every other complaint I can think of, seems so ridiculous when I think about what a caribou has to live through.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
What a Bee Sees
 |
| Dandelion |
Pollinating insects, like bees, see colors differently than we humans do. They are able to see beyond what we call the visible spectrum, into the shorter ultraviolet wavelengths. While that's interesting it's not really all that fascinating until you couple that fact with the next one I am going to pass along.
It turns out that beyond the "normal" colors we humans see, many flowers have patterns and colors that are only visible in the ultraviolet. And most of the color in the ultraviolet creates a "bulls eye" around the center of the flower where the reproductive parts and pollen are located.
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| Crocus |
I am not sure whether flowers evolved this coloration to attract pollinators or whether the pollinators developed the ability to see the color to find food, but either way one influenced the other to the point of shaping it's evolutionary history! The discovery of such relationships are like finding two pieces of a puzzle and putting them together. It's not the whole picture of evolution, but you still get that "Ah ha!" feeling when the two pieces fit perfectly together. Insights like these are amazing examples of the often weird interconnectedness that all living things have with each other. Life is something isn't it? And knowing that I am a part of this puzzle, that I exist in a world that has such things as invisible colors, it just makes me feel....freaking awesome!
(all photos borrowed from www.naturfotograf.com)
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| Primrose |
Monday, June 7, 2010
Ants In My...Head
I have no intention of regularly using my blog as a venue for describing dreams I've had, but I just had to mention this one before it fades away into the nothingness from which it originated. It' is simply too weird not to. Was I flying you might ask? No, I wasn't. Did I meat a famous person? No. Did I win the lottery? Unfortunately...No.
No, I spent all of last night reading/ perusing a ten volume set of books dedicated to describing the various ant species of the world. Isn't that about the most random thing you have ever heard? I don't even like ants, or have any interest in them at all. But I can still remember turning page after page (after page...), reading all sorts of interesting (and obviously untrue) things about ants, looking at pictures, trying to sound out their species names, and scrunching my nose in disgust at the look of some of them.
For example (I literally read this in my sleep), there were these ants from Africa ( Hymenoptera africaneus) that lived in the detritus under certain kinds of pine trees that existed in the rainforest there. The ants were big and black like carpenter ants, but they were covered in coarse hair (which was really gross by the way). The book said that the pine tree gave off a lot of C02 in the local vicinity of it's branches, and thus the bugs that were drawn to the scent of it's sap would suffocate, die and fall to the forest floor below where the ants ran back and forth along the base of the tree catching the bugs in the hair on their back and carry them (which was much easier than dragging prey with teeth or legs) to their nest. In return the ants provided nutrients for the tree when their dead bodies decomposed around it's roots, and so they were kind of symbiotic, and always where you found one, you found the other.
It kind of makes me sad to think none of it is true. I mean I just spent 7 hours reading a fictional encyclopedia on ants...for nothing. At least I am not tired though. Eh, anyway...that was my dream.
Just FYI, I looked up Hymenoptera (because it was really weird that the name sounded familiar), and it turns out to be the order that ants belong to, but so do bees and wasps etc. and I used it as a genus name. I recall reading an essay about wasps a few months ago, so maybe that's were I picked it up? So I guess I didn't make everything up.
No, I spent all of last night reading/ perusing a ten volume set of books dedicated to describing the various ant species of the world. Isn't that about the most random thing you have ever heard? I don't even like ants, or have any interest in them at all. But I can still remember turning page after page (after page...), reading all sorts of interesting (and obviously untrue) things about ants, looking at pictures, trying to sound out their species names, and scrunching my nose in disgust at the look of some of them.
For example (I literally read this in my sleep), there were these ants from Africa ( Hymenoptera africaneus) that lived in the detritus under certain kinds of pine trees that existed in the rainforest there. The ants were big and black like carpenter ants, but they were covered in coarse hair (which was really gross by the way). The book said that the pine tree gave off a lot of C02 in the local vicinity of it's branches, and thus the bugs that were drawn to the scent of it's sap would suffocate, die and fall to the forest floor below where the ants ran back and forth along the base of the tree catching the bugs in the hair on their back and carry them (which was much easier than dragging prey with teeth or legs) to their nest. In return the ants provided nutrients for the tree when their dead bodies decomposed around it's roots, and so they were kind of symbiotic, and always where you found one, you found the other.
It kind of makes me sad to think none of it is true. I mean I just spent 7 hours reading a fictional encyclopedia on ants...for nothing. At least I am not tired though. Eh, anyway...that was my dream.
Just FYI, I looked up Hymenoptera (because it was really weird that the name sounded familiar), and it turns out to be the order that ants belong to, but so do bees and wasps etc. and I used it as a genus name. I recall reading an essay about wasps a few months ago, so maybe that's were I picked it up? So I guess I didn't make everything up.
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