Slides from my talk last night to the Field #Naturalists Association of #Canberra:
"Lessons from #Malaise trapping in Aranda"
As with most of my talks, there are few notes, but the gallery of amazing #insects may mean something to some of you.
#entomology #taxonomy #DNAbarcoding #biodiversity #OnceAndFutureKing #Hymenoptera #Lepidoptera #Strepsiptera #Hemiptera #Collembola #Araneae #wasps #moths #springtails #spiders
Bioinspired engineering: the eye of a parasitic fly of a wasp (Strepsiptera) deviates from the standard insect compound eye in interesting ways:
“Xenos peckii vision inspires an ultrathin digital camera”, Keum et al. 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-018-0081-2
Taking advantage of the present state of a still ongoing many-million year evolutionary process.
Increased demand for compact devices leads to rapid development of miniaturized digital cameras. However, conventional camera modules contain multiple lenses along the optical axis to compensate for optical aberrations that introduce technical challenges in reducing the total thickness of the camera module. Here, we report an ultrathin digital camera inspired by the vision principle of Xenos peckii, an endoparasite of paper wasps. The male Xenos peckii has an unusual visual system that exhibits distinct benefits for high resolution and high sensitivity, unlike the compound eyes found in most insects and some crustaceans. The biologically inspired camera features a sandwiched configuration of concave microprisms, microlenses, and pinhole arrays on a flat image sensor. The camera shows a field-of-view (FOV) of 68 degrees with a diameter of 3.4 mm and a total track length of 1.4 mm. The biologically inspired camera offers a new opportunity for developing ultrathin cameras in medical, industrial, and military fields.
General introduction to Stylopidae (Strepsiptera):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylopidae
Stylopidia Host Relationships:
http://www.tolweb.org/accessory/Stylopidia_Host_Relationships?acc_id=461
If you photograph enough wasps and bees eventually you’ll encounter some that are stylopized: parasitized with Strepsiptera, a family of flies that look harmless yet are capable of dominating and living off top brass like paper wasps and more.
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/306092511
A very cool and interesting study about the impact of Stylopization (parasitism by Stylops ater) on a mining bee (Andrena vaga).
By tweaking the bee's endocrine system, the parasite is able to shift the emergence time. The authors also observe a masculinization effect in female host, which is believed to be a by-product of the emergence-shift.
#entomology #insects #parasite #ecology #evolution #nature #science #strepsiptera #bees
Anatomical, phenological and genetic aspects of the host-parasite relationship between Andrena vaga (Hymenoptera) and Stylops ater (Strepsiptera)
Note bees can also be stylopized: after all, bees are wasps that forgot to eat meat (except carrion bees that make meat honey from rotten corpses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_bee but oh well).
Here is a Hylaeus sp., a masked bee, stylopized: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/89223666 When I took the photo I had not even noticed; nearly didn't even post it, as I only had one and a bit blurry. Then John Ascher made me notice the parasite protruding from its tergites.
#iNaturalist #Stylopidae #Strepsiptera #Hymenoptera #nativebees #bees
And now I can see it in plain view around a quarter of the way across and just below half way up the sample tray for that week.
Probably only of interest to myself ... I've added an extra parameter to the URLs for my BOLD Australia site for exploring #Australian #DnaBarcodes. If you include "gmaea=1" in the URL, it highlights the taxa and records associated with BOLD specimens from my local #Malaise trapping. I'm finding it really interesting to visualise my specimens in context.
If nothing else, it made me realise that Guelph found #Strepsiptera in the sample from the week of 1-8 January 2021.
Donald Hobern
Albert Cardona
Stefan F. Wirth
Max, overwintering bug
Jill Orme
