The other black swallowtail that I collected back in August finally emerged on Monday and I set it free on Tuesday. Will post a photo later.
The two caterpillars pupated within a day of each other but one spent an additional month transitioning to an adult. If I remember correctly, the one that pupated second was the one that did not get affixed to the side of the jar; it was just rolling around on the bottom. And that was the one that emerged a month ago. This one silked itself to the side of the jar with the free end pointing to the sky. It got jostled however, and ended up with the free end pointing down. What does all this mean? I wonder.
One also wonders the fate of a very late season butterfly, who had little more than 24 hours of clear and warm weather before the rain and subsequent cold front brought temps down to 57 degrees today.
I know, way off topic for this blog but I don’t have anywhere else to put it. Back in grad school I was associated with the Evolution and Human Behavior program at the University of Michigan. We were a hotbed of adaptationists, both of the evolutionary psychologist and evolutionary anthropologist ilks (and if you catch me at a dinner party I’d be happy to explain the difference and tell you which I lean toward). The point is, that I was and still am a rather ardent adaptationist. So I’m pleased to read in Gene Expression
An Empirical Examination of Adaptationists’ Attitudes Toward Politics and Science. You can find a full preprint at Geoffrey Miller’s site. The abstract:
Critics of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology have advanced an adaptationists-as-right-wing-conspirators (ARC) hypothesis, suggesting that adaptationists use their research to support a right-wing political agenda. We report the first quantitative test of the ARC hypothesis based on an online survey of political and scientific attitudes among 168 US psychology Ph.D. students, 31 of whom self-identified as adaptationists and 137 others who identified with another non-adaptationist meta-theory. Results indicate that adaptationists are much less politically conservative than typical US citizens and no more politically conservative than non-adaptationist graduate students. Also, contrary to the “adaptationists-as-pseudo-scientists” stereotype, adaptationists endorse more rigorous, progressive, quantitative scientific methods in the study of human behavior than non-adaptationists.
This is consistent with my personal experience. Most or all of my friends and colleagues of that era would be considered lefties by most non-academic standards, and solidly progressive even by academics. I haven’t followed the field in about ten years, but we could probably use some research on the psychology of sustainable or non-sustainable resource use, or on why people have such a hard time believing scientists about evolution or global warming. I’m sure there’s an explanation. And that’s part way towards finding a solution.
For years while I was working for the Animal Diversity Web we got reports in October about massive numbers of “ladybugs” suddenly appearing inside houses. I’ve never been (un)fortunate enough to have this happen to me, but looks like Jenn Orth has that pleasure.
These invasives apparently like to enter homes to overwinter as colonies. In warm weather (which we’ve have had plenty of) they tend to attempt to return outside. Not sure that’s what’s happening here; maybe they are massing in order to make a run for the inside.
My friend Tricia of ADW has posted some nifty life cycle photos of these guys. I especially like this one.
You can paste this code into your blog to generate the link:
Interestingly, both of these swarms were outside.
While hiking in Ithaca last month, my friend Rachael pointed out that we were walking past prime examples of the first step in fern identification.
If the frond (growing from the ground) has just one rachis (rib) and some pinnae (leaf blades), it is once-cut like the photo on the left.
If each pinna is further divided only into pinnules, it is twice-cut. The maidenhair fern in the middle photo illustrates this, plus it is cool because the frond grows in a spiral shape, with the first division (the pinnae) coming off all on one side.
Finally, if each pinnule is divided into lobes, like the photo on the right, that’s a third-cut fern.
That is all for your lesson for today because I don’t know yet how to go further.
Back in early August, I blogged about a brown caterpillar I discovered. At the time I thought it was a tiger swallowtail, Papilio glaucus.The chrysalis was looking quite dry and shrivelled and I was convinced I hadn’t kept it moist enough. In fact, it broke last week and there was white fuzzy stuff visible in the open cross section. Fungus or something, I assumed.
To my surprise, on Tuesday there was a fully emerged butterfly in the jar, and it had obviously come from that chrysalis. Even more surprising (or not if you know my lack of knowledge about insects), I was wrong about the ID. It is actually Papilio troilus, the spicebush butterfly. I’ll have to go fix the previous Spotter entry. I took a few photographs before releasing it. By eye it looks like the right wing is smaller than the left so I don’t know how successful it will be. Also, it is rather late in the season. But our temperatures have been in the mid-eighties lately so perhaps it has a chance.
Now, I’ve got two other chrysalises that I believe are black swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes. They are about three weeks behind this one.
UPDATE: More surprises. When re-wetting the sponge in my rearing jar I realized that the chrysalis on the bottom was empty. That means this WAS one of the two caterpillars I found on the parsley that I thought were black swallowtails. I double-checked the ID of the adult and now I think this is P. polyxenes after all. As this was the last of my caterpillars to pupate, it may very well be that it will be my only success.
These millipedes were all over the rocks at Robert Treman State Park in Ithaca, New York a few weeks ago. Our first view of them was of many dried, curled up critters. We wondered what was going on. Then we rounded a bend and in the shade were the live ones. I guess the others might have gotten caught out in the sun and dessicated?
I’m still struck by how common eagles are getting on the east coast, even in relatively urbanized areas. On Sunday we saw an unmistakeable adult soaring over I-95 while travelling to Philadelphia to see the final day of the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Instititute. I think we had just entered Delaware.
