Where I've Been

Before I start writing up what I'm doing right now, here's a little recap of the last 18 months or so, to put my absence in perspective. Not the most exciting post, but it will put my forthcoming field season posts in perspective!

From October 2009 through March 2010, I wrote my preliminary proposal for my thesis project. Most people take their qualifying exam (aka "Quals") first, but I did things backwards. I'm wacky like that.

As part of my preliminary proposal, I spend a lot of time using GIS to select sites for my study. Since I'm comparing effects of landscape at different scales, site selection is a huge aspect of my project. In the end, I came up with 16 sites and two control sites, all blueberry fields in southern New Jersey. This took most of March.

On April 1st, I started training a field crew of five people, including myself. It was a good thing we started early, because last year was one of the earliest blooms on record for blueberry in this region. Our first day of data collection was April 15, which was already a few days into bloom; we were done with data collection on May 5. Short field season!

From May 6 or so right up to last month, I have been analyzing my data. Really. It's still ongoing, but I had to take a break from analyzing the data to collect more data, starting... probably next week. More on that to follow.

But, data analysis isn't all I do! (Although, it's most of what I do.) I also spent a few months studying for my quals (and passed, thank Darwin that's over!), gave a 10-minute talk at the Entomological Society of America meeting in San Diego last December, started writing a paper with my advisor, and have learned a bit of programming in R. I also got a great teaching gig that lets me teach only in the Fall semester, so I can focus on my field season in the spring. I've also learned to bake foccacia. Overall, it's been a busy 18 months!

I'll write more about the current field season soon, but in the meantime, here are some early-season critter photos. Enjoy!

Gorgeous green beetle.

Habropoda laboriosa male feeding on leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) flowers. Leatherleaf is one of the earliest blooms in this area, and hungry early-emerging spring bees were all over it!

Small and Blue and Beautiful

Yesterday I blogged about something very small.

Today I'd like to call your attention to some articles that talk about something very big.


Forty years ago today, astronauts took this historic photo, "Earthrise". I didn't remember that until reading the editorials in the Times, of course, since I wasn't around yet. Some say that this image helped jump-start the environmental movement.

Anyway, the articles from today and from 1968 are worth checking out. Here is today's editorial reflecting on 1968 and now; this op-ed piece observes that while *we* may be fragile, life on earth has endured worse than humans and survived. From the first editorial, click on the "Related Articles" links to download some of the original articles from 1968, which are not available as web pages. This photograph is also so famous that it has its own Wikipedia page.

From the 1968 editorial:

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now they are truly brothers.

Lovely.

PS: For more on "Earthrise" and a short video clip from the Apollo 8 mission, visit this Dot Earth post from today.

Wild Edibles Seafood Market, or, What Not to Buy

Over the long weekend, I visited Grand Central Station to check out the holiday marketplace. While we were there, our group also visited the food markets . I love the temple of dairy that is Murray's Cheeses, and Penzey's Spices is always a treat.

And then I was face to face with a red snapper.


I don't often spend time near the seafood counter at the grocery store, nor do I actively seek out fishmongers on a regular basis. But I can recognize a red snapper, and I was mildly perturbed to see one on display at Wild Edibles Fish Market. I decided to leave one of my Seafood Watch seafood guides with whoever was on duty and send an email to the company when I got home.

Then I looked closer. There was a sign near the snapper with a bright red fish symbol and a description of why red snapper is not a recommended seafood choice. I surveyed the rest of the catch of the day; every fish was marked with a sign, and a not insignificant number carried the red "Avoid" tag. A sign hanging over the counter informed me that Wild Edibles was working with the Blue Ocean Institute to help people decide which seafood to buy.

They even had wallet-sized seafood guides available at the counter.

I was horrified. They were actually selling the fish that their own signs declared threatened or endangered. I asked the woman working the counter, "How can you sell this when you know that it's endangered?" Her response: "Well, we want the customers to decide. If they tell us to stop selling it, we'll stop selling it."

Let's tell them.

Tell them that they ought to know better. Tell them that they do know better. Let them know you don't want to see fish on the menu that, by any account, would be better described as "Endangered Species" than "Catch of the Day". And while you're at it, tell your local fish seller too. Go to your grocery store and see if they're selling red snapper, orange roughy, Chilean seabass, or any other endangered fish. Give them a seafood guide, or two, or ten.

While you're at it, you might want to let the Blue Ocean Institute know what you think of their endorsement, as well. Shame on them for lending their name to an irresponsible fish merchant.

Anax junius and Friends

As promised, some pictures!

It turns out that Anax junius likes to hang out more towards the middle of the pond. Lacking waders, I practiced catching anything I could. (Things like coordination don't always come easily to me.) I also don't have a great camera for macro stuff. One of these days I'll get a better one, but in the meantime I still got some decent pics!

OK, less talking, more dragons!

Pachydiplax longipennis

First up is Pachydiplax longipennis, also known as the blue dasher. That is the standard way of holding dragonflies after you catch them, by the way. This guy was a lot more blue than the picture looks, but it's sort of hard to see.

Celithemis eponina

If this is what I think it is (but I don't have a great field guide) then it is the aptly-named brown-spotted yellow-wing, Celithemis eponina. Unfortunately, standard dragonfly holding procedure obscures a lot of the beautiful wing patterning, so check out Wikipedia for more. The wings on these guys are lovely! If I've ID'd it correctly, it's also known as the Halloween pennant. Even if I don't have the species quite right, I feel pretty good saying that it's at least in Celithemis.

Libellula vibrans?
Libellula incesta

I don't have a good handle on this one. I suspect it might be Libellula vibrans, the great blue skimmer, but I'm really not sure. There's a picture of one on this page about the genus Libellula, but ... I don't know. I'll have to send this post to Mike and ask him.

(Editor's note: See next post for correction.)

Plathemis lydia

I'm pretty sure this one is a white-tail, Plathemis lydia. Why? The tail is white. (Actually, there may be several species of white-tails, but there is only one in my field guide. Hopefully the correct one. )

And, finally, the pièce de résistance, the trophy at the end of several hot hours standing in the sun by a mucky pond with a net, the big kahuna we were hunting all day:

Mike holding our first and only Anax junius of the second day out.

Waiting for the glue on the transmitter to dry.

Waiting for clearance from air traffic control.

After being manhandled for several minutes, they need to shiver their flight muscles to get warm enough to take off. Payload firmly attached, he was airborne a few seconds after this pictures.

We tracked him for about an hour with a pretty strong signal, first up in the woods and the back to the pond area where Mike had originally caught him. And then, suddenly, the signal vanished. We waited awhile, but he did not return. Perhaps he decided that this pond was too dangerous.

PS: You might be interested to know, for scale, that my left thumb nail, which features prominently in all but the pictures of Anax, is almost exactly one-half inch wide. You might also be interested to know that "longipennis" means "long-winged", despite what I know you were thinking. Apparently penna means "feather" in Latin and is related to the word "pennant". Penna is also the root of the word "pinion", meaning both the outer part of a bird's wing and the removal thereof to permanently prevent flight. Aren't you glad you asked? Entomology and etymology, all in one convenient location.

Better Know an Insect: Anax junius, part I

I post a lot about what's going on in the world of science, but I haven't posted much about what I'm doing.

Today, that changes.

Ladies and gents, this is Anax junius, the green darner dragonfly:

Male green darner.

Female green darner.

Take a good look, because you'll be hearing a lot about these guys in the future.

Today was a testing day for Mike and myself. (Mike is my advisor.) We received some very small transmitters a few weeks ago, but because of various things (his trip to South Africa, my shuffling between NJ and LI, logistics, etc.) the plan finally came together only this week.

(Please bear with me. I forgot my camera, I will try to describe things as well as I can, and I will hopefully have some more pictures tomorrow.)

After borrowing a van from Princeton, which may or may not prove handy depending on how well we can use our radio antenna, we headed to a pond and spotted a few Anax. Mike being in possession of the one pair of waders, he went on in while I stayed on shore in case any made an escape attempt in my direction. We were very lucky, and Mike bagged a male (like the picture above) within a few minutes. Back on shore, we sat down in the shade (don't want the little guy to overheat) and proceeded to apply a radio transmitter with a combination of eyelash adhesive and crazy glue. Once it was on, he sat on Mike's finger, shivered his flight muscles for a few minutes to warm back up, and took off.

We were able to follow him for a bit into some trees (apparently, green darners that have been man-handled will retreat to trees away from the pond) and then lost the signal. Driving around, we were able to find his blip again, only to lose it a few minutes later. We are concerned that the soldering was not as firm as we'd like and the transmitter may only be transmitting intermittently (that's a mouthful!).

Our plan for tomorrow is to 1) try to find our guy again in the same area. If we are successful... well, actually I don't know. I think we'll just try to keep an eye on him as long as we can. 2) If we can't find him, we'll first do a practice run with just a transmitter to test the range of a properly-functioning beacon. After that... probably try to bag another one and follow it around for a while.

What's the point of all this? Well, our project is on migration in Anax. So, we're trying to figure out whether it's even feasible to tag one, relocate it, and follow it for several days over land. It has been done before, but we're both new-ish to the technique. And it's not easy.

I'll post more in the next few days about the exciting world of insect endocrinology and how hormones may influence migratory behavior -- an under-explored area which might become part or all of my project if it proves too difficult to consistently follow tagged individuals. Also, pictures next time.

PS: In case you were thinking that we were attaching big, heavy transmitters to dainty damselflies, rest assured, we are not. Green darners are anything but dainty. Go out to a pond, take a look at all the dragonflies you see, and look for the biggest thing flying around. That's probably an Anax species. A picture for size comparison:

Male A. junius and female A. longipes.

I didn't take this picture and those aren't my hands, but this will give you some idea of just how big these guys are. Totally harmless, of course, but definitely massive!

Bagels and... what?

Hmm. Zabar's will have their hands full trying to make sardines the new lox. Good luck with that.

Sardines with your bagel?

Despite what seafoodwatch.org might say, salmon is probably best to just keep on your Avoid list. I'm not sure how recently they updated the list, but it probably hasn't been updated since the Pacific fisheries south of Alaska were closed. With prices on Alaskan salmon poised to go through the roof, you might want to find something new to put on your bagel.

Unfortunately, the other classic bagel topper, whitefish, is also a no-go. Atlantic cod, aka whitefish, is a big red Avoid on that list. But if you're a fan of herring in cream sauce, you're doing A-OK, since herring (aka sardines or kippers) are considered a Best Choice.

Of course, the other option is to not put any fish on your bagel at all. I like mine toasted with a little butter, tomatoes, and a slice or two of manchego. Simple, delicious, and definitely dolphin-safe!

Guano

There was about a week there with no posts; sorry about that. I was busy, and there was Memorial Day weekend, and it took a few days to get myself back together.

This article, in two short pages, manage to cram in a lot of interesting information about colonialism, the pre-petroleum world, sustainable fishing, sea bird conservation, organic farming, and other topics.

Peru Guards its Guano as Demand Soars Again.

Guano is bird droppings; colonial birds such as the cormorants and boobies mentioned in this article produce a lot of it every year. Before humans figured out a way to make synthetic fertilizer (leading to corn that is grown with petroleum, which doesn't really help us when you make it into ethanol), guano was the richest soil amendment you could buy.

What I'm not too clear on is why seabird guano is so particularly sought after. We have millions of captive chickens, turkeys and ducks; can't we use some of their droppings in a similar way? If anyone has a good explanation about this (is it something about the level of fish in the diet?) I would love to hear it.

Anyway, it's an interesting article. It gives a little more insight into just how this massive food chain we've created works. Fish that would go to seabirds are instead going to chickens (which don't normally eat fish); declining seabird numbers means less guano for organic farmers to use on vegetables. The price of petroleum goes up to the point that "conventional" petroleum-based farming is too expensive, so farmers of all stripes are looking for alternative fertilizers.

Massive NY Times Update

One of my favorite hobbies (if you can call it that), as you have surely noticed by now, is reading the New York Times. I love the Times. I am a Times junkie. When I don't get to read my articles I get a little cranky.

What's your favorite section? (Tell me in the comments!) You might think that mine is Science, but you're only half-right... it's actually more of a toss-up between Science and Opinions. I love the editorials and columnists, especially arguing with David Brooks and calling people with incorrect opinions names while sitting at my computer. I also read the Education section religiously, looking for religion trying to interfere with education.

The upside of this is that it gives me a lot of blogging material. The downside is that I got backlogged during the end of the semester and I now have more articles to post about than I will ever get to, since new stuff keeps appearing! (That's why they call it the news.) Very frustrating. So, here is a rundown of everything I wanted to post in the last few weeks, with brief commentary, all in one big post. They're not in any particular order, and some of them are not recent, but they're all interesting reads. Enjoy!

• Exodus Exegis -- Kristol's editorial about the 3 presidential candidates' Passover greetings.
  
• Bambi (1942) -- the original review of Bambi, back when deer were more cute than a nuisance.
  
• Tests Confirm T. rex Kinship with Birds -- geneticists confirm what we've known for a while.
  
• 2 Clues Back Idea that Birds Arose from Dinosaurs -- paleontologists had this idea already fleshed out in 1993. Based on evidence from bones. Oh, the horror.
  
• Noble Eagles, Nasty Pigeons, Biased Humans -- humans tend to assign morality to the animal world, to varying degrees and with various consequences for our perception. I could write a whole blog post about this, but I think I'll hold off for now.
  
• An Elephant Crackup? -- one of the most moving, fascinating, and troubling articles I have ever read. Published over 18 months ago, it still haunts me. War has considerable consequences for animals other than humans.
  
• Albert Hofmann Dies at 102 -- the inventor of LSD made it to 102; in related story, flying pink elephants have turned 70.
  
• From Auschwitz, a Torah -- a Torah that survived Auschwitz is restored and rededicated. The story of how it was found is a great read.
  
• Battle at Kruger -- how an 8-minute amateur video of lions, buffalo and crocodiles became an Internet phenomenon and then the subject of a 1 hour documentary. If you haven't seen the original, check it out. Note: had I posted this video, I probably would have titled it, "Between a Croc and a Herd Place."
  

What, you're still here? I didn't give you enough stuff to look at? Go read some of these articles!

Mind Your Manor

There are many, many places I want to visit. I hope to eventually visit all continents, and perhaps even all countries. But one thing I have always wanted to do is to visit Kenya and see the many marvelous creatures living on the savanna.

And what could be better than meeting some of the natives over breakfast?


I'm referring, of course, to native giraffes. When you visit Giraffe Manor, which is just outside Nairobi, they join you for breakfast, at least from the neck up, and then hang about all day. With long, elegant necks, lovely eyelashes, and legs for days, who wouldn't want such elegant company?

There was a story in Vanity Fair about them last October, and they've been featured in numerous other magazines. You can see them in motion in this clip, which also discusses the education and conservation mission of Giraffe Manor.

PS: Thanks to Phil and Karen for the inspiration.

Happy Birthday!

Today is David Attenborough's birthday! He is celebrating his 82nd trip around the sun.

Two years ago, in celebration of his 80th birthday, The Daily Mail ran a story saying that UK citizens rated the superb lyrebird clip from Life of Birds as their favorite Attenborough moment, followed by his 1979 encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, seen in Life on Earth.


One of his newest projects, announced in March, is a major conservation education center featuring butterflies, hummingbirds, scorpions, etc. I'm not sure hummingbirds in the UK is a brilliant idea, but their overarching goal is preserving species against habitat loss, and that's not a bad thing.

Happy birthday, Sir David!

Big In Japan

The crows are big in Japan.

Japan Fights Crowds of Crows

Actually, the correct term is a murder of crows, but that would make an odd headline, wouldn't it? "Japan Fights Murders of Crows" -- in fact, they are actually murdering the crows, which have become a nuisance.

I have to give a lot of credit to the crows. Building dummy nests, attacking people for food, shutting down one of the most advanced train systems in the world... well done. Nature 1, humans 0.

But, as it says in another article recently, being smart may not be all that great. In the crows' case, it just makes humans want to exterminate them more, it seems. Poor little crows. It's the same story over and over: humans make a habitat that favors humans, but it also favors other species like crows. Crows multiply in expanded, favorable habitat, so people feel like they have to kill them, that they have no other choice. So sad.

The kicker, though, is here:

The crow explosion has created a moral quandary for Japan, a nation that prides itself on nonviolence and harmony with nature, because culling programs are the only truly effective method of population control.

Excuse me? Prides itself on nonviolence and harmony with nature? Oh, right, whales aren't part of nature, they're outside of it. Sure. To prove you're in harmony with nature, stop hunting whales. I think that's pretty straightforward.

Anyway, yes, it's true. Sometimes culling programs are the only effective way to deal with the situation, as in NJ we have to hunt the deer because they're overtaking the green spaces. But, it's also worth examining why we're having the problem. Is there a way to create habitat in which humans and crows can coexist? Perhaps having a more efficient garbage disposal system, so that there is less garbage sitting around? If culling is truly the only way, then it's the only way... but it's a shame, nonetheless. As intelligent creatures, crows deserve our respect.

Great Moments in Documentaries

I love nature documentaries. I can't get enough. I watch everything that the BBC sends us as well as Nova, most of the Discovery Channel, and more. Deserts, deep ocean, mountain peaks, rain forest, it's all good to me.

But sometimes, there are moments that really stand out from the pack, that really make you sit up and take notice. This clip is one of my absolute favorites. The first time I saw it, I had to rewind several times to get the full impact.

The Dance of the Red-Capped Manikin

One smooth mover.

This is from a Nature miniseries on PBS; the episode was "Deep Jungle". The whole program was fascinating but this was by far the best moment.

Enjoy!

Jurassic Peck

This morning was notable in that (among other things) it was the first time I've been bitten by a dinosaur hard enough to draw blood.

I'll start at the beginning.

As part of my course on field ID of birds, our field excursion today was to our professor's house to mist net for birds. A mist net is a very fine-gauge nylon net that, when properly hung up and stretched taut, is nearly invisible to birds. The nets we were using were for small birds; catching the resident turkeys takes considerably more than a mist net!

Step 1: Hang up mist nets and go away for a while.

Step 2: Come back and check out the catch of the day.

A little help here?

The little cutie in the net there is a tufted titmouse, henceforth a "tuftie". Tufties are related to the chickadees. They can hang upside-down from branches while foraging, they're fun to watch at feeders, and they can open sunflower seeds by hammering on them with their bills.

The next step is to disentangle the bird from the mist net. All you need to do is gently loop all the little openings in the net over the various limbs and head of the bird, coaxing it out while retaining a firm but gentle grip on it. After all, they are small and very delicate. Be gentle and it should be relatively painless.

The question is... for who?

Getting a screaming, angry tuftie out of a net is a pain in the hands. As in, the damn thing bit mine AND WOULD NOT LET GO. You know the webbed part of your hand, between your thumb and index finger? Imagine a beak that is meant for cracking hard seeds has just gotten your hand into its mouth and you cannot do a damn thing to convince it to let go. The upper bill is slightly decurved, which means that simply pulling your hand out of its mouth will cost you a piece of hand.

Now, imagine that it finally does let go, and begins using that strong, pointy beak to hammer down on the back of your thumb knuckle, which is the closest piece of flesh to its face, but there's no way of holding the bird without exposing something to it, and this is the best option. Oh, and did I mention that they can hang upside-down? That's because they have very strong feet with very sharp claws. And the thing is... if you let go of the bird for a second, they have a tendency to get themselves more caught up in the net than before, prolonging the time the two of you get to spend together. Also they're noisy little critters, and they don't stop yammering the entire time they're biting you.

So your best option, really, is to swear like Calamity Jane on a bad day, adjust your grip, and remember that you weigh approximately 2600 times as much as it does.

Was it worth it? Look at this photo -- that's my hand!!

Deceptively cute!

It's just like they always say, a bird in hand is worth being pecked and bitten! (Something like that anyway.)

The other birds we banded were not *nearly* so quarrelsome as the tufties. We had a total of two robins, three tufties, and four or five white-throated sparrows.

Untangling a sparrow.

Once you have the bird in hand, it does actually get pretty easy. Even the angry little tufties calm down a good bit when they're out of the net and in your hand. The next step is, naturally, to actually band the bird. You pry open a tiny aluminum ring, record the number on it, and close it again so that it just hangs on the leg of the bird.

Haha, we've got you now!

After you've banded the bird, you let it go. It's that easy. If we were doing a study of bird diseases, bird health, or anything like that, we might take a blood sample, weigh the bird, take a few measurements, etc., but today was just a banding day.

Nice sparrow picture.

Sparrow showing off his leg band.

One of the robins after banding.

The way we released the birds was by holding them on their backs and slowly opening our fingers. Some of them fly off almost immediately, but not all... occasionally they need to "take a moment" before getting back to what they were doing before they got all tangled up. Watch in this video as Jay releases a bird! (Don't bother adjusting your speakers; there isn't any sound. My camera only takes silent movies. Just imagine the sound of wings flapping.)

So, aside from the fact that my knuckle still hurts, this morning was amazing. Birds are so tiny -- sometimes we forget how little there is under all the feathers. Feeling their hearts beating in your hand is amazing. They're so fragile and so beautiful. And yet despite their size they will stand up to you and let you know exactly how they feel about being deceived, ensnared, and manhandled. Marvelous little creatures.

PS: Don't believe me that I was bitten by a dinosaur? Read this... geneticists have finally agreed with what we've already known for a while!

Unique

Things that are Unique

The Mona Lisa

Snowflakes

Our Beautiful Planet

... so let's do what we can to keep it healthy!

Happy Earth Day!

Avast!

OK, let's get something straight here. I am fond of 18th century-style pirating. Not 21st century style pirating.

Jack does not approve of whaling, unless whales are full of rum!

BUT! I am incredibly excited about eco-pirates, or "pirates of compassion" as they style themselves.

Green Pirates Claim Victory

It's really sad that countries I otherwise have no real problems with (Canada, Japan) insist on maintaining these out-of-date marine mammal hunts. Whaling is so nineteenth century! But it seems like the pirates did a fantastic job; the Japanese whaling ships were only able to take about half the number of whales they had set out to brutally slaughter, and none of those were fin or humpback whales. It's still a few hundred whales too many for my tastes, but still -- a good thing for cetacean-kind!

Jumping for joy!

Victory via coconut cream. That has got to be the best pirate I've ever seen!

Move, Whales, Get Out the Way!

Humans to whales: "Can't you move it any faster?"

Even the Whales Have Their Predators: Ships

Not much to say here except that I'm rethinking what I said about not hating people. Even the whalewatch boats don't want to slow down!

Short post tonight because blogging isn't my job, being a student is my job!

Feeding the World

Right. I said last month that I am not a vegangelical, and I stand by that.

But it needs to be said.

Stop eating meat.

Despite the fact that I am an animal lover, I am not saying this to spare the cute 'n' cuddlies. The simple fact is that we are running out of grain, and eating animals is an inefficient use of grain, and although I sometimes don't like people, it doesn't mean I want a massive food crisis to hit around the globe. It takes 700 calories of grain to produce 100 calories of cow. I don't know about you, but 14% efficiency, to me, is WAY too low.

Some recent reading material:

Grains Gone Wild -- Paul Krugman's editorial from a few days ago.

Farmer's Spurn Conservation Program -- Science/Business Times this week.

First one is straightforward, just read it. Second article... well, do we want to eat or do we want to worry about the birds, as the baker says? Why can't we do both? Cattlemen have the answer:

“This program is taking money out of your pocket twice a day,” said Jay Truitt, vice president for government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “Do you think it’s right for you to pay so there’s more quail in Kansas?"

The cattlemen and bakers argue that farmers should immediately be allowed to take as much as nine million acres out of the Conservation Reserve without paying a penalty, something they say would not harm the environment.

Of course the cattlemen want more land out of the conservation program, they need it to feed their meat-producing machinery. What if I want to pay for the land in Kansas? It doesn't matter to me if the price of beef goes up, but it does matter to me if there is less land available for our native birds. (And who made a bunch of bakers and cattlemen experts on what would or would not harm the environment? Probably the same group that decided airlines could monitor themselves.)

Further, one of the demands on the food system is that countries that traditionally haven't eaten much meat (looking at you, China) are starting to adopt American-styles diets, full of beefy goodness. So, as though Americans weren't enough of a strain by themselves, people around the world now want to eat the way we do. And there just isn't enough land to support that lifestyle.

We're not going to get any more land. We have one planet, and that's it.

There's really only one solution. Stop eating meat. It's the easiest thing you can do today to save the world.

Mammal-centrism

It bothers me. Yeah. That's right. I'm tired of cute, fuzzy, cuddly critters. (Except that saiga antelope. Man that thing is crazy looking!)

Vegetarian Times has put its April 2008 edition online as a free trial of online magazines, which is actually pretty cool, except that you can get all of their recipes online anyway. (Part of the reason I stopped subscribing.) But the image that goes with the article on p. 68 really irks me. The article is called "Eat for Change" and that's all well and good, but there are way too many mammals. Aside from the female human in the picture, there is a rabbit (which looks like a white lab rabbit, including makeup!), a skunk, a deer, and a squirrel (also wearing makeup, apparently this is the one Eddie Izzard met). There are two birds and two butterflies.

Ugh.

I realize that my idea of "cute" might not be the same as anyone else's (yes, I did bring home a pair of cockroaches one time, and yes, I did start to find them sort of adorable) but what about, at least, other attractive vertebrates? There are some lovely lizards and fishies out there, not to mention the sheer cuteness of frogs.

But even including more vertebrates is, well... besides the point. We're the minority, folks. The insects have us, tarsi-down. There are more species of beetle than there are of vertebrates several times over. More than half of known animal species are insects.

For the rest of this week, and all next week, I'm going to post about interesting insects and other non-vertebrates. Let's call it "Get to Know Your Neighbors" week-and-a-half. Interesting critters live all around us, if we're open to seeing them. For example, leaf-cutter ants mostly live in the tropics, but one species lives as far north as New Jersey! I'll write more about leaf-cutters in a post of their own, though -- those minuscule farmers deserve it.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a pair of frangipani hornworm (aka tetrio sphinx moth) caterpillars that I took in St. John.


My hand is actually right next to that caterpillar; I am not using Peter Jackson's camera techniques. They grow to be six inches in length and can eat up to three leaves a day; one clutch can defoliate a frangipani (plumeria) tree in very little time. They might look fat and succulent, but I wouldn't recommend eating them; some of them sequester toxins from their food sources. However, another theory is that they're also mimicking the coloration of a coral snake, which is highly venomous. Either way, they're pretty spectacular larvae! (You can see the little horn on their abdomens in this picture; it looks like a little hair.)

Enjoy the hornworms. More insects tomorrow!

More salmon news

Apparently, southern hemisphere salmon aren't doing any better than northern. This time, though, it's farmed salmon in Chile that are poorly. Of course, farmed salmon in general isn't sustainable... they're carnivores, and it takes four to six pounds of other fish to raise a pound of salmon. Where does that fish come from? I don't really know. But it's coming from somewhere in the deep blue sea, and the seas are becoming more and more empty. Plus, farmed salmon in areas where salmon normally live can intermingle with wild populations, spreading both diseases and genetic material and contaminating the wild fish. When it comes to salmon, wild caught is still the best. Oh, and did I mention that these (in the article) are Atlantic Salmon? That are being farmed in Chile? Where they don't belong in the first place? And that some of them are escaping and eating the native sea life? Yeah. Bad situation all around.

By the way, the article specifically mentions Costco and Safeway as retailers that sell Chilean salmon. Don't buy it, and let them know why!

"It's not their habitat, it's just where they hunt for food."

A Party of Four at a Foraging Spot

Here is a NY Times article about a proposed development in the Long Island Pine Barrens. Pine barrens are areas dominated by sandy soils, fire-resistant pine trees, and, both here in New Jersey and on Long Island, some interesting flora and fauna that are sometimes endemic to the habitat. Pine barrens were long viewed as useless and are targets of development; they are an endangered habitat, in some ways. Conservation efforts are starting to target pine barrens, but most people still view them as... well, barren.

My favorite quote from the article comes from Richard Cardinale. “It’s not their habitat,” he said. “It’s the area where they forage for food in winter months." Oh? Pray tell, Mr. Cardinale, how do you define a habitat? Where exactly would you like the owls to go to look for food, the supermarket?

By the way, anyone who knows why we need a ski slope on Long Island is welcome to fill me in. I wasn't aware we had a need. Yikes. I hope this project is completely halted on account of salamanders and owls, but I'm not optimistic.