We're Starving the Monarch Butterflies

A recent blog post by Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch, said: "All in all, it was not a good year for monarchs." 

You can say that again. A March 13th press conference held by the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico and CONANP (Comisíon Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas) revealed that the total area occupied by Danaus plexippus in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt over the winter of 2012-2013 declined precisely 59% since the previous season.

Granted, the monarch butterfly population has a tendency to fluctuate annually—even greater shifts have been observed in the past—but this past winter's numbers are the lowest since the monarchs' overwintering locality was discovered by science in 1975. Moreover, a very statistically significant decline has occurred overall in the past 19 years. 

Of course, we Americans' first instinct would be to point fingers at the Mexicans, who have chronically logged the subtropical pine-oak forest upon which D. plexippus depends; but, although conditions at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve remain sub-optimal, according to the press release, "by protecting its sanctuaries and practically eliminating large-scale deforestation, Mexico is doing its part."

Concurrently, 25.5 million more acres of corn and soybeans were planted last year in the United States and Canada than as recently as 2006. What's the connection? Monarch caterpillars feed only on milkweed (Asclepias sp.) (along with a number of other insects), a plant that grows in unkempt grasslands, often occurring along the edges of roadways and fields; but this habitat is disappearing as cropland expands—not, apparently, due to a greater need for food, but because of our (yes, our) increasing demand for the biofuels that are vaunted as "green". 

The proximal cause of the 2012-2013 monarch decline was probably the severe drought of 2012: temperatures above 95°F are often lethal to D. plexippus caterpillars. In the long run, however, the decline of Asclepias is to blame. So: what's to be done? For Monarch Watch, the answer is straightforward: plant milkweed. Lots of it. It is urgently needed.

And no, this is not a plug for the politically powerful milkweed-grower's lobby. 

Zorapterans Are Worthy of Our Notice

On my visit two months ago to a prospective college that will remain unnamed (since it was not—gasp—UK),  I toured Incognito University's insect-pest-research lab. Therein I saw bedbugs of all instars eagerly imbibing rabbit blood (and hoping for a taste of the human kind too), and also termite colonies in every stage of development: including a few that were a decade old, and (uniquely in 2002) had been founded in captivity; these lived in forearm-deep 3-foot-long Rubbermaid tubs filled to the brim with mulch. Up in a corner shelf, I noticed one of these tubs to be conspicuously labeled "Zoraptera", not Isoptera: referring to an order of Insecta of whose existence even many systematic entomologists are unaware, and which I had never seen. 

Upon request, my graduate student guide brought down and opened the bin, which contained no termites—my guide informed me that this mulch had been abandoned by the wood-chewers for some time, leaving it to the fungus-browsing zorapterans: inconspicuous things, being only 3-4 mm. long. I knew little of these insects, other than their habitat, their obscurity, and their subsociality; and I inquired if Incognito University was researching them.

Apparently not: according to my guide, these zorapterans were just baggage that came along with the mulch; nobody there really bothered with them. This is unfortunate, for the Zoraptera are far more interesting than most will give them credit for (http://gentlecentipede.blogspot.com/2013/03/patriarchy-and-other-eccentricities-of.html).

Strangest of the Strange

There are a number of Animalia that reach the highest level of human-perceived strangeness any organism can achieve; creatures that make the likes of H. P. Lovecraft argue a case for God's insanity, and cause the rest of us to at least challenge His taste. Examples include: the sessile marine bone-snacking worm Osedax, the females of which have hundreds-strong harems of dwarfish males inhabiting their guts; or Acarophenax, a mite with a sex ratio biased 15/1 in favor of females, with a single male per brood impregnating every single one of his sisters while they are all still in the womb. Then there are the twisted-winged parasites (which have the order Strepsiptera all to themselves): easily the most bizarre insects known to man, and organisms in a general sense that give even Osedax a run for its money (http://gentlecentipede.blogspot.com/2013/02/twisted-winged-parasites-are-friggin.html).

"Margarinefly": Will it Catch On?

Some readers may recall a mention of "butterflies of the Jurassic" back in a July post on the Daily Entomologist. Dramatically resembling modern macrolepidopterans, these Mesozoic lacewings (Kalligrammatidae) were far more akin to antlions (doodlebugs, if you're a Southerner). You'll be able to find out more about them here (http://gentlecentipede.blogspot.com/2013/01/butterflies-before-butterflies-flowers.html)—and discover what a "margarinefly" is.

At Last: Mantidflies

One of my favorite insects...the epitome of strangeness (perhaps) within the Insecta. If you don't know about them already: what kind of ignoramus are you? No, seriously, you can be initiated into the mantidfly-adoring subculture by going here (http://gentlecentipede.blogspot.com/). I also highly recommend perusing the post whilst listening to this arrangement of Erik Satie's Gnossienne #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkFoPGRM4t4&feature=endscreen&NR=1); I think it captures the chic grotesqueness of the Mantispidae quite well.

Jurassic Song

Fossils are a window to the past: but rarely are such windows clear. And looking at a thing through "a glass distorted", of course, distorts our view of that thing. Restoring the appearances of prehistory's creatures is difficult; reconstructing their behavior is often impossible. But once in a long while paleontologists find—preserved perfectly by petrifaction—easily legible evidence of a long-dead organism's daily habits.

Such was the case earlier this year with Archaboilus musicus, a 165-million-year-old katydid/bush-cricket (Tettigoniidae) found in that fount of glorious fossils, China. Its modern kin, naturally, are well-known for their males' stridulatory songs, used to attract mates: and it turns out at least some of them did the same as early as the Jurassic Period. By examining the hind angles of the forewings belonging to A. musicus' (presumably male) holotype, and comparing these stridulatory organs to those of extant katydids, researchers have deduced the precise sound of the ancient katydid's song—which was indeed musical, like the melodies of its modern kin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC6vVmkU8i0). 

Interestingly, with a frequency of 6.5 kHz, A. musicus had a rather lower bandwidth than most of its said extant cousins. It's speculated that this reflects the different constituency of Jurassic forests: dominated not by tall, shady deciduous trees, but by thick fern bracken underneath conifers—deep acoustics would be required to penetrate this more claustrophobic sylvan environ. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...




Refs.:
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Gu, J. J.; Montealegre, Z.; Robert, D.; Engel, M. S.; Qiao, G. X.; and Ren, D. (2012). Wing stridulation in a Jurassic katydid (Insecta, Orthoptera) produced low-pitched musical calls to attract females. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109 (10): 3868.

Mormotomyiidae: They're Terrible, They're Hairy, & They're Flies

I now present the promised post on Mormotomyia hirsuta, the "terrible hairy fly" from a lone Kenyan cave that may be the rarest fly in the world (http://gentlecentipede.blogspot.com/). The collection of live specimens in 2010 for the first time in 62 years resulted in more than one dipterist wetting their pants with joy. (I, ahem, was not one of them.)