The top-tier journal Nature doesn’t often deal in purely phylogenetic research. So when such a study graces their pages we know it’s big stuff. Yesterday, Nature published a 62 gene, 75 species analysis of the evolutionary history of the arthropods. Arthropods, as readers of this blog likely know, are animals with a chitinous exoskeleton and [...]
Archive for February, 2010
The most ambitious arthropod phylogeny yet
Posted in Science, Taxonomy, tagged arthropods, Evolution, Insects, phylogenetics on February 11, 2010 | 16 Comments »
Plectroctena, on white
Posted in Ants, Tricks of the Trade, tagged Ants, Insects, Photography on February 10, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Every now and again someone asks how I get the white background on these sorts of stylized ant shots. Pretty simple: it’s a sheet of cheap white printer paper. Overexposing the shot slightly by boosting the flash evens out the white. I set the ant down on the paper under a petri dish or a [...]
Ants in the spamoverse
Posted in Ants, Blogging, tagged internet spam on February 10, 2010 | 3 Comments »
It’s no secret to anyone with an email inbox that the real internet is shadowed by a fake internet. The fake internet is full of fake blogs, fake web sites, fake discussion forums, and fake emails. All full of real links to real companies who pay someone money to increase their visibility by gaming the [...]
Answer to the Monday Mystery
Posted in Nature, tagged Insects, jumping bristletails, Photography on February 9, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Meinertellidae! It’s a jumping bristletail. In California these flightless insects are common around harvester ant nests. I don’t think they have any sort of specialized relationship with ants, except perhaps finding the warm microclimate of the mound surface agreeable. Wings are an ancient adaptation, and most of our modern flightless insects represent an evolutionary loss [...]
Monday Night Mystery
Posted in fun, Insect Links, Nature, tagged arthropods, Insects on February 8, 2010 | 13 Comments »
What’s this charming creature? Ten points for the first person to get the family name right, too.
Sunday Night Movie: Herding Cats
Posted in cats, fun on February 7, 2010 | 6 Comments »
In honor of the big game, here’s one of my favorite Super Bowl commercials from years past:
hexapod haiku
Posted in Insect Links, Nature, tagged haiku, Insects on February 5, 2010 | 3 Comments »
fierce competition on wings and chitinous legs: hexapod haiku!
Friday Beetle Blogging: Dynastes granti, the Western Hercules Beetle
Posted in arizona, beetles, Nature, tagged beetles, coleoptera, dynastes, Insects, Photography, scarabs on February 5, 2010 | 11 Comments »
Meet Dynastes granti. This behemouth of an insect is North America’s heaviest scarab beetle, found in the mountains of the American southwest where adults feed on the sap of ash trees. I photographed these spectacular insects a few years ago while living in Tucson. The impressive pronotal horn on the beetle pictured above indicates a [...]
Look out, world!
Posted in Ants, Blogging on February 4, 2010 | 3 Comments »
James Trager is blogging.
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