Already trying to catch up

Post #2 - Jan. 25, 2015

Well, it’s been two+ weeks since my first post - I guess my ambitious plan is already starting to fall behind. Oh well. Today is sunny, beautiful, and I’ve got a few hours to mount beetles and write. Carpe Coleoptera!

Fig. 1 - Sapelo Island on Nannygoat Beach. Ahhhh, bliss.

So about two weeks ago I got to mount up two vials of beetles from a trip to Sapelo Island (Fig. 1) in May of 2012 (the picture here is actually also the background for the blog currently). This was a somewhat annual trip that the graduate club of entomology here at UGA (the H.O. Lund Club, named after our dept. founder), takes alongside the University of Georgia Collection of Arthropods (UGCA). I’ve been to the island at least eight times now, and it’s a beautiful place to go every time. 

But let’s talk about the insects I collected! The first vial was a sample from a Lindgren funnel (or 12-fun. trap, as I abbreviate them on my labels) that we set in a mixed pine/live oak grove near the famous Reynolds Mansion. (Fig. 2) Usually on these sort of four-day trips my advisor and I, as well as Rick Hoebeke, the collections manager, set out several of these traps at the beginning of the trip and then hope for some good stuff at the end. Accompanied by a light trap, they can pull in several hundred-thousand insects in a night or two. In this case, we did not use a UV light, but just used the natural attractant power of our 75% ethanol bait. Not nearly as many specimens, but usually we will catch beetles relevant to our interests (Staphylinidae, Scolytinae, Cerambycidae, and the usual cohort of mycophagous or saproxylic Cucujoidea, where my interests lie). 

Figure 2 - First sample, all mounted and ready to label. 

This sample was not huge, but it did not disappoint. Three Staphylinidae, two Scolytinae, some weird Acalyptrate muscoid Diptera (which I am woefully inadequate at ID’ing) will all get passed straight on to Rick Hoebeke. However, the two nitidulids, one sphindid, and two Laemophloeidae will get curated by my advisor and I. 

The two specimens I was most excited about in this sample were two Lathropus (Laemophloeidae) (Fig. 3). This small but aberrant genus (it has closed mesocoxal cavities, which most laemophloeids have open, as well a few other characters) may be one of the genera that link the strange Austral family Propalticidae with the worldwide Laemophloeidae. In addition, I collected at least two species in this sample, only one of which, according to Thomas’ (2010) revision of the genus, is known from Georgia. 

Fig. 3 - Lathropus sp. ~ 1 mm. Has

a slight color pattern. 

This is one of the reasons we collect on Sapelo Island. It’s like a foreshadowing of what could be found farther north, as its environment is really more similar to much of Florida than most of inland Georgia, so we find stuff there we don’t usually get in Athens. So this one collection event represents a really valuable natural history datapoint, which gets me really excited!

The second sample (Fig. 4) was also from that trip, but was a direct collecting event from underneath the bark of recently fallen pine log in the inland pine/palmetto forest. Unfortunately for me, there were no cucujoids under that particularly log, but it was full of Histeridae, Tenebrionidae, Zorotypidae, and Staphylinidae. All will be sent down to Rick, and even though I don’t particularly study those groups, I hope they are of some use to another taxonomist studying beetles and Zorapterans living subcortically in the future. :)

Fig. 4 - The second sample. No cucujoids, but some other cool things. The vials contain Zoraptera and Pseudoscorpions.

That’s enough about those two vials, I’m going to mount up two more! Happy beetling/insecting to you all. 

Sometimes you just need to see some botflies after a long day. :) #MuseumSelfie

Bonus: #MuseumSelfie from this week when I was exhausted after teaching introductory biology but still wanted to participate in this week’s museum selfie Twitter event. Always retweet botflies.

Post #1 - Jan. 5, 2015 - “The Beetle Backlog Blog”

Over the last year, I’ve been mostly “too busy” to curate the vials upon vials of beetles that I’ve collected, mostly from my two backyards in Lookout Mountain & Athens, GA, over the past five years. This has resulted in what I like to call “the backlog” that currently sits behind my microscope. In reality, unless I make a concerted effort, that backlog will never be worked through. 

Some of the "backlog" I got to work through recently over a break. 

That backlog, though, contains at the very least, about a year’s worth of Lindgren (or 12-funnel trap) samples that have been sorted through and cherry picked for the taxa that our lab studies: mostly beetles (Coleoptera) of Cucujoidea (a superfamily of Coleoptera). That means that behind my desk there is a year-long record of the particular beetles of interest to me that I currently can’t access. 

Along with the beetles I like, there is a good number of other interesting taxa; I’m too curious of a taxonomist to limit myself to one superfamily of beetles. I’ve collected hundreds of other insects over the past five years that were just too darn interesting to throw away. But currently, they are all still sitting back behind my microscope. 

But what am I going to do about it? I’m “too busy” after all. This semester, for example, I’m supposed to be teaching two introductory biology labs, going to the regional Southeastern Branch meeting of the Entomological Society of America, submitting a draft of paper I started three years ago, and full-scale starting the final chapter of my dissertation, a revision of the genus Bactridium (a future blog post I’m sure, stay tuned for that). 

However, over the past year, a theme I’ve heard over and over is that if you are truly passionate about something, but keep making excuses for why you can’t do it, then it’s time to find the time, regardless of your practical and often theoretical time constraints. Because there is no aspect of beetle taxonomy that I enjoy more than curating beetles and insects and talking about them, I simply am going to find the time this year. 

From a practical standpoint, I can rationalize the time spent in numerous ways. First, the blogging aspect will improve my writing. Second, I’ll get valuable specimens for use in my research. Third, I’ll improve my curational skills. And finally, I’ll get emotional and mental benefits from the break from teaching, emailing, and bureaucracy that so often seem to make up the majority of my day. 

So once a week, start looking for my curational exploits! They’ll likely contain stories of collecting trips, little brown beetles, and the trials of being a beetle taxonomist in the southeastern United States.