Sections

I saw that Ted MacRae had used a Google Map to show where he was going for his weekend collecting trip. Whilst I’ve used Google Maps to work on collaborative maps, this was the first time I had seen one used like this. When next blogging about a collecting trip or an LNHS walk I’ll probably make one. For now (as a test) here is a map with sites I intend to visit this year.

View Sites to visit 2010 in a larger map

I noticed that when putting the map into this post that sometimes the map HTML was made dysfunctional and I had to paste it in again.

There is a nice guide for adding Google Maps to a post on the WordPress Support Site.

Part of my work is to photograph pinned insect specimens and I had previously been manually shooting then transferring photos from the SD card to my PC. At work our imaging lab is entirely Canon-based, so I was aware of EOS Utility, Canon’s own remote camera operation software. It wasn’t until I recently went to visit the Paris museum (MNHN) that I worked with Nikon’s Camera Control Pro 2 and realised how much time it would save when organising files if I was using remote photography software.

I started looking at the prices for Nikon remote photography software and Camera Control Pro 2 is fairly expensive, costing around £130 if you buy it from Amazon. Other commercial software was also fairly pricey (NKRemote @ $130), so I looked around for something free.

After a little Googling I found DIYPhotobits.Com Camera Control. It’s completely free and does the job (while using a paltry 373KB of hard drive space)! The interface was so simple that I have already taken photos of two specimens and depth-stacked them (in CombineZP). This means I can now remotely control my camera and produce depth-stacked images using free software :)

Here is an example of Zopherosis georgei (Coleoptera: Zopheridae) that I took today:

There was an article in the latest issue of Antenna (“High cost of electronic access to RES Journals” by Mike Wilson) which discussed the extortionate costs of basic membership and e-access to the Royal Entomological Society’s (RES) journals. It is more expensive than The Linnean Society, The British Ecological Society and the Entomological Society of America!

I had already considered cancelling my membership because it’s my most expensive subscription (£44) and I do not feel I get much for my money. Whilst RES membership offers more than just their journal Antenna, I do not use the library which is no longer in London, nor do I attend many of their lectures of meetings.

I am not alone in my feelings toward the pricing of RES membership. Many of the young working entomologists, amateurs and enthusiasts will not subscribe because of the price. As the stated aim of the RES is,

“The improvement and diffusion of entomological Science”

Lowering prices and having a greater online presence would make RES more accessible. If RES starting giving access to more e-resources (PDFs of Antenna and journal access) for a reasonable cost, I would resubscribe. Currently, I feel that the £44 would be much better spent on a decent entomological book, or three years membership of another entomolgical society.

Last week I received my Spring 2010 copy of “The Bulletin of the Dipterists Forum” (The Bulletin). In addition to having a much improved redesigned layout compared to Spring 2009, this is undoubtedly the best entomological publication that I subscribe to. Even though my main interest lies with the Hemiptera, The Bulletin is always an engaging read and contains a range of generally interesting to specialised articles. One of the features I particularly like is the separation of the newsletters for the various recording schemes and study groups because you can quickly find information on your taxonomic groups of interest.

The Dipterists Forum is a good start for those interested in finding out more about our British flies. This handsome individual is the Hornet Robberfly, Asilus crabroniformis.

The other really great thing about The Bulletin (and the Dipterists Forum) is the value for money. The annual membership fee is £15 and includes two publications (twice yearly bulletins and the journal, “Dipterists Digest“). The Dipterists Forum website is also particularly useful and you do not have to be a member to use it, although additional material is available to members (test keys, unpublished material, PDFs of past Bulletins and distribution maps). As previously mentioned, Diptera are not the order that I work with, but such good value means I can happily subscribe anyway.

In the latest issue alone there were six articles that I want to comment on and discuss. Some other entomological societies should take note and try to offer similar online services and good content (e.g. PDF back issues and extras).

I was sent a link today for a Brownewell Photography which specialises in 360° photography, including taking photos of type specimens. The previews on the site are composed of 20-30 photographs to give the illusion of 360°, which works well enough. You are given rotational control of the photos through Flash, as opposed to some other 360° images which use GIFs that you cannot control.

A quick search for 360 degree photography came up with a site (Red Door VR) which sells photographic turntables that had “click stop” intervals. They also recommended the program Object2VR to produce panoramas with Flash-based controls.

I think we will start to see more of these panoramic specimen images, although the major constraint will be the time it takes to produce them.

After failing to find a reasonably priced LED ring light which does what I want, I have decided to build one myself. My electronics knowledge was never particularly good at school, so it should be fun!

My basic requirements are that it:

1. Illuminates small (~5mm) to medium  (~2cm) sized insects without casting too many shadows
2. Fits on different microscopes
3. Is powered by a (rechargeable) battery

Additional requirements are:

• The option to power it from the mains
• The ability to dim the LEDs
• Switch groups of LEDs on/off

I shall start with a basic prototype consisting of 8 white LEDs, potentially adding more and making the circuit more complex. It shouldn’t be too hard but I haven’t used a soldering iron for years!

To begin the post I have a small entomological anecdote to share: Last summer I was told about a very small island in a Swedish lake. The island was not often visited but humans (or probably much other wildlife) because it was supposedly teeming with ants. Whilst I don’t know much about ants, this seemed a bit improbable and I wondered what they would eat.

This summer I had the opportunity to visit this island. The stories were true. My visit was brief and I should have worn different clothes. Being in a small rowing boat with ants in your pants is not fun!

I have never seen so many ants on almost anything. There were ants all over the ground, all the low vegetation and on the tree trunks.

Unfortunately, in my haste to leave I forgot to take any specimens. I would guess that they were a Formica species but would need to go back and confirm. Does anyone have some good suggestions for keeping ants at bay?

Anyway, autumn is definitely underway here. It’s dark when I get home from work, the leaves are changing colour and I have started packing my waterproof jacket for the inevitable rain.

My summer has been incredibly busy and that’s one of the poor reasons I have not written recently. The more important reason is due to changing jobs, where it matters more if I identify myself online, especially entomologically. Thankfully, I think I’ll have the latter reason resolved soon.

Entomologically, this summer has been action packed. I have been to many interesting sites and seen more new insects that any other year.

North Thames/Stanford-le-Hope Marshes - One of the more interesting sites which has a salt marsh area.

Soon my insect photo count will breach the 1,000 mark! I even managed to do a little insect hunting in Sweden and saw one of the world’s oldest tractors :)

Ferguson Tractor

In previous years I remember feeling somewhat sad when summer ended and the insect season was finishing. Right now I am looking forward to sorting out my insect records, investigating photographic metadata and catching up on some reading!

I am a fan of Flickr and think it’s a wonderful place to store and tag photos. Recently I’ve been wondering about how useful Flickr is as an entomological resource and thought of a few questions:

• How many new insect photos are being added daily?
• How common are misidentifcations?
• How many insect photographers add geographic data (geotags)?
• What is the number of unique insects represented on Flickr?
• How could Flickr be used in an insect-based meta-analysis?

As I wrote this there were (searching everyone’s uploads with no filter):

• 839,123 results for ‘insect’
• 28,014 results for ‘hemiptera’
• 1,673 results for ‘pentatomidae’
• 816 results for ‘palomena prasina’

Flickr map of Palomena prasina © Yahoo 2009

I found that there have been around 1,000 extra hits for insect everyday in the past week and that searching for ‘palomena prasina on the Flickr map gave ~217 results (depending on the type of sort) which were spread around the UK, France, northern Spain, Germany, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands.

As I browsed through general search results for the Palomena prasina photos, I saw a few that were obvious misidentifications. I think that misidentifications are probably the biggest limiting factor that would be hard to control if you wanted to use Flickr tags/information in an academic way. Whilst there are plenty of very knowledgeable Flickr entomologists, it’s hard to know which photos are identified correctly.

Whilst the map search was interesting, it wasn’t overly useful in it’s basic form. I think that a more sophisticated map search might be possible using of the Flickr API, but you would still be limited by the proportion of images that have geographic data.

Finally, everyone tags and organises their photos differently. I try and enter in as much information as I can without it being too long or bothersome. For an insect shot I try and include: country, county, area name, specific location (like the nature reserve), class, order, family and genus+species. By doing this I can search for particular insects in different areas quite easily. I started added a few six-figure grid references to the images, but as every specimen has a map location, this isn’t a priority for me.

I feel that Flickr could be used in a more powerful way and have a few ideas how, but I’ll save that for another post.

For now, why not check out some of the Flick insect groups? I’ve linked a few below:

• British Bees, Wasps and Ants
• British Beetles
• British Bugs
• British Flies
• British Lepidoptera
• Fly Day Friday
• UK Orthoptera

I was in the kitchen late one night when something caught my eye. An insect of some sort quickly scuttled across the floor and hid in the darkness under a cupboard. From the brief look I got, I suspected that it was an odd looking hemipteran.

What was it?

As I moved closer I saw it was rather drab and it retreated further, looking a little sinister.

Closer still, I got a proper look at its body and saw that it had really reduced wings and some vicious mouthparts.

Suddenly I starting thinking of sheep keds, Melophagus ovinus, the wingless blood sucking flies that are parasites of sheep. I decided that I didn’t really want to poke it with my fingers, so got a container, my copy of Chinery and a camera.

After flicking through the Diptera I found the section on the Hippoboscidae, the so called flat-flies. Looks like this particular one was, Crataerina hirundinis, a parasite of  martins and swallows. Although not confirmed, it made sense, as I think we have house martins, Delichon urbica, in the loft.

Hippoboscidae: Craeterina hirundinis

The Hippoboscidae are unusual because many have reduced wings and the females give birth to fully grown larvae rather than lay eggs.

I found a few more in the kitchen (now removed) but am uncertain how they got there. Even though I think they wouldn’t bite me, I feel uneasy walking around with bare feet!

After two visits to the Rainham Marshes this year, I wanted to explore other local sites in Essex. The Chafford Gorges (owned by the Essex Wildlife Trust) are local to me and seemed interesting because of their flora and history. They are located in the the Chafford Hundred area which is mostly a modern housing development, and is adjacent to one of our huge regional shopping centres, Lakeside. The three gorges are all that remain of a much larger wild area that I remember from my childhood.

A shot of one of the nearby chalk pits (mostly filled with Birch)

When I visited with Tristan I went to Grays Gorge and Lion Gorge. At Grays Gorge I saw my first wild British orchid, the common spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii.

Common Spotted-orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii

We were fortunate to meet the site warden whilst we explored, and hopefully I will be able to acquire some old records for insects in the area.

Somewhat anecdotally, I recall seeing glow worms, Lampyris noctiluca, on the nearby cliffs when I was younger but do not recall seeing them after a road was built nearby, which would have coincided with increased light in the area from both new houses and street lights. Perhaps this can be seen from the local records…

Some photos from the gorge area:

A lucky shot

The rather attractive Cercopis vulnerata