Dragonflies, Insects, and Creepy Crawlies

[goldenvalley]

May 26, 2022 15:17:01 GMT AnBr said:

Of course a salamander is an amphibian, not a reptile.

Ooops sorry.  It's a creepy crawly (and fly-y) thing.  That's as far as I looked.

[AnBr]

Still fits this thread.

[LFC]

Here's a creepy crawly (Eastern Garter Snake) who spent the entire afternoon today sprawled out and keeping warm on our deck railing in front of our "Nelly Moser" clematis.

[LFC]

They found a species of bacteria that can easily be seen by the human eye.

Clinging to sunken debris in shallow, marine mangrove forests in the French Caribbean, tiny thread-like organisms—perfectly visible to the naked eye—have earned the title of the largest bacteria ever known.

Measuring around a centimeter long, they are roughly the size and shape of a human eyelash, batting away the competition at 5,000 times the size of garden-variety bacteria and 50 times the size of bacteria previously considered giant. In human terms, this is akin to coming across a person as tall as Mount Everest.

Olivier Gros, a biologist at the University of the Antilles, discovered the prokaryotes in 2009, noticing them gently swaying in the sulfur-rich waters among the mangroves in the Guadeloupe archipelago. The bacteria clung to the leaves, branches, oyster shells, and bottles that sank into the tropical swamp, Gros said in a press briefing.

He and colleagues first thought they might be complex eukaryotic organisms or perhaps a string of linked organisms. But years of genetic and molecular research revealed that each string is, in fact, one towering bacterial cell, genetically related to other sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. "Of course, this was quite a surprise," Jean-Marie Volland, a microbiologist at the Joint Genome Institute in Berkeley, California, said in the briefing.

[AnBr]

This photograph received an honorable mention at the recent International Photography Awards 2021.

[goldenvalley]

Springtails!   They live up to their name. Click on the link to see the video.

[goldenvalley]

Here's some nice news.  California monarch butterfly count sees most in 20 years.

There’s some hope fluttering around San Luis Obispo County this holiday season. It comes in the form of an iconic orange-and-black striped butterfly that makes tall eucalyptus or Monterey cypress trees its home up and down the coast.

Read more at: www.sacbee.com/news/california/article270288107.html#storylink=cpy
More than 129,000 western monarch butterflies were counted in the county by Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation employees and volunteers in November, according to preliminary data shared by local volunteer coordinator Jessica Griffiths.

That’s the most counted in San Luis Obispo County in more than 20 years — in 1998 there were about 182,000 counted, according to the Xerces Society’s data. The numbers are giving some researchers hope that the western monarch butterfly population could be rebounding from devastatingly low numbers a few years ago that left some worrying the insect was on the verge of extinction.

I've been to monarch resting place in nearby Monterey County.  Seeing them flying around is magical.

[LFC]

Dec 22, 2022 2:08:07 GMT goldenvalley said:

I've been to monarch resting place in nearby Monterey County.  Seeing them flying around is magical.

We visited the one in Pismo Beach decades ago. From what I've heard from friends who have visited, they're much smaller than the famous site in Mexico.

[andydp]

Dec 22, 2022 15:19:48 GMT LFC said:

Dec 22, 2022 2:08:07 GMT goldenvalley said:

I've been to monarch resting place in nearby Monterey County.  Seeing them flying around is magical.

We visited the one in Pismo Beach decades ago. From what I've heard from friends who have visited, they're much smaller than the famous site in Mexico.

I had to go to Ft Leavenworth for training (really).  When I stepped outside, there would be constant "fly bys" by Monarch Butterflies.  I have to assume Leavenworth (East Kansas) is in a flight corridor.  Can a smart person here confirm this ?

[LFC]

Dec 22, 2022 19:36:01 GMT andydp said:

I had to go to Ft Leavenworth for training (really).  When I stepped outside, there would be constant "fly bys" by Monarch Butterflies.  I have to assume Leavenworth (East Kansas) is in a flight corridor.  Can a smart person here confirm this ?

Yes they can! This is a good site with spring and fall migration maps. Looks like the most states east of the Rocky Mountains are. If the area you were in had a lot of milkweed, the host plant for Monarchs, you could expect to see numbers all season.

[LFC]

This is cool!

[AnBr]

[LFC]

I think that's a Red Saddlebags but the entire Tramea genus gives me trouble. Red vs. Carolina is a particularly tricky ID problem.

[AnBr]

Jim Wright ID it as a Red Saddlebags.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

Male Blue Dasher.