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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Zandermann
Skeptic Friend
USA
431 Posts |
 Posted - 05/28/2004 : 17:25:30 [Permalink]
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Here in SW Ohio we are under full attack.
The drone/song is comparable to what I hear when I chase my gasoline-powered lawn mower across the yard at full throttle...and it starts about 15 minutes after full dawn and ends about 30 minutes after dark. The sidewalks are peppered with shells and carcasses. The dogs in the neighborhood have stopped eating their dogfood because they're always sated with cicadas.
And the kids at school (particularly those girls who think it's cool to squeal nonstop) are amazed.
Both males and females are out, and some of the trees in the neighborhood have already lost branches (I suspect that the big storm we had last night helped, but I also suspect that some of those branches were already weakened by the buggies). |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2004 : 19:16:02 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
It was Kil who deleted the post(s), filthy.
Yeah, I know. I thanked him in another thread.
I'm hearing song, but it's not the symphony I'd hoped for. I think definatly that it's not going to be a great hatch here. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2004 : 09:43:41 [Permalink]
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By the way, I've moved into a complex which was built in 1993. I can see nymph holes in the ground near the small groups of trees which had been left standing, but I believe all of those cicadas have been eaten, so I've got no noise and no bugs. My storage unit, however, is set amongst a heavily wooded and untouched area, and I can still hear 'em when I go to pick up more stuff.
Also, here is a photo of a normal annual cicada emerging from its last shed. For those who haven't seen 'em, the periodic cicadas look much the same, except they come out white with red or orange eyes, and turn black with orange veins on their wings. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2004 : 10:12:03 [Permalink]
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Great pic, Dave.
My grandkids are picking up enough bugs to keep the little coppers fat and happy (they are bloodthirsty enough to like to watch the kill), but this has not turned out to be the hatch I'd hoped for in my location.
I've lost Ray Charles and the cicadas, too.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2004 : 13:55:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Also, here is a photo of a normal annual cicada emerging from its last shed. For those who haven't seen 'em, the periodic cicadas look much the same, except they come out white with red or orange eyes, and turn black with orange veins on their wings.
Wow... I had the impression that the cicadas were some kind of grasshopper or cricket. But this little thing looks different. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2004 : 22:13:31 [Permalink]
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Dr. Mabuse wrote:quote:
Wow... I had the impression that the cicadas were some kind of grasshopper or cricket. But this little thing looks different.
Little? The cicada in that photo is probably 3 cm.
One of the popular names for certain periodic cicadas is "17-year locust," but they're not closely related to grasshoppers at all. This photo shows examples of the majority species of the cicadas that are covering large areas of the East Coast of America these days. That's a one-centimeter scale on the left. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Zandermann
Skeptic Friend
USA
431 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2004 : 16:43:19 [Permalink]
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welp...the invasion is over...I can hear only a handful of the little buggies in the heat of the day, and the birds are looking for somewhat more mundane lunches these days.
The local paper collected readers' photographs: thought some here might like to see them. |
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead." |
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Greycloud
New Member
USA
1 Post |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 03:21:45 [Permalink]
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The Chambered nautilus
By
Oliver Wendell Holmes
1809 - 1894
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main, --
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed, --
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: --
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
#
If ever any creatures deserved a sonnet in their honor by one of the great poets, it would be the nautili. In grace, beauty, and history, they are beyond compare.
So, let us return once again to the sea and examine these lovely and astonishing creatures; contemporaries of the trilobite and ammonite, the dread Dunkleosteous, and finally, ourselves.
These are called ‘living fossils' a term I object to as much as I do the ‘missing link' balderdash. They are not any such thing, rather they are creatures that have managed to survive through the eons due to their excellent adaptation to the niche they inhabit.
I think it might be easier to get the mind around our odd, little nautilus if we first gain a bit of an understanding of it's ancient history and it's extinct relatives, the Ammonites.
quote:
The first molluscs appeared around 550 million years ago during the early Cambrian period, the period along with most of the basic forms of creature that exist today. Life was exclusively marine at this point and these early molluscs were extremely basic in their construction. The first cephalopods appeared in the late Cambrian and horn shaped shells of these small creatures, such as Plectronoceras, have been found containing basic chambers with a connecting tube called a siphuncle. Although we cannot be exactly sure what these creatures looked like, certain similarities in construction suggest they were the earliest ancestor of all later cephalopods including ammonites, belemnites, squid, octopi and cuttlefish. It seems likely that these early creatures crept along the sea floor possibly taking on a predatory role, though until we find a fossil of the soft parts nobody will really know for sure!
Ammonites evolved from the early nautiloids. Nautiloids first appeared during the subsequent Ordovician period (500-450 mya) and became a very widespread and diverse group assuming the ecological niche of top predator following the extinction of the anomalocarids. These animals tended to have cone shaped or long straight shells divided into chambers and evolved jet propulsion, suggested by a notch underneath the aperture of the shell that is assumed to have held the hypernome, (the siphon in which water is squirted out to move the animal through the water, a |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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thecor
New Member
Italy
27 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 04:33:38 [Permalink]
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As I was reading Tomk80's post on the KIWI's egg/body weight ratio, I was reminded of a very strange bird that I had heard of in my youth. The OOH-AHHHH bird. This is a 3 inch bird that lays a four inch egg. The name refers to the sounds the bird makes during the egglaying process.
(Sorry Filthy, I couldn't resist......ehehehhe) Excellent thread tho |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 07:46:08 [Permalink]
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For the people who liked the deep-sea angler. National Geographic of this month (June 2004) has a great article on deep sea creatures. See also:
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature2/index.html
The links on this page lead to pictures and videos of the wonderfull creatures of the deep. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2004 : 22:12:48 [Permalink]
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Trish wrote:quote:
Do Super Massive Blackholes count as an appropriate topic?
Filthy already ruled that they are appropriate.
By the way, for the folks who are interested, I had a chance to get up to my old neighborhood (20 minutes away) today, and the cicada song is all gone. What's left is a large amount of flagging of deciduous trees. It could almost be mistaken for a very early autumn. Makes me wonder, though, about what's different about the conifers. Do the females not lay eggs in 'em, or are those trees physiologically different enough to avoid the same sort of damage? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2004 : 19:29:03 [Permalink]
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For anyone interested in joining in this thread, but having problems coming up with something "interesting," I just re-read Dobzhansky's Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, and rediscovered these sentences:Perhaps the narrowest ecologic niche of all is that of a species of the fungus family Laboulbeniaceae, which grows exclusively on the rear portion of the elytra of the beetle Aphenops cronei, which is found only in some limestone caves in southern France. Larvae of the fly Psilopa petrolei develop in seepages of crude oil in California oilfields; as far as is known they occur nowhere else. This is the only insect able to live and feed in oil, and its adult can walk on the surface of the oil only as long as no body part other than the tarsi are in contact with the oil. Larvae of the fly Drosophila carciniphila develop only in the nephric grooves beneath the flaps of the third maxilliped of the land crab Geocarcinus ruricola, which is restricted to certain islands in the Caribbean. The above mentions three (or possibly four or five) creatures about which I, for one, would like to hear more, but don't have the time to investigate myself. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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