Reader Kurt Andreas sent us photos of both animal and vegetable; his IDs and descriptions are indented:
Dogwood Thyatirid Moth (Euthyatira pudens), New Paltz, New York (April 25, 2013). A gorgeous little moth with a mohawk.
Winter aconite (Eranthis sp.), New Paltz, New York (March 23, 2013) An early bloomer that lets me know it’ll only be a few weeks before Snowdrops and Crocuses start popping up.
Avis James, an old friend who teaches biology at New Mexico State University, took her students, well, “scorpioning”. You may not know that scorpions fluoresce under UV light because of a substance (identity unknown) in their cuticle. (This ability to fluoresce may even have a function enabling the animals to see at night). Biologists often find scorpions by going out at night with UV lights, and that’s what Avis and her class did. Here’s her description—with a bonus felid.
I took my Zoology class on a late summer field trip to black-light for invertebrates. We were just outside Las Cruces, NM, but behind a local peak were there were no city lights. One of the students, Matthew Gallien, took these photos of scorpions. They are most probably in the genus Vaejovis. We were using 100 LED UV flashlights: they were fabulous.
We found that other things glow under black-lights out there, including scat. No pictures of glowing poop attached.
The final picture, a bobcat (Lynx rufus) is from another class field trip. We went to the Alameda Zoo in Alamogordo NM. My student Hannah Whittaker took this when she was in the enclosure with the animal. This is a rescued animal: someone tried to keep it as a pet. That didn’t work out so well, but it now it can’t be released into the wild.
Reader Gary Radice sent some lovely Oregon landscapes:
Not wildlife pix, but here are some land/sea/sky scape photos from the Oregon coast, looking south from Ecola State Park toward Cannon Beach. That is Haystack Rock in the middle of the first photo.
That empty beach is pretty typical for Oregon, especially midweek and off-season. Did you know that the entire Oregon coast, all 353 miles of it, from the low tide line to the vegetation line, belongs to the people of Oregon? There are no private beaches.
All pictures are great, the last one is gorgeous, I am fond of this kind of weather and unpeopled scenery by the sea.
The “no private beach” rule in Oregon is a wonderful thing.
I think that generally applies to Hawaii, far as I know. The one exception to that is Bellows Beach, which is on a military installation. However, I would also say that going to a local beach as a tourist, is not a good idea.
Yes, and it probably ensures the beaches are kept natural.
The beaches in Hawaii are publically owned, but resorts get around that by building right next to the line, then doing everything they can to restrict access. The two things I have seen is they make the access lanes hard to find, and then they really restrict public parking (which they are required to provide).
Beatiful pictures! The 100 led UV flashlights that you can get are creating a bit of a stir in the bug photography community. A lot of arthropods flouresce under them, including insects. And they are not very expensive.
Gorgeous photos.
I love the Oregon coast esp. the fact that there aren’t many people. The sand dunes are fantastic. The Washington coast is also fairly uninhabited, but has a lot of private beaches. I didn’t know Oregon’s entire coast was public…very cool.
Pity the poor Bobcat.
N i c e post today… Very good, ta very much.
I did not know that scorpions fluoresce. That was cool.
These were ALL lovely…. thanks a bunch!
I give Avis James and her class a glowing review 😉 Nice!
Thanks to all the contributors, and to Jerry for posting.
Thanks!
Seems that the compounds responsible for scorpion fluorescence are 4-methyl-7-hydroxycoumarin and beta-carboline – references included here.
“JAC: I wonder what’s around to pollinate this?”
Furry yeti toes.