UPDATE: Re the dreaded selfie ...

http://thedailywhat.cheezburger.com/share/8567798016

Apparently, more people have, thus far in 2015, died taking selfies, than have been killed in shark attacks.

I'm a goldmine of useless trivia .... 

Today's standard ... just two words to go to fill in all the common ones. Sigh.

In the meantime, in the desperation of the wee hours, I started just dropping random combinations of letters in for a laugh, hoping I'd stumble upon the missing two common words, and ended up adding 10 new rare words to my list that I didn't know the existence of before today.

You'll probably hear the screams across trans-continental distances when I finally find out what the missing common words are.

Wonder if there are any 3rd declension plurals in the list of allowed words ... ?

The real nasties in S. East Asia are the centipedes, which can grow to about 10 inches long and are plentiful near trees after the rain. They don't actually bite, but the hairs on their bodies have a poison which can be fatal. You wouldn't want one of those anywhere near your shorts, or indeed any other part of you!

Recently, a group of scientists reported back from a biodiversity cataloguing expedition in Laos. Among the finds they reported, was a Barbie pink millipede, which looked as if it had been made by a primary school child out of congealed nail polish brushes. Apparently the pink colouration is to warn potential predators that it's inedible -it stores cyanides in its body tissues as a chemical defence. It's actually known as the Pink Dragon Millipede, with the wonderful scientific name of Desmoxytes purpureosa, and here's a picture of one:



As for centipedes, the ones to avoid, wherever they occur, are members of the Genus Scolopendra. Many of them have a venomous bite that is medically significant in humans. The South American Giant Centipede, Scolopendra gigantea, is of particular concern. Though there's a species in the European fauna, that can be found in hot, dry parts of the Spanish countryside, which grows to 7 inches and will ruin your day if you are bitten by it.

I, ah see.  I misunderstood.

Still, if we as a people don't take 500 pictures of ourselves per year, every year, how will future historians know what kind of faces we liked to make in the mirror?  Think about that.

Personally, I can't understand the level of vanity involved in selfies. Usually, if I'm taking a camera somewhere, I want to photograph things other than myself. Apart from the fact that I'm about as photogenic as used kitty litter, the natural world is so jam-packed with interesting, and in some cases, resplendently beautiful organisms, that I'd need a dozen lifetimes to stand a chance of documenting even a fraction of it on film (or stored memory bytes). That's before we start factoring in landscapes, architecture, etc.

Additionally, if I had a telescope, I'd be thinking of ways of mating the camera to it, to photograph all manner of interesting objects that are out there beyond Planet Earth. For example, how many people here knew, before I posted this, that there's a group of stars called the Coathanger, because they're arranged in the shape of a wire hanger? Six of the stars in that group are in an almost dead straight line as seen from Earth.

Then, there are millions of other interesting human subjects to photograph, everything from indigenous tribespeople to the countless thousands of assorted contributors to human knowledge. (I won't bother with politicians, because all too often they're shot through with enough vanity for several dozen planets' worth of human populations all on their own).

Instead, all those millions of cameras attached to smartphones etc., that could be documenting so much of interest around us, are instead being pressed into service to show off the clinically significant narcissism of many of the owners thereof. There's a place for self-portraits, and they lose their value when they're churned out in industrial quantities by the "ME ME ME LOOK AT EXQUISITE ME!" brigade.

in addition, how many of the people who are busy littering the Internet with several gigabytes of self-indulgent and frequently mindless images of themselves, are amongst the most vociferous when complaining about surveillance by creepy intelligence services? The intelligence services don't need to bother with surveillance of large sections of the population any more, because those large sections are doing the intelligence services' job for them - happily delivering up entire USB drives full of images on Facebook and other social media sites, accompanied by intricate documentation of the pettiest minutiae of their lives. "JUST TOOK A DUMP LOL".

In my case, I think I've taken a grand total of five photos of myself in the past 20 years. Partly because I look at myself in the mirror and think "how the hell did I end up looking as if I've spent the past decade living next door to Chernobyl?" Though if I had, chances are that documentation of my face over that decade would be of great interest to the editors of The Lancet or the New England Journal of Medicine.

On the other hand, a stunning example of the real value of all those cameras littering the planet, was provided by the February 2013 meteorite incident over Chelyabinsk. On the day in question, countless thousands of Russians went about their daily business, complete with dash cams in their cars, when all of a sudden, they find they're filming the impending impact of an object from space, lighting up the sky with an intense fireball. Thanks to the vast swathe of data those cameras captured, scientists were able to pinpoint the impact site in just a few days, and also had a massive record of the effects that accompany the landing of a decent sized lump of rock hitting the Earth at 10 miles per second. That lump of rock, by the way, was 17 metres across before it entered the atmosphere and began ablating, and the surviving material, when it shattered under the stresses of thermal shock and bow wave compression, liberated an energy yield equivalent to a 90 kiloton nuclear bomb. Not the sort of object you want to be close to when it starts to party hard.

I couldn't find a wildlife photos thread here, so I thought I'd launch one.

I'll start the ball rolling with a photo of a Comma butterfly I took recently. This one was actually photographed on 2015.VII.28, but I've been seeing record numbers of these butterflies this year. In previous years, I've only seen this species in ones and twos on my outings with the camera, but on 2015.VII.15, I had no less than TEN specimens sit nicely for my camera!

Actually, that first one isn't the Indian Moon Moth, Actias selene, because that species is a ghostly white with a faint green wash over it, and the tails are not usually as long in this species. Yours looks much more like the male of the Asian Comet Moth, Actias maenas, which is famed for having hindwing tails that can reach 11 inches in length. Sadly that specimen of yours looks a little on the worn side - the males, when freshly emerged, are a straw yellow colour overlaid with striking maroon markings, these being almost completely absent in the female (which also has shorter tails). It's also distinguished by being part of a species complex that has still to be completely characterised by taxonomists. Several subspecies have been named, but some of these are of dubious status, and may merely be geographical races of the nominate species rather than proper subspecies. To make matters worse, there are species in the complex that are difficult to distinguish even by reference to the infamous genital dissection procedure I discussed earlier, though these (including Actias isis from Sulawesi) are still considered valid species, even though one is obliged to spend long hours poring over dissected genitalia with an ×60 stereo microscope hunting down the fine differences. The maenas complex members have only recently diverged, and whilst some of the diverging populations have had time to elevate themselves to species status, others are much more problematic, and final resolution will probably have to wait full genome sequencing of the individuals in question. An interesting member of the complex is Actias groenedaeli, if ever you find yourself on the island of Flores where it lives. Larval foodplants for Actias maenas are reported as Liquidambar species (Sweetgum trees), Rhus (Sumac), and bizarrely enough, captive larvae are also reported to be capable of feeding on Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii. At a push, captive larvae can also be raised on Oak leaves, but they tend to fare less well than if they have access to the proper choice of foodplant.

If these photos were taken at the Chao Phraya River, this is a well known biodiversity hotspot.

Next ... that second specimen initially looked more like a butterfly than a moth to me (though as I'm happy to tell anyone who will listen, the distinction is entirely artificial). The reason I say this, is because its morphology initially resembled that of members of the Family Hesperiidae, which contains the Skipper butterflies. However, it transpires that its resting posture was deceptive, which is why it's always wise to check the literature and trawl through the known species of a given area, even if this takes hours of labour, because I came up trumps on this one. This is part of the Milionia basalis species complex (and again, we're dealing with another of those difficult taxa that will probably require genome sequencing to sort out properly). It's actually a member of the Geometridae, which contains a number of highly colourful moths around the world, and the UK fauna is no different in this respect, as you'll find out when I post some of my British moth photos! The problem you have with the Milionia basalis species complex, is that even individuals from the same population can exhibit considerable variation in colour - yours has an orange U shaped band crossing the metallic blue wings, but others have the band coloured almost crimson, and this, combined with the deceptive resting posture and initially Hesperiid-looking wing morphology, threw me for a brief moment. These moths, in the larval stage, are conifer feeders, feeding on tropical conifers such as Dacrydium and Podocarpus.

As for wear and tear on the wings, this occurs at the same rate for the majority of Lepidoptera species, but some Families are notable exceptions. The Silkmoths are typically exceptional here, in that specimens look wonderful when freshy emerged, but have a habit of deteriorating rather more quickly than other Lepidoptera Families in this respect. This is because the Silkmoths, Family Saturniidae, have vestigial or absent mouthparts as adults, and do not feed. They have to rely upon all the reserves they built up during the larval feeding stage, and because they have a severely truncated adult lifespan as a result of being unable to feed, members of the Saturniidae are in a much more desperate race than usual to pair up, mate, and lay eggs. Typically, if they haven't mated by the time 7 days has elapsed, they've blown it, as they come crashing to a halt and die as their energy reserves run out. By contrast, the Sphingidae, or Hawkmoths, have a conspicuous proboscis, and are able to fuel up on nectar at a prodigious rate, so some adult Hawkmoths in some parts of the world can remain alive in the adult life cycle phase for weeks, sometimes as long as five months.

In the case of the British species, one group of Geometrids well known for fading quickly are the so-called Emerald Moths. These are a lovely green colour when freshly emerged, but after 7 days or more on the wing, these fade, and the extreme case is the Light Emerald, Campaea margaritata. This moth begins its life a lovely light green colour, but in just 7 days, the adults fade to a dirty beige. I've recently had both Common Emerald and Light Emerald visit moth traps in my local area, and the Light Emerald was a pristine, freshly emerged specimen that was glorious to behold!

Eventually, a combination of mechanical wear and tear from wing flapping (which dislodges scales from the wings, as they are only loosely socketed into the wings), attentions from predatory birds pecking at the wings, and accidental encounters with thorny stems etc., will take their toll. In the case of those butterflies and moths that hibernate as adults here in the UK, to emerge the following Spring and set about mating, some of those can look very much like "combat veterans" after two months or so on the wing in Spring post-hibernation. I've seen a specimen of the Peacock Butterfly, Inachis io, that was still on the wing in July after emerging from hibernation, which means it had spent nearly ten months alive as an adult - likely first emerged in September the previous year, then headed off into hibernation the moment the October chills started to hit. That specimen was well and truly looking its age!

Moths from Thailand? Some of these wouldn't be large Silkmoths by any chance? Only there's quite a few over there, including some with truly outlandish wing shapes. I'll have to check the databases to see if the Indian Moon Moth has a range extending into Thailand, but if it does, that's one of the truly unmistakable species - once seen, never forgotten!

Hawkmoths are likely to be harder to track down, because the online database that used to cover the world's Sphingidae is now dead. A sad loss. That site used to have everything, including genital dissection photos, a truly comprehensive scientific database.

Oh, and that's something you'll see me refer to a LOT here from now on, the dreaded "genital dissection job". The reason for this is quite simple. Back in the days when entomologists were first developing their infant science, they discovered that the chitinous parts of insect genitalia were like species fingerprints. Every time they examined a new species, lo and behold, the genitalia exhibited differences from those species previously examined, and this occurred so often that genital dissection became the "gold standard" for species determination in the world of entomology. It's particularly rampant in the world of Lepidoptera, where the species differences tend to be relatively easy to discern, not least because various biological processes have led to Lepidoptera genitalia being particularly plastic, and as a consequence, it's still the first point of reference when determining what species a given specimen belongs to in the professional entomological world. Though I'm minded to recall at least one scientific paper on DNA barcoding, that yielded an interesting result, centred upon a South American Skipper butterfly known as Astraptes fulgerator. It turns out that this is a species complex, in the process of splitting into new species, and as a result, the genital differences between the members of the complex have yet to arise, as they've all descended from the same ancestors. But, over time, those differences almost certainly will emerge, which is one of the reasons why taxonomy is still a living science. Another scientific paper in my collection discusses at length the plausible mechanisms for the emergence thereof.

Among the more hilarious outcomes of the requisite investigations, is the discovery that the Rabbit Flea has the world's most rococo penis. The organ in question (normally hidden within the last two abdominal segments of the insect in question) is a truly bizarre looking object, adorned with hooks, barbs, corkscrew shaped appendages and other accoutrements that make it resemble a Swiss Army knife with all the tools deployed (pardon any unintentional puns here). I've yet to find a photo online of this remarkable example of genital morphology, but I continue searching in the hope of adding it to a truly baroque collection of insect photos I've amassed over the years.

Rabbit Fleas are also interesting, with respect to the manner in which they've become dependent upon the rabbits' own well-documented mating habits, in order to secure their own production of offspring. The fleas can only reproduce themselves, when the female fleas have partaken of the blood of pregnant female rabbits in the final stages of pregnancy. The female fleas need exposure to the rabbits' own pregnancy hormones, before the female fleas can develop their own eggs. Even more interesting, the male fleas also have to load up on blood from the recently born rabbit offspring, in order to achieve the fitness required to mate with the female fleas.

Consequently, an excellent way of controlling Rabbit Fleas, if these turn up on your pet rabbits, is to keep males and females segregated, and unable to reproduce themselves. Eventually, the fleas will die of old age without having reproduced. No toxic chemicals needed. Though of course, if you want your rabbits to breed, flea prevention and control requires rather more robust measures.

Incidentally, one of the world's foremost experts on fleas was none other than Dr Miriam Rothschild, heiress to the famous banking family's fortunes. Indeed, several Rothschilds became avid entomologists, with a raft of insect species named after them, though Miriam Rothschild was the first family member to specialise in fleas. For those who want to have fun with her work, the Royal Entomological Society's Handbook for the identification of Siphonaptera (Fleas) can be downloaded from here.