Crypticerya bursera Unruh 2008
Baja California
Cory Unruh describes a new species of scale insect in the genus Crypticerya in this week’s Zootaxa. The diagram above shows a highly stylized version of the back (at left) and underbelly (at right) of the insect, with peripheral illustrations of the various pores, appendages and hairs. Scale insects [...]
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If you’re having trouble filling that bare wall over your desk, the Bohart Museum of Entomology has just the thing: a new line of insect posters. The invasive ant poster above was designed by Fran Keller from auto-montage images by Eli Sarnat, Jasmine Joseph, and Anna Lam.
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Posted in Ants, Insects, Photography, tagged database, image gallery, insect photography, site design, technology, web 2.0, web design on April 27, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Myrmecos.net is 5 years old. It has grown from a few dozen photographs to about 4,000, and in recent years 1,500 people visit the site every day. In spite of the site’s high profile, myrmecos has not changed in any fundamental way since it first went online in 2003 (archived versions are [...]
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Jo-anne has made a project of reorienting me towards a more Australian temperament. Her tactics are subtle but persistent. If I send her off to the video store, for instance, she comes home with some Aussie movie or another.
The most insidious of her methods includes buying CDs of Australian bands and playing them [...]
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Posted in Blogging, Navel-Gazing on April 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The New York Times has a piece on Ansel Adams.
Spot the fake smile!
Get your fix of Cicada Mania.
And finally…Polar Bear Tacos?
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A few of the many species described by Roy Snelling:
Myrmecocystus tenuinodis Snelling 1976
Stenamma dyscheres Snelling 1973
Neivamyrmex wilsoni Snelling & Snelling 2007
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Eusattus dilatatus - dune darkling beetle (Tenebrionidae)
California, USA
Sand dunes are an unusual habitat, and the creatures found on them are equally odd. One of the more charismatic dune endemics is Eusattus dilatatus, a large darkling beetle found in southern California. This scavenging insect has long legs for digging and a waxy cuticle to [...]
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Posted in Ants, Science, tagged myrmecology, snelling on April 23, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Yesterday I received the sad news that Roy Snelling, one of the most significant figures in modern myrmecology, has passed on. He was on an expedition in Kenya and apparently suffered a heart attack in his sleep.
Roy’s prolific career as a curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County produced dozens of [...]
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Proceratium californicum
San Mateo Co., California
From Antweb:
This rarely collected ant is known from valley oak (Quercus lobata) riparian woodland in the Central Valley and from adjacent foothill localities (oak woodland; chaparral; grassland). It is presumed to be a specialist, subterranean predator on spider eggs. Alates have been collected in April and May.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm [...]
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Areolate
In 1979, Rick Harris wrote a definitive paper illustrating the various terms used by taxonomists to describe the intricate patterns on the insect exoskeleton. His guide is tremendously helpful to those of us who struggle to decide if those ridges on the head of an ant are strigate or costate. Via Sifolinia, I [...]
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