Archivos de diario de agosto 2017

02 de agosto de 2017

A Tiger Found in Vermont

Congratulations, Vermont. You’ve got a new dragonfly — Tiger Spiketail (Cordulegaster erronea).

This handsome insect flies on streams and rivers east of the Mississippi, and rarely this far north. Dale Ferland, an angler who likes to poke around rivers, snapped that photo above on Monday from the Black River in Springfield. Kelly Stettner, who’s doing great work educating folks about the river, posted Dale’s image to iNaturalist Vermont, a project of the Vermont Atlas of Life. The spiketail turns out to be the 100th dragonfly species we know of here in Vermont (we’ve also got 44 damselfly species).

Spiketails are so named for the females, which lay their eggs by hovering and plunging their spiked ovipositors, like sewing machines, into flowing water. We’ve got three other spiketail species in Vermont, which you can scroll through and view at the Vermont Dragonfly and Damselfly Atlas at the Vermont Atlas of Life.

Whether we’ve got a resident population of Tiger Spiketails, or whether this is a one-off, remains to be seen. Stay tuned. In any event, way to go, Dale!

Publicado el agosto 2, 2017 12:56 TARDE por kpmcfarland kpmcfarland | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

08 de agosto de 2017

July 2017 iNaturalist Vermont Photo-Observation of the Month

Congratulations to Bryan Pfeiffer for winning the July 2017 iNaturalist Vermont photo-observation of the month contest. His image of a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) was the most popular photo-observation as measured by clicked ‘favs’. Painted Ladies arrived in Vermont in large numbers at the end of the month and were noted by many across the state.

The Painted Lady can be found on all continents except Australia and Antarctica. This butterfly undertakes epic migrations. It is adapted to dry and open land and is unable to survive freezing temperatures in any of its life stages. In the Old World the Painted Lady does not overwinter north of the Mediterranean Sea. Each spring there is an annual migration of butterflies from more southern regions of Africa. In North America the migration is thought to originate in northwestern Mexico where they are present every month of the year. In some years when seasonal rains have been heavy in that region, the butterflies appear in large numbers and migrate north and northeast. There is increasing evidence that climatic anomalies such as El Niño, bring more rains to these arid regions helping to produce huge numbers of butterflies and triggering large-scale migrations northward. At least some of the late summer and fall generation in the the north may migrate southward before autumn frosts arrive.

Visit iNaturalist Vermont, a project of the Vermont Atlas of Life, and you can vote for the winner this month by clicking ‘fav’ on your favorite photo-observation. Make sure you get outdoors and record the biodiversity around you, then submit your discoveries and you could be a winner!

Publicado el agosto 8, 2017 12:57 MAÑANA por kpmcfarland kpmcfarland | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

10 de agosto de 2017

Take Your iNaturalist Photos to the Next Level

With the advances in smartphone cameras, nearly everyone has a reasonable-quality camera on them at all times. Photos are a critical citizen science tool for documenting phenology and species presence, and the primary multimedia format submitted to iNaturalist Vermont, a project of the Vermont Atlas of Life. However, smartphone cameras are notoriously poor at taking close up photos, and most of us don’t walk around with a digital SLR camera complete with a macro lens. What’s an iNaturalist to do when she wants to photograph small flower parts, fern sori, or tiny insects? Read on and post your experiences to help others too on the VCE Blog - https://vtecostudies.org/blog/take-your-inaturalist-photos-to-the-next-level

Publicado el agosto 10, 2017 07:03 TARDE por kpmcfarland kpmcfarland | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

11 de agosto de 2017

NEW! Sound Recordings Can Now be Uploaded Directly to iNaturalist

Thanks to the amazing and tireless efforts of the folks at iNaturalist central, we now can upload sound recordings directly to iNaturalist! When you go to the Add page for uploading your observations, when you click on the button that currently says "photos", you can choose sound files now too (up to 20MB in size). Try it out and please do let iNaturalist know if you run into any bugs. What are you waiting for? There's a ton of insects out there singing away!

Publicado el agosto 11, 2017 02:14 TARDE por kpmcfarland kpmcfarland | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario

31 de agosto de 2017

August 2017 iNaturalist Vermont Photo-observation of the Month

Congratulations to Susan Elliott for winning the August 2017 iNaturalist Vermont photo-observation of the month contest. Her image of a Variable Dancer (Argia fumipennis) was the most popular photo-observation as measured by clicked ‘favs’.

All records of this species in Vermont are subspecies violacea, known as the Violet Dancer. Reported from every county in Vermont except for Grand Isle, they favor mid to low elevations in much of Vermont where they are often associated with flowing water, but occasionally ponds too. Mountainous areas with higher gradient streams or rivers lack this species. Check out the map of known locations for this species at the Vermont Damselfly and Dragonfly Atlas.

Visit iNaturalist Vermont, a project of the Vermont Atlas of Life, and you can vote for the winner this month by clicking 'fav' on your favorite photo-observation. Make sure you get outdoors and record the biodiversity around you, then submit your discoveries and you could be a winner!

Publicado el agosto 31, 2017 08:37 TARDE por kpmcfarland kpmcfarland | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

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