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The unstable longhorn beetle - unstable in what way?

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Judolia instabilis , the unstable longhorn beetle, photographed in Clearwater, BC. The word "unstable" can be taken several ways.  If you have over-indulged with alcohol, you may be unstable in your walking or driving.  If your emotions get the better of you and you become a ranting machine, some may call you unstable.  I suppose the term could be used if a stable in a barn was converted into another purpose - as in, the chicken coop is an unstable, versus being unstable because of shoddy construction.  I don't think any of these terms apply to the fellow in the photo. The term unstable is used to describe the varied patterns found on this species of beetle.  It turns out that the colouration and mottling vary wildly.  The beetle may be completely black, be a pale cream colour with black spots, be black with pale cream spots, and the spots are different sizes, shapes, and locations. I did an image search for the beetle and took a screenshot of the result; y...
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Trisha Parsons, a former student, has passed.

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Danielle and Trish - two of the students in my special needs program at Garibaldi, 2006 Trisha Parsons, a student of mine while I was teaching at Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge, has passed away.  I got the news yesterday, and my heart sank.  It's still hard to believe, her face, so clear in my mind, and her lively spirit, are gone.  Not the memories, mind you, but the hope for her future now lies in pieces.   That hope is what drives teachers.  Each child we engage with represents a future, a life, that we have been given to shape as best we can.  Trisha was no exception to that, although she had CP (cerebral palsy), which limited her physically.  In spite of her immediate challenges, she made every effort to be the best she could.  She loved others, was loved, and had a great deal of potential we were all meant to unlock. I cannot speak to what her life looked like after high school.  I have not been in contact with her for o...
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Why do birds stand on one leg?

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Flamingo, great egret, oyster catcher, American robin.  All photos taken by me. You've seen it.  A bird, perching on a single leg.  But why are they doing it?  It's not something we do, or any other bipedal organisms for that matter.  Ever see a kangaroo standing on one leg?  What about primates, pangolins, certain rodents (kangaroo rat), or even dinosaurs (many theropods were bipedal, not that we have evidence that they ever stood on one leg)? There are two main reasons that birds stand on one leg.  The first has to do with maintaining body heat.  Legs have no feathering (mostly, there are a few species that do have feathery legs), and the bare skin will experience significant heat loss.  By tucking a leg up into the lower breast feathers, a bird can cut the heat loss from the legs by half. The second reason has to do with resting.  It takes energy to stand.  The birds can rest one leg while the other does the work.  They will...
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I've been busy - my garage sale.

  It's been a busy week.  We have gone through boxes of stuff we haven't looked at since we moved (5 years ago) and pulled out things that weren't going to be missed, which was most of it.  If you haven't used it in five years, you probably don't need it. The problem is that maybe nobody else needs it either.  Such is the nature of a garage sale.  Maybe you'll find treasure, or maybe you'll find mostly trash.  And people want what you're selling cheap.  However, we managed to sell about 20% of what we had; the rest will either go into storage or be donated to a thrift store.   This is probably my 20th garage sale.  I used to have one every year, then it slowly changed to once every couple of years.  Now it has been half a decade since my last one.  The upside is that I now have some room to create some space.  I will be listing some of the stuff, like the cameras, on Marketplace.  It's more of a pain, but it will also...
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Chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly - how many instars do dragonfly larvae undergo?

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Chalk-fronted corporal dragonflies.  Left: Male  Right: Female.  Dutch Lake, Clearwater, BC. I have always loved dragonflies.  As a child, I used to throw small rocks near them and watch them chase the falling stones as if they were a potential meal.  I learned that they have a favoured perch and would approach it when they left; eventually I could place my finger there and get them to land on it.  I have photographed over a dozen species I have identified and many more I have not.   While visiting Clearwater, BC, this summer, I managed to photograph a male and female chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly.  The term "corporal" comes from the pair of stripes found on the top of their thorax (just in front of the wings - you can see it in the above images.  The male I have is young and has not "earned" its stripes yet - click here to see a mature adult).  A corporal in the army has two stripes, as opposed to a private (one stripe) or a ser...
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How many insects visit a single dandelion flower in one day?

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A flower fly, skipper butterfly, and flower beetle all visit a dandelion at the same time. On average, how many insects visit a flower in one day?  Five?  Ten?  A hundred?  Perhaps a thousand?  The value is highly dependent upon so many factors.  Temperature is an important one, especially in the morning, when many insects are waiting for the warmth of the day to enable flight.  Then there is the nature of the bloom itself:  colour, scent, build, and even location.  Time of year, availability of other flowers, perhaps more enticing or numerous, and so on. It turns out that there is a way to figure this out.  A FIT count (flower-insect timed count) is a way to track pollinators on flower interactions.  The essence of the count is to pay attention to a small area of one species of flower for a period of 10 minutes and record all the insects that land on the blooms.  It was a system of observation that started in the UK but has be...
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Blow flies - does forensics really use them to tell time of death?

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Main:  A blow fly feeding on a dead Steller's jay chick.  Inset:  Maggot showing a pair of mouth hooks. Blow flies - if you watch forensic shows like Bones , you are probably familiar with the idea that the flies' larvae are used to help determine how long someone has been dead for.  The TOD (time of death) is determined in days, not hours, as the corpse has to be old enough that blow flies would find the body, lay eggs on it, and the maggots would hatch, grow, and moult.  The time between moults is an instar; each instar (3 in all) takes a certain length of time, with growth occurring along the way.  You can tell how long a body has been in place by the presence of blow fly maggots and how big they are. However, it is a bit more difficult than that.  There are different varieties of blow fly, each of them reproduces at specific rates relative to that species.  Another factor is the temperature associated with the body.  Flies develop more sl...
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