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Lurking Entomologists
Oct. 3rd, 2008 05:36 amWhile I do get a lot of comments to old posts of the "hey there's one of these in my house what do I do?!" variety, I also occasionally hear from experts setting me straight. I'm not sure how these people find these posts, but it's pretty cool, two years after the fact, to have an expert weigh in on a tentative identification (for example) of a big blue wasp I saw in Austin. A person claiming to be an insect field guide author (with no compelling reason I could find for dishonesty) tells me that it was a female Chlorion aerarium, searching furiously for field crickets with which to supply its larvae.
That was four days ago. Then suddenly in my email there appeared three comments to my posts about springtails (the joyful little insect-like creature pictured in my icon above). It turns out they are all from a springtail researcher (whose website would have been handy had it existed in 206).To my 365 Urban Species post, this esteemed Belgian professor posted a slight correction:"not Dicyrtoma marmorata but Dicyrtomina ornata. Especially the first picture of the specimen with the golden butt reminds me at Dicyrtomina ornata." I can't argue with that, and you have to appreciate an entomologist who uses the phrase "golden butt" to justify an identification.
Now we know that entomologists spend their free time doing what the rest of us do: googling the things they're interested in, and making comments on old posts! Only these comments were 100x more helpful than the ones I usually make. Not to take anything away from the ID help I get from my lj friends on a regular basis--you guys rule! It's nice to know that there are great bug experts out there, in case I do something insane like the 365 Urban Species project again.
That was four days ago. Then suddenly in my email there appeared three comments to my posts about springtails (the joyful little insect-like creature pictured in my icon above). It turns out they are all from a springtail researcher (whose website would have been handy had it existed in 206).To my 365 Urban Species post, this esteemed Belgian professor posted a slight correction:"not Dicyrtoma marmorata but Dicyrtomina ornata. Especially the first picture of the specimen with the golden butt reminds me at Dicyrtomina ornata." I can't argue with that, and you have to appreciate an entomologist who uses the phrase "golden butt" to justify an identification.
Now we know that entomologists spend their free time doing what the rest of us do: googling the things they're interested in, and making comments on old posts! Only these comments were 100x more helpful than the ones I usually make. Not to take anything away from the ID help I get from my lj friends on a regular basis--you guys rule! It's nice to know that there are great bug experts out there, in case I do something insane like the 365 Urban Species project again.
