Enthusiasm is Catching, Entomology Edition

This past week I went to a meeting of the New York Entomological Society at the American Museum of Natural History.

Before the lecture I was actually reading a book about entomology, which I posted about a few weeks ago, and I just read that beetles and caterpillars will drop out of the trees if they sense a predator approaching. Right after reading that, I stepped out of my apartment on the way to the entomology lecture, and I saw a caterpillar on the city sidewalk, vigorously crawling back to it's tree home. The caterpillar was probably using the escape method I just real about. What timing! It's not every day that I read about a concept, go outside and see it demonstrated for me. Since the caterpillar was in danger of being stepped on, I rescued it and put it back on the tree.

Rescuing the caterpillar.

The entomology event was fun, and the talk was easy to follow for a lay-person like me. Louis Sorkin, who I've also mentioned before in another post, started off the evening by talking about insects as food. He is very enthusiastic about people eating bugs, despite the fact that he himself is allergic to mealworms.

The caterpillar happily crawling up the tree.

Next on the evening's agenda, Richard Falco, Ph.D. talked to us about tick and mosquito activity in the NY area for this summer. He told us not to believe any of his predictions, but there should be medium-high tick activity and medium-low mosquito activity this year. Now we'll have to see if his predictions come true!

Warm Blooded Fish (?)

My drawing of the opah

I love how what we accept as scientific "fact" is constantly changing. It just goes to show how amazing the universe is and how little we really know about it.

Recently scientists Nicholas C. Wegner, Owyn E. Snodgrass, Heidi Dewar, and John R. Hyde, discovered  the first known warm-blooded fish. When I first heard the news I was shocked. "But, fish are cold-blooded! They're not mammals!" Then, I read an article on the subject and I went from shocked to intrigued.

The fish, known as the opah (Lampris guttatus) lives in the very depths of the ocean where it is extremely cold. Most fish living at this depth are slow moving, but the opah is a fast moving predator with characteristics similar to predators that live nearer the surface. It's sluggish prey barely stands a chance.

The opah generates its heat by beating its pectoral fins constantly and quickly. This warms up the blood which warms the body circulates. A mechanism in the opah's gills allows the warm oxygen-poor blood, to transfer its warmth to the cold oxygen-rich blood. This process, known as "counter-current heat exchange," keeps the warmth concentrated in the opah's core. 

The opah is not as warm as mammals, but it does maintain a body temperature five degrees Celsius above the temperature of the surrounding water. Being warm has many evolutionary advantages, especially for a predator, as it allows the animal to move faster and have bigger eyes.

No fish yet discovered are as endothermic as the opah, but some fish like tuna have regional endothermy in their eyes, liver, and swimming muscles. Some people like Professor Diego Bernal, think that the opah is just another ectotherm with regional endothermy. Since the opah is warmest at its core, but gets colder near the outer edges, this is a possibility, but no matter what it's a pretty unique fish.

Multitude of Insects

Butterfly Room at AMNH

Insects are everywhere. Over 900,000 currently known species live with and around us, and most of the time we barely even notice them. Tiny mites cover our skin, house pests inhabit our homes, and millions of insects make the great outdoors their home. Yet, most of us still don't even acknowledge these bugs. It's like they are part of a whole alternate universe.

I'm not a huge fan of insects, but they don't petrify me either. I simply just don't think about them much. After meeting Louis Sorkin in my Tree of Life class at the American Museum of Natural History, and reading How Not to Be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back by Gilbert Waldbauer, I became more interested in creepy-crawlies. Here's some cool stuff I recently learned about them.

• Insects are the most widely available source of animal food on the planet and most animals, other insects, and even some humans will readily eat them. Insects have developed countless ways to evade predators and predators have developed countless ways to catch and eat bug
• Flying insects are another great food source for birds and bats. Swallows and swifts fly at different heights in the air divided by species to avoid competing for food. Kingfishers aren't into cooperation, they viciously fight off any possible competition in their territory.
• Have you ever wondered how cockroaches manage to scurry away so quickly? Well, cockroaches and other insects like them have light and touch sensors on their tail end so they are aware of approaching predators or angry humans at all angles. They know we're there before we know they're there.
• Burrowing owls place dung around the entrances to their burrows to attract their favorite snack, dung beetles. Some researchers once removed the dung, and the owls became agitated and began to bob up and down in distress.

Not only are insects fascinating, the people who study them get to do some interesting stuff at their jobs like help the police investigate homicides. Louis Sorkin told my class that entomologists can look at the insects found in a corpse and tell how long the body has been expired, based on how developed the insects are, and whether or not the body was moved, based on what type of insects are in the corpse and what area they are native to. Aren't bugs amazing?

Butterfly Room at AMNH

As I continue to read How Not to Be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back I'm excited to learn more about insects. I have to say bugs are a little less creepy when you learn about them, but I'll still jump and shudder every time I find a cockroach in the kitchen.

Crimes for Science Part 2

Here's the second part of the post I put up last week, hope you enjoy some more juicy information on crimes done for science.

Desperate anatomists in need of bodies sometimes stole the bodies themselves, while others hired resurrectionists - or body snatchers -  to do the work for them. Being a ressurectionist wasn't a bad job for an unskilled laborer. It paid $1,000 a year, about twice as much as other jobs of the same skill set. And, they had the summers off.

One of the large, detailed illustrations 

in Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica,

 1543,marking the rebirth of anatomy

Resurrectionists often shipped the bodies to their employers in the mail, and mishaps occurred. One anatomist received a pack of food and a large ball of yarn in the mail instead of the cadaver he was expecting. Imagine the horror of the person who expected to receive the food and yarn, but got a corpse instead.

Sometimes anatomists even turned a blind eye to fairly obvious murder if it meant they could get more bodies.

In 1828 anatomist Richard Knox opened his door to two strangers, William Burke and William Hare, with a dead body at their feet. He assumed they were resurrectionists, and without asking questions, paid the two men for the corpse and sent them on their way.

It ends up that Burke and Hare ran a boardinghouse called Tanner's Close. The previous night one of their lodgers died in his sleep. That lodger owed Burke and Hare some money, so instead of giving his body a proper burial, they sold him for dissection, which gave them plenty of money to cover the debt.

When Burke and Hare realized how much money they could make by selling corpses to anatomy they started killing off their customers. Their method of murder was smothering, and soon after "to burke"  meant to smother someone.

Knox never asked where all these nice, fresh bodies came from, even when some were still oozing with blood. Knox preserved one of Burke and Hare's victims, the young Mary Paterson, in a tank of alcohol in his lab.

Hare was let off for his crimes, but Burke was caught, hanged and then dissected. His skeleton is preserved at the Royal Collage of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and some wallets made of his skin exist to this day.

The creepy history of anatomy both disturbs me and fascinates me. It makes me wonder what secrets the history of other science disciplines hold. When I find out I'll be sure to write about it on here, so stay tuned!