Dragonflies, Insects, and Creepy Crawlies

[LFC]

The Wandering Glider is a single species spanning 6 continents with constant genetic interchange across them. A new study showed specific cases of their movements as discovered through the use of stable isotopes to determine origin.

North America’s monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) get all the ink when it comes to insect migrations, with their annual 3,000-mile trek, but a little dragonfly’s travels throughout many parts of the world are just as epic, and likely much more so. Evidence collected a few years ago by Maldives-based biologist Charles Anderson, Ph.D., suggests the dragonfly Pantala flavescens, sometimes known as the globe skimmer dragonfly, completes an 8,000-mile round trip between India and Africa over four generations or so, hitchhiking on high-altitude winds that prevail each way.

Anderson is part of a team of scientists—the others from Japan and Canada—who now have documented that many P. flavescens found in Japan in summer originate from as far as Tibet and northern India, about 3,000 miles away. Others, especially early in the season, travel less, from places such as southern China and the Korean Peninsula, while some are home-grown, from southern Japan.

[LFC]

I've visited some wetlands in the midst of frog mating season and the chorus can be deafening. This article entitle Some Frogs Have Noise-Cancelling Lungs to Dampen Other Species’ Calls explains how they handle it.

Female American green tree frogs use their inflated lungs to dampen the mating calls of other species so they can pick out the ones from males they may mate with.

Male frogs use mating calls, ranging from high-pitched cackles to deep croaks, to advertise themselves to nearby female frogs. But grabbing their attention means competing with the cacophony of calls from other frog species living in the same pond.

To find out how they navigate the noise, Norman Lee at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and his colleagues played a range of sound frequencies to 21 female Hyla cinerea frogs. They immobilised the frogs and then either inflated or deflated their lungs using a laser vibration sensor. A laser was beamed at a reflective bead placed on a frog’s eardrum. By measuring the laser that was reflected back, the team could estimate the amount of vibration at the eardrum’s surface that occurred in response to the sounds.

The frogs’ eardrums vibrated less when their lungs were inflated, but only for sounds within a specific frequency range. The background noise was filtered out when it fell between 830 and 2730 hertz, leaving audible those two frequencies – the same peaks found in the male H. cinerea mating calls.

“The call is a single-note call, it sounds like a cross between a dog barking and a duck quacking,” says Lee. When females hear that, it takes precedence over noise at the same frequency made by other species.

This would come in handy in the wild, where frogs and toads loudly call at the same time.

[LFC]

Cicada Brood X is coming to the northeast this year. This is my size 12 slipper. (Long story short I can’t get my foot in a shoe right now.) All of those dirt clods in my side yard have a hole under them and in each hole is a cicada just waiting for the soil to get warm enough to make their appearance. The last time they emerged at our house in southeastern PA you couldn’t do yard work without earplugs. It was just too painful. I think this emergence is going to be worse … or better, depending upon your point of view. All I can say is thank FSM they don’t call at night.

[goldenvalley]

Get your noise canceling headset ready!

[LFC]

Vox has an article on the impacts of the upcoming cicada irruption.

As researchers are learning, an eruption of periodical cicadas can send ripples throughout the ecosystem that alter the population dynamics of predators like birds and perhaps even fuel the growth of plants and trees. And, remarkably, some of those effects seem to last for years.

[AnBr]

[AnBr]

[AnBr]

[AnBr]

[RichTBikkies]

The next President of the United States.

Thank you.

[pnwguy]

May 20, 2021 9:51:32 GMT RichTBikkies said:

The next President of the United States.

Thank you.

I think you mean the LAST President of the United States. Every American on this board will work to see that he is not the next one as well.

[RichTBikkies]

May 20, 2021 11:45:03 GMT pnwguy said:

May 20, 2021 9:51:32 GMT RichTBikkies said:

The next President of the United States.

Thank you.

I think you mean the LAST President of the United States. Every American on this board will work to see that he is not the next one as well.

I have this gnawing suspicion that Joe Biden will be the last President of the United States. There are large important tracts of the country with too few sane people to keep things going. They will drag down the rest.

[pnwguy]

May 20, 2021 12:17:13 GMT RichTBikkies said:

May 20, 2021 11:45:03 GMT pnwguy said:

I think you mean the LAST President of the United States. Every American on this board will work to see that he is not the next one as well.

I have this gnawing suspicion that Joe Biden will be the last President of the United States. There are large important tracts of the country with too few sane people to keep things going. They will drag down the rest.

Sadly, I fear your pessimism is warranted.  If the GOP takes the House in 2022, ushering in a coronation of Divine Leader in 2024, it may be time to find another country for escape.  Like the Jewish population in Germany saw doom coming their way in 1934, the non-MAGAts may find life pretty intolerable here.

Sorry, this is supposed to be a non-political thread.  But insects and creepy crawlies sure describes the current GOP.

[LFC]

The cicadas are currently getting thicker at our place though the chorus hasn't hit full steam yet. I cleaned 15 off the porch yesterday and there's another dozen now. They're all over the plants, bushes, trees, walls, sidewalks, ...

[LFC]

People ... are ... stupid.

We’ve been warning you for weeks: A massive swarm of cicadas are emerging from their dormant states and creating a lot of noise.

Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen was in Union County, one of the areas in Georgia where Brood X is happening. Emergency officials there are asking people to stop calling 911 about the loud noise the cicadas make, which sounds like an alarm.

“Union County E911 is receiving multiple 911 calls for “alarms” in the neighborhood. More than likely these “alarms” are not alarms at all but a bug, Brood X,” the Union County Fire/Rescue & EMA wrote on Facebook.

I'm hearing them every time I go outside during daylight hours at my house. They don't sound anything like an alarm.

[LFC]

Yesterday there were some that had emerged. Today there were twice as many that had emerged. Tonight it is on! All of these were taken on the same bush which had plenty more on it.

[LFC]

This one is a bit younger but starting to show the adult coloration which they didn't show a week ago while still in the ground.

[AnBr]

Saving Grace Animal Rescue of Maryland
May 22 at 3:02 PM ·

**** Foster opportunities available ****

Meet Buscemi. He’s 17 years old, and has already shed his only coat. He enjoys making “forest sounds” and searching for his one true love. He’s not picky tho. Seeking a foster/foster to adopt home for the rest of his days. He has about 24 of them left. Not altered, but is potty trained. Gets along well with others. Serious inquiries only.

[LFC]

Testing photo drag and drop. I'm trying to figure out how to display full-sized images rather than clickable thumbnails.

EDIT: Figured out one PITA way to do it but need to find an improvement.

Attachments:

[RichTBikkies]

May 26, 2021 22:24:38 GMT AnBr said:

A non-like Like. HIJJUS!

Morticia would say that would be a great design for a soft toy for the Addams kiddies!

[LFC]

May 28, 2021 8:33:56 GMT RichTBikkies said:

A non-like Like. HIJJUS!

Morticia would say that would be a great design for a soft toy for the Addams kiddies!

It really is an awe inspiring spectacle of nature, though. The thought that these things just all hung out for 17 years in the ground and all decided to erupt in the same week is staggering. It's also nice that you can pick them up and they don't bite, sting, or pinch. If these were a type of wasp I might have a veeeerrrry different feeling about them.

[LFC]

May 28, 2021 8:33:56 GMT RichTBikkies said:

A non-like Like. HIJJUS!

Looks like Rich has a soulmate on CNN.

No one, and I mean no one, is safe from Brood X.

Preparing for a live shot on Thursday night from the Capitol, CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju briefly lost it when a large cicada crawled on his neck, prompting the normally mild-mannered reporter to fire off a string of expletives.

In the short clip that he shared on Twitter, Raju can be seen going through his normal preparations before doing a live on-air dispatch. Unbeknownst to him at the time, a big juicy cicada had taken residence on his lapel.

Crawling up his chest and around his neck, the bug still did not get Raju’s attention until seconds later, when it appeared to reach the back of the reporter’s neck. At that point, Raju frantically reached behind his head, grabbed the insect, and tossed it on the ground.

“Oh my God!” Raju shouted before uttering a string of profanities which he helpfully bleeped out in the video.

With the rest of the production crew laughing hysterically, the veteran CNN correspondent asked them some very pertinent questions.

“What the hell? Do I have more on me?!” Raju wondered aloud. “Holy sh*t! Are they in my hair?!”

Thankfully for Raju, his colleagues informed him he was in the clear and he wasn’t in an Indiana Jones scene.

In the end, Raju spoke for pretty much everyone in the Washington, D.C. area when he exasperatedly asked: “Where are the f*cking cicadas coming from?!”

I've had a half dozen land on me or bump into me in the past week. I brought one into the house on my collar and found it when it crawled up onto my neck. It's no big deal.

[LFC]

Here's video of the CNN reporter. Listen closely at 0:09 when the cameraman starts to snicker as he sees what's coming.

[LFC]

It appears that the cicada emergence is complete at our house which means that the non-stop screeching 3-4 week orgy is in full swing. Right now I can't spend any more than a few minutes outside of my home in the afternoon without ear plugs. On Sunday I was power washing the deck but the noise from the cicadas become too much and I put them in. Today after 10 minutes with the gate repair guy at the top of the driveway my ears were ringing when I got back inside. It's brutal.

[pg]

"Love is in the air" for the cicadas. The noise is truly deafening, when you hear it.

Apropos of this conversation. Out of my small nuclear family, I've been the only one who dealt with bugs. Mr. and my son couldn't take it. Fear. Me: Oh my- are you made of sugar? Step on them. Smash them with your hand. I was the BIG GIRL, who tried to get them to stop fearing stuff that exists, naturally. Chatting about the ecosystem etc.

BTW: The bats are back in town. We have a very protected, cultivated and tracked population that lives under the South Congress bridge. Ah- it's birthing season so the nightly flights, right now, are a bit small. Mom's are on "maternity leave", for a bit. But the small fly is still very useful. It's why I bring it up in a bug thread. Huh. Bats fly out at night and eat them all. Especially important in a warm-to-hot humid climate. HA! They are so much more effective at bug control, mosquitos included. It's why I don't pay attention to the companies who offer "mosquito fog". Not is that a chemical compound I don't want, it doesn't help the bats. I prefer t keep my flat land irrigation in good shape and let the bats do their thing, at night. Ecosystems.