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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 6, 2011 3:56:18 GMT -8
Cupido comyntas I think, Eastern Tailed Blue.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 5, 2011 8:43:49 GMT -8
Find a pet store with poorly cared for animals? lol. Maybe if you write to the people who rear them they can offer you the dead adults at a better price than the live. Or you can buy slings and raise them yourself, but I'll warn you they make very good, low maintenance and interesting observational pets and can live a while in many cases, so you might find you end up with lots of live ones and none for spreading after many years.
There's a red knee used for teaching that is kept at the University here, she just turned 40 not long ago. Granted she has devoted and credentialed expert care, but not unusual at all.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 5, 2011 8:39:31 GMT -8
Good for the soil though, no? Sometimes you have to cultivate a bit to get anything good back else you might have land that fallows and gets taken over by crazy weeds. To keep the phylogeny tree in your garden healthy, sometimes you've gotta bite the bullet, open that can up and grind the worms into the dirt. I have a good butterfly for your creationist museum that you can have, it's called Archaeopteryx. Some silly paleontologists call it a "dinosaur" but they are clearly jews or atheists trying to deceive you
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 5, 2011 6:08:15 GMT -8
I think accurate data, down to GPS local, should be controlled and accessible to true professionals in the field of research. Science should be repeatable, democratic, open source, free to the public and as transparent as possible. Jealously guarding your data is not scientific nor even friendly (and collecting animals is scientific whether you like it or not). Exactly.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 5, 2011 6:04:07 GMT -8
I'm a bit on the fence here, but without engaging anyone specifically I would just like to say that you would be very hard pressed to find any scientific institution that doesn't have a required ethics training associated with it, whether you are in psychology, entomology or medicine. Usually even tangent staff are required to take this training, even if they never touch anything related to the study but simply because they might be around it and might be exposed to the data. So yes, ethics and science are inextricably linked.
Killing something for decoration is something that treads the lines or morality? Maybe. Depends on what you kill. After all, everything in the modern life required killing something in some manner, either by habitat destruction or by direct exploitation of the organism or both and so on. I don't think there is any problem with trophy hunting as long as you are mindful of the ecology. Killing a deer to put on your wall, while very distasteful to me personally, is not going to cause any ecological disaster or loss of a species. It's really a case by case issue, as ethics inherently are. But because we are all obligatorily involved in industry it's hypocritical to claim "moral purity" towards nature just because we put a label on all of our specimens. It's just trying to soften the sting of having to kill something yourself- you are still killing something and no doubt there are other people who have killed the same exact butterfly a thousand times over for the same purpose- how many places really need to have hundreds of the same common butterflies? Yet we still collect them all so we have a complete set of our own before we die. Having in your head that somehow your intention of these specimens long term is being of scientific value doesn't absolve you from killing an organism. Nor does killing an organism necessarily make you immoral, those same common butterflies are still flying around and reproducing like mad for hundreds of years in many cases. It sounds to me like we would like to make a euphemism for what we are actually doing when we really don't have to justify it as long as we are respectful and don't over exploit, right?
Personally, I collect and kill, I keep data but nonetheless I do get a twinge of guilt almost every time I kill something even though the spirit of my collection is one of scientific documentation. I also like the aesthetic side of it and as such I go great lengths to have the most beautiful examples I can have. But there is a lot of decorative use of killed animals globally and it's a bit arrogant to think that adding data makes you morally superior to someone who kills a bird to use feathers in a social ceremony because the cultural mores are different. I think the important thing is to be mindful, of both the animal you are collecting and it's position in the ecological web as well as of the possibility that morals are fluid and defined by social climate. Judging someone's activities based on your own cultural baggage is not very productive, one way or the other. What may be moral to you may not be moral to 90% of the world by virtue of birth place and upbringing.
That's my two cents on the topic.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 4, 2011 5:46:00 GMT -8
Not at all, Calosoma smell sour like rotting fruit and cheese or something. Hard to describe, but it's terrible. Comes from citric acid derivatives I believe. Lasts for quite some time too.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 4, 2011 5:41:28 GMT -8
The thing you miss about reading genomic data is that it is relative. It makes a difference if you are sharing data across instruments (and sure there is "maintenance" calibration, just like with tires on your car) so no, not really. Micro and Nano are big in my field, accuracy is very important. But accuracy itself is relative. In an obscenely over simplified manner, you are really just looking between the two samples to see "this one has peak here here and here of these percentages which are shared here and here but not there." So if you instrument is slightly off, the effect is shared between the samples and you can still say "different or not." You can't compare that data with one from someone else's instrument but even on your own instrument, you would always run both the known and the unknown. In this scale of work there are always slight variations just by virtue of temperature, slight power fluctuations, the mere act of turning an instrument off and on can cause it be different slightly than last time so there is always a correction factor in the form of some series of controls used to calibrate the data itself. It's relative and not surprisingly works differently that your field of training would have you believe. If my instruments were giving me 5.001 and not 5.000, it wouldn't make a difference per assay because they operate fundamentally different than whatever it was you were working on, evidently. You gotta know the instruments in question before you can try to find a fault in them to discredit their capacity.
Nomi, the example you use is of someone who doesn't understand the techniques they are using. You wouldn't run into that problem if you had any biological background and new that rocks were indeed basically inorganic as far as remnant genetic material goes (and what's this "DNA extractor" anyway? That's called a lab technician, Lol). There's a limit to every what every instrument can tell you and if someone doesn't even understand how it works how can they even presume to make any conclusions that anyone else will believe. It's the problem at hand in a way though- if you don't understand how a particular technique can be applied or even how it is really done, what ability do you have to make any judgment as to value of the returned data? Pretty much none. So you have pointed out the limitations of having someone unqualified mis-using instruments and data to make wild claims that would never be substantiated by anyone with any background at all, in your demonstrative example not even a high school biology student. But appalachiensis/glaucus X was analyzed in some part by experienced people, so we know this is not the case. What we don't know, as the study looks fairly preliminary, is whether or not these people considered the theoretical flaws in genomics and took that into consideration before declaring a new species found. There is no evidence that they did in the literature, so it is still not clear in my mind whether or not this new species is good or just someone wanting to name something.
I don't think this is tunnel vision- in fact if you back and read, my position on the standing of appalachiensis which has undergone some molecular scrutiny as well as morphological (molecular used as "proof" in this case) is that it is not clear that it is a real species. This is all discussion of application of these approaches and why they can be misleading. So no tunnel vision here as I accept that both morphology and genomics must be used in tandem and with their limitations in mind, in order to make a more accurate determination of taxonomic classification. So don't dismiss genomics because you don't really understand how it interpreted, you will be missing out on a lot of information that might be telling you "don't put that rock in there, it's completely inappropriate."
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 10:08:28 GMT -8
A lot of insects that sequester cyanide derivatives from their diets produce an amaretto-like odor; wood roaches, for example. Could be something similar as cyanides can produce an array of cherry to stinky scented molecules which are commonly found in insects that eat plant products; leaves, wood and seeds. It's bitter to taste so it's a defense mechanism but doesn't necessarily produce an unpleasant odor. Humans are a little perverse in our sense of taste and smell anyway, perhaps it is unpleasant to most other mammals the way mustards and hot peppers are intended to be. Hard to say specifically because this character pops up in lots of types of insects, a little description is probably required to get further than that. In terms of location (garage, in Texas) I would lean towards, and brace yourself if you don't like bugs, some kind of roach crawling on you.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 9:49:23 GMT -8
We are mostly debating the extent to which someone should document, which shows that however you chose to do it, documentation is paramount.
Advantage to GPS is that it puts you exactly right in the region (mind you depends on what kind of GPS you are using, but certainly within a mile or so these days at worst), regardless of what has happened there. Pennswood mentions that it could all just be blown away by some amazing solar flare (at which point I think GPS would be the least of our worries anyway) but forests can be chopped down, roads can wash out, areas can dry up or flood, all kinds of things can muddle or completely obscure localities when trying to visit years after the fact. We really don't have to debate permanence, that is an existential question.
In my view, you get the GPS to make sure you are in the right spot and then you provide the other data (date, time, habitat, affiliated species, etc. etc.) to make sure the spot that it was originally collected at is still representative of the habitat which you are seeking. Without both, there is a good chance you won't be able to find exactly what you intended to. Good chance of not finding it even with both, so why not arm yourself with GPS too? That's like saying, "well I have a library in my city, who needs the internet?" They don't do the same things, they overlap yes, but each has advantages that the other can't provide and the sum is way greater than the parts.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 6:17:14 GMT -8
It's like looking out into my yard, these are lovely staples from our area of the country. A. vanillae is pesty almost, if you like your Passiflora specimens much.
I also collect extensively in my local area, year after year, and have found state records myself (more than just insects too). It's definitely worth it, especially if you are a less studied area. My area is fairly well picked over as we have a lot of biological science folks around, and even here I can find records.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 6:10:24 GMT -8
Very pretty set, thanks for sharing. I have only the normal myself.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 6:07:02 GMT -8
Look at modern human skeletons with no skin and then look at any of the other hominids- you can see with your eyes very easily that without skin you don't know who is black or white or purple, but you do know who was either extremely deformed or not Homo sapiens. It's not that morphology is useless in distinguishing our own genus, it's that skin color, hair quality, height, weight, distribution for modern humans are all tiny superficial qualities that hide a structure beneath which is morphologically more or less identical from person to person. That is not the case with other hominids and modern humans. It's the emphasis on race that makes it artificial- that's like calling a melanistic rat snake a new species just because the color is different, even though every single other thing is identical. If you skinned that same snake and found that it had a different pelvis, different spinal structure, different dental arrangement, different shaped and size brain cavity, then you have a more convincing set of morphological traits besides "well, it's black." You can't really separate modern humans with morphology beyond that, see why that's a problematic proposition from a purely taxonomic standpoint? And then when genomics confirm that the reason we are morphologically identical almost everywhere besides a handful of variable qualities that fall on a spectrum of skin, eyes, hair, build, etc. you know that distinctions based on race are a thing of the past because they aren't supported by either genetics OR morphology.
It is good to note though that a lot of lumping a splitting occurs with hominids too. We likely have way more named species than we should, they are more often being lumped rather than split as the big craze for hominid specimens has a died down a bit since the initial expeditions excited everyone. There is a bit of the name claim game going no doubt. Hard to say much about a handful of ancient pebbles that are supposed to represent three individuals of a new species, but as a non-expert in hominid fossil ID I accept the possibility that it might indeed be enough if you have the right set of pebbles. I don't disbelieve things just because I am not familiar enough to make a judgment, rather I ask questions.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 5:40:33 GMT -8
Clark- tarantulas cannot be housed together for any length of time. Unlike most spiders (which let's note that tarantulas are NOT really spiders, they are more primitive) they don't necessarily eat each other. But like most solitary predators, they will eat their own if they get bothered or hungry. In husbandry, it is quite normal to breed a single male to several females, you just have to watch them closely for signs of aggression. I have experience with this myself. The tricky part is rearing the resulting teeny tiny spiderlings.
Some tarantulas can live a very long time, females anyway. There is a very very old individual that has been kept for decades here as a teaching example, a red knee female. Males you can tell are not long for the earth by looking at their pedipalpa- they have sort of hooked clubs after the last molt, at which point they can mate and will die not long from then. They can mate several times, but the appearance of the clubbed pedipalpa is the indicator of a rapidly approaching death. I kept lots of tarantulas for years (favorites are the classic Poecilotheria regalis and the large, showy and docile Pamphobeteus nigricolor), they are fantastic pets, easy to ship and- just like other bugs- they reproduce en masse so collecting a few is not going to destroy a local population. So shipping a tarantula is just about the same as a beetle with one caveat. It is important to not let them experience any hard impacts so as to avoid cracking. They are easy to kill than a beetle in this respect. Usually they are shipped in deli cup type containers with loose paper towels to provide some cushioning and hides and then again packed with something shock-absorbent around the outside. It's not terribly complicated and different than any other live thing going that is being shipped, but does require a bit more care in softening the ride than would something harder or dead. Pretty exciting find, we don't have any native species here although there are apparently some established populations of pet store staples (B. vagans I think most notably)- sounds like Florida, no?
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 5:17:40 GMT -8
Yes, there is a distinction between insects and tigers that should be fairly obvious. I think/hope we would all have different feelings about collecting insects as amateurs or business people if butterflies had only a single offspring or two per annum. I think of groupers- some are farmed and a highly prolific (in fact invasive- C. argus, for example) while others are very slow reproducers and are very threatened, like the Nassau where fishing of even a few individuals can really hurt the fecundity of the species at large. Generally insects are the former, not the latter (are there examples of insects with extremely small broods? I can't think of any, would be curious to know). Those which are at a point where collectors really could impact them are noted and theoretically left alone. Of course there are poachers out there, still people who hunt tigers after all. But generally, outside of those people who have no regard for the natural world no matter what particular area we are discussing, even taking a few insects that are "pretty" is not going to cause the extinction of anything. I would wonder how many "decorative" Victorian specimens ultimately were of great value, there must be at least a few examples of something taken without the proper collection data that ended up being quite useful. There are a good number of specimens like this at many institutions for some reason and it's got to be more than just to irritate the person who has to sort them. They don't all get thrown away out of frustration, I have seen them in the archives myself. Winged is right, there are plenty of things to do with insect specimens beyond population modeling that might not require full collection data.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 3, 2011 5:02:26 GMT -8
I think belief is usually rooted in things people are more familiar with. Genetics are a bit abstract, sure. I think that's the entire point of this discussion is just what you say- are we looking at a tree or a forest? You don't really 'calibrate' equipment for looking at genomes as that is a relative comparison, at least not in the sense the term is applied here; sort of wrong context for the application. What you do calibrate is your tolerance level- at some point we have decide if so many different genes or similar genes make something closer or further apart on a cladogram. I think what we are all wondering about here is whether or not our tolerance level has been correctly assigned. Certainly it does and probably should vary from set to set as genomes span a wide range of complexity (another example of when your eyes can trick you- some very small "simple organisms" have much larger genomes than some of the classic larger "complex" organisms, say Cheetah's for example and thus it must be "calibrated" for the scale of the particular genome in question), but there are definitely points at which you can say firmly, within the limits of what scientific confidence permit, these things are so close they cannot be distinguished but by a few superficial morphological traits or the reverse (so different genetically when they appear the same), not just morphology has arbitrary weights placed on specific characters. All has to be taken into consideration at once- that is the heart of scientific investigation after all. For me, distinction of appalachiensis is a bit premature because the genetic root for this decision is not well enough explored because it ignores the major theoretical problems in using the technology and model sets they selected- you always need to find someway to confirm those decisions are not effecting your results, which they did not do... yet. Doesn't mean it won't be different, but doesn't mean it is either. Disproving the null doesn't make the hypothesis true, simple false inference.
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