What people have brought me this week
Jun. 2nd, 2012 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanDepending on how you measure the seasons, it is the beginning of Summer or the end of Spring. Here in the Boston area it means an explosion of living things into people's lives. All winter long people who are afraid of or vexed by insects and spiders and slimy things can rest easy, but now there are things flying, crawling, and oozing into prominence.
A coworker brought me a red beetle in a ziplock bag. "I found this on our lily plants. What is it and why does it scream?" I answered: it's a lily leaf beetle, and you are imagining the screaming. I assume that she's imagining the screaming, anyway. Alexis has been picking tons of these things off the tiger lilies and hasn't heard any screaming yet. I'll pay close attention when I find them. Interestingly (to me) they've only been in the US since 1992, and they were first found in Massachusetts. So far the best way I know to control them is to pick them off the plants (and drop them into soapy water or some other household doom). Their eggs are red things attached to the underside of the lily leaves, and the larvae are disguised by their own droppings as misshapen clumps of bug poo.
A friend on facebook posted a picture of some spiky yellow growth swarming over a plant (and tagged it with my name, forever on my timeline). I told him it was early stage Fuligo septica, or dog vomit slime mold. He was familiar with the species, but hadn't seen it in that stage before. I've seen it once or twice before crawling on a live plant, rather than along dead wood, and it does seem strange.
Also on facebook this week: a giant leopard moth, an ectobius cockroach (a European native that lives outdoors but occasionally gets inside and scares the crap out of people who think they have an infestation) and a badly mutilated luna moth. I am honored to be the person that people come to with creature questions.
Via twitter a friend described "a cross between a silverfish and a pillbug." I struggled with this until the friend, a graphic designer by trade, sent this very accurate rendering of a common striped (or "fast") woodlouse.
Now my question to you is: if I made this kind of content available in podcast form, would you bother to listen to it?
A coworker brought me a red beetle in a ziplock bag. "I found this on our lily plants. What is it and why does it scream?" I answered: it's a lily leaf beetle, and you are imagining the screaming. I assume that she's imagining the screaming, anyway. Alexis has been picking tons of these things off the tiger lilies and hasn't heard any screaming yet. I'll pay close attention when I find them. Interestingly (to me) they've only been in the US since 1992, and they were first found in Massachusetts. So far the best way I know to control them is to pick them off the plants (and drop them into soapy water or some other household doom). Their eggs are red things attached to the underside of the lily leaves, and the larvae are disguised by their own droppings as misshapen clumps of bug poo.
A friend on facebook posted a picture of some spiky yellow growth swarming over a plant (and tagged it with my name, forever on my timeline). I told him it was early stage Fuligo septica, or dog vomit slime mold. He was familiar with the species, but hadn't seen it in that stage before. I've seen it once or twice before crawling on a live plant, rather than along dead wood, and it does seem strange.
Also on facebook this week: a giant leopard moth, an ectobius cockroach (a European native that lives outdoors but occasionally gets inside and scares the crap out of people who think they have an infestation) and a badly mutilated luna moth. I am honored to be the person that people come to with creature questions.
Via twitter a friend described "a cross between a silverfish and a pillbug." I struggled with this until the friend, a graphic designer by trade, sent this very accurate rendering of a common striped (or "fast") woodlouse.
Now my question to you is: if I made this kind of content available in podcast form, would you bother to listen to it?
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-03 12:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-06-03 02:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-06-03 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-03 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-03 04:04 am (UTC)however, after reading this post, I wonder how it would be possible to incorporate other media (twitter posts, bugguide links, earlier blog posts, photos) into a podcast. i appreciate the multimedia aspect of your talks.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-03 05:14 am (UTC)