Moths I've found
In this blog post, I'll be showing some of the moths I've found lately. Moths are such interesting creatures! Many people overlook moths, which is sad! Here are some of my favourites I've found:
- Grape leaffolder, Desmia maculata/funeralis
based on the white patch on its abdomen.]]
- Io Moth, Automeris io
- Chickweed Geometer, Haematopis grataria
- Southern Emerald, Synchlora frondaria
- Blackberry Looper, Chlorochlamys chloroleucaria
- Snowy Urola, Urola nivalis
- Tersa Sphinx, Xylophanes tersa
- Pandorus Sphinx, Eumorpha pandorus
Those are the only pics I have that are .PNGs. I'll upload the other pics soon!
Cheers guys.
- -Michelle
Hummingbird taxonomic changes
IN this blog post, I'll be charting all of the taxonomic changes to the hummingbird family.
First off, this is a very daunting task because there are so many genera and species of hummingbirds. Even though we know, what a hummingbird is and what is not, that still does not mean changes won't take place!
The latest changes are based on Taxonomy in Flux, as well as H&M-4 (Dickinson and Remsen, 2013). For the sake of TiF, I'll be using the arrow (→) symbol, so it'll look like I'm not copying Boyd.
- The hummingbird subfamilies Florisuginae and Phaethornithinae now each have two tribes: Florisugini, Topazini and Eutoxerini and Phaethornithini, respectively.
- Polytimini is elevated to subfamily status. It takes the name Polytiminae.
- Trochilinae loses two …
HBW Alive: species that aren't split
Here, I will list any species on HBW Alive that aren't split!
Species on HBWA: species that they should have
- Black-throated Loon: Pacific, Arctic
- Darter: Oriental, Australasian, African
- Greater Flamingo: American, Greater
My first or second vireo!
Today I saw a vireo. However, the poor thing had died from an unknown cause. It possibly hit a radio tower not too far from where I found it. This radio tower is quite tall and I'm not sure if it's lit up at night. Many birds migrate at night, and they might strike buildings and radio towers, if they can see the light.
I noticed it lying in the grass. Ants were crawling on it and I could see some of its bones. Which is sad, gruesome but interesting. I find dead birds to be interesting for some reason. I get to study them up close, which is something I can't do and probably never will (never getting my degree in bio and need to get over the grossness of organs). :-/
At first, I wasn't sure what it was. I then noticed it was green! I then saw …
Taxonomy for dummies, part 1
Stop and look around you, look at the different objects on your desk. Now, you want a way to organise them into different drawers, no? For example, pens go in one drawer while pencils go in another. Now you've organised them!
Well, scientists have a way of doing this, but with living things. It is called taxonomy, or the study of classifying living things. Taxonomy makes it easier for scientists to know the relationships between, let's say a tree and a cat.
For starters, here's an easy mnemonic that anyone can memorise.
Dumb Kids Prefer Candy Over Fancy Green Salad (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species).
So, let's classify some birds. The birds are arranged in the table below. Did you know that all of these birds are act…