View allAll Photos Tagged tibia
These are for sale. Made to measure leg braces and custom made leather and metal bondage gear available as well as refurbished braces for any part of the body. Contact me at my1970junk@msn.com
OBSERVATION REPORT
∞∞
SPECIES
Type of bird - Larus fuscus
Age & Sexe - Ad. - Male
∞
RINGS
Color ring
W[RF]
Metallic ring
5468794
EURING code - 05910 - www.cr-birding.org/node/1179
Right leg (tibia) – Black ring
Left leg (tibia) – White ring with Red two alpha-numeric code
Left leg (tarsus) - Metallic ring
Ringer - Roland-Jan Buijs
Age at first ring - >4 cy - Date - 2012.05.01
Place where ringed - Europoort (Tennesseehaven), Zuid-Holland,
∞
OBSERVATION
Date of the sighting - 26.02.2018 - Time - morning
- my sightings/2018 - 1 - total of my sightings: 7
Place - Leixões Harbour, Matosinhos, Portugal
Coordinates - 41.1823988, -8.6970061
Distance to Ringing Site -
∞
LIFE HISTORY
Date - Location - Observer
03 to 08.2013 – 48 sightings in Den Haag (Vaillantplein), and Europoort (Tennesseehaven), Zuid-Holland, NL - N.Huig ; R. van Oosteroom ; Hans Keijser & Leo Snellink
03 to 08.2014 – 49 sigthings in Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - N.Huig ; R. van Oosteroom ; Hans Keijser & Leo Snellink
29-5-2015 Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - Leo Snellink N
5-6-2015 Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL -Leo Snellink N
8-6-2015 Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - Leo Snellink N
6-7-2015 Maasvlakte (Papegaaienbekeiland), Zuid-Holland, NL - Garry Bakker N
7-8-2015 Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - Leo Snellink N
29-9-2015 Matosinhos (Strand), Douro Litoral, PORTUGAL -José Marques
26-01-2016 Matosinhos Beach, PORTUGAL -José Marques
08-03-2016 Matosinhos beach, Matosinhos, Portugal - José Marques
29-03-2016 Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - N.Huig & R. van Oosteroom
1/4 to 3/8/2016 – 55 sightings in Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - N.Huig & R. van Oosteroom
26-09-2016 Matosinhos beach, Matosinhos, Portugal - José Marques
17/3 to 18/5/2017 – 32 sightings in Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - N.Huig & R. van Oosteroom
22-05-2017 Maasvlakte (Papegaaienbekeiland), Zuid-Holland, NL - H. Keijser & R.J. Buijs
24/5 to 2/8/2017 – 14 sightings in Den Haag (Vaillantplein), Zuid-Holland, NL - N.Huig & R. van Oosteroom
06.11.2017Matosinhos beach, Matosinhos, Portugal - José Marques & Peter Rock
07.12.2017Matosinhos beach, Matosinhos, Portugal - José Marques
26/02/2018 Leixões harbour, Matosinhos, Portugal – José Marques
∞
Sketchblog: sharonfrost.typepad.com/day_books
8 1/4 x 10 in. double-page Moleskine cahier spread; ink, watercolor, whatever, on paper.
Once of our dirtball species. Common, found almost everywhere including people's gardens and in our agricultural fields. This is group (Halictus) if often identifiable in the males by the the dark spot/section on the outer face of the hind tibia. If you don't key in on that they are often misidentified as Lasioglossum species, which have many species that have the dark metallic green feel your see here. Collected in Prince George's County (possibily in my garden) and photographed by Sydney Price.
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know
" Ode on a Grecian Urn"
John Keats
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Marylandhttp://bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
He played baseball from the age of 5 up through his senior year in high school……never had an injury other than a scraped knee or elbow. Now as a junior in college playing softball, he runs and slides into third base, his bent leg inverts and he breaks his fibula bone. To make matters worst, a ligament tore and was in the way of the fracture so he needed surgery today. The doctor used a metal plate and 8 screws to hold the bone in place.
I left him a couple of hours ago, leg propped up on ice and resting somewhat comfortably. Poor kid has been in lot of pain.
The pollen basket or corbicula is part of the tibia on the hind legs of the four related lineages of apid bees that used to compose the family Apidae: the honey bees, bumblebees, stingless bees, and orchid bees.The corbicula ("little basket") is a polished cavity surrounded by a fringe of hairs, into which the pollen is placed; most other bees possess a structure called the scopa, which is similar in function, but is a dense mass of branched hairs into which pollen is pressed, with pollen grains held in place in the narrow spaces between the hairs. A honey bee moistens the forelegs with its protruding tongue and brushes the pollen that has collected on its head, body and forward appendages to the hind legs. The pollen is transferred to the pollen comb on the hind legs and then combed, pressed, compacted, and transferred to the corbicula on the outside surface of the tibia of the hind legs. A single hair functions as a pin that secures the middle of the pollen load. Honey and/or nectar is used to moisten the dry pollen, producing the product known as bee pollen or bee bread. The mixing of the pollen with nectar or honey changes the color of the pollen. The color of the pollen can identify the pollen source.
The hind or 3rd leg of the worker honey bee is where the key tools are for collecting/processing pollen into the familiar pollen loads.
working from proximal to distal on the legs the 4 key structures are:
1. (not illustrated in this picture) the corbicula is a cavity on the outside of the tibia which holds the formed pollen load for transport back to the hive. It has a single, central large hair that anchors the pollen load and is fringed by a line of smaller hairs.
2. The rake (or rastellum) on the tibia. This is a ridge of stiff hairs and is illustrated in the picture.
3. The auricle on the basitarsus. This is a hollow or cup and is shown in the picture.
Together the rake and the auricle are referred to as the pollen press.
4. The pollen brushes, well illustrated in the picture are rows of hairs on the inside of the basitarsus (all 3 pairs of legs have this not just the 3rd pair)
The process of forming the pollen load is as follows. Pollen collected on all 3 pairs of legs is transferred to the pollen brushes on the hind legs along with a small amount of nectar that serves to glue it together.
The hind legs are rubbed together such that the rake from one leg combs the pollen from the opposite leg from the pollen brush into the auricle. The basitarsal-tibial joint is flexed such that the pollen is compressed in the auricle and the resulting pressure squeezes the batch of pollen into the corbicula. The process is repeated over and over resulting in an increasingly big pollen load anchored in each of the 2 corbiculae. The middle pair of legs are employed in shaping and tidying the pollen leads as the get bigger.
This is from a dead bee I found earlier on the patio - good subject for some macro work!
I am trying to learn/revise this stuff for a course I am about to start and I felt that taking some of my own photos and revealing/identifying for myself in my own photos what I am reading or seeing in diagrams or photos in the text book would be a good way to learn and consolidate information and make it more interesting and enjoyable.
Taken using a combination of the Tamron 70-300mm lens and the Raynox DCR250 so essentially the maximum magnification readily available to me! This combo never seems to make for arty or attractive/pleasing macros but for today's purpose magnification is more important!
Rudi - Pressure's On
Stuifmeelkam en stuifmeelkorfje
De achterpoot van een werkbij heeft op de scheen (tibia) twee voorzieningen voor het verzamelen van stuifmeel:
op de rand van de scheen staan gebogen haren die een korfje (corbicula) vormen, en
op de top van de scheen zit ook nog een stevige kam.
De stuifmeelkam helpt (naast de andere haren op de achterpoten) mee om het stuifmeel de pollen uit de vacht te kammen. Nadat het stuifmeel dan met wat nectar een beetje nat is gemaakt wordt het als stuifmeelklompje in het stuifmeelkorfje opgeslagen. Zo'n stuifmeelklompje kan tot zo'n 10 milligram wegen.
bron: www.imkerpedia.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Stuifmeelkam_en_st...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen_basket
The pollen basket or corbicula (plural corbiculae) is part of the tibia on the hind legs of certain species of bees. They use the structure in harvesting pollen and returning it to the nest or hive. Other species of bee have scopae instead.
My friend just broke her ankle and tibia? She was wearing high heels and slipped. :( Since I don't have the HA shoe stamp (how perfect that would have been) I used the apples. I embossed the apples with clear three times so they would look like waxy apples. Thanks for looking! The inside says....keeps the doctor away.
TOTENKOFP-FREIKORPS-ARTE-PINTURA-CASCO-CALAVERA-PERSONAJES-SOLDADOS-MUNICH-ALEMANIA-HISTORIA-CUERPOS LIBRES-PINTOR-ERNEST DESCALS-
Los soldados del FREIKORPS, los Cuerpos Libres, en Munich, Alemania, llevaban distintos signos que los diferenciaban del Ejército de la República de Weimar, el TOTENKOPF o la Calavera con las tibias cruzadas representaba uno de los símbolos más antiguos en los hombres sin miedo, su misión como Voluntarios era pacificar el ambiente turbulento de las calles que aportaban los revolucionarios comunistas. Pintura del artista pintor Ernest Descals sobre papel de 50 x 70 centímetros, pintar sobre la historia de los hechos ocurridos tras la derrota de en la Primera Guerra Mundial. Personajes, simbología y expresión.
"Run, Doctor, get to the motor pool, we can get transport there!" barked Banner, as Doctor Tibias ran at full sprint, dropping papers as she went...
Bug in metallic edition? "How close can you get?" nr 39
More "How close can you get?" CLICK HERE
More in first comment.
Dutch
Rietkever hier in actie als rietdekkers...|;-))
Wiki
Soorten uit het geslacht Plateumaris zijn lastig te onderscheiden.
Uiterlijke kenmerken
Lichaamsdelen van de gewone rietkever (Donacia vulgaris).
A = Kop
B = Borststuk
C = Achterlijf
1 = Antenne
2 = Oog
3 = Halsschild
4 = Voorpoot (femur)
5 = Middelste poot (tibia)
6 = Achterpoot (tarsus)
7 = Dekschild
Net als andere insecten bestaat het lichaam uit drie delen; een kop, een borststuk en een achterlijf. De kever heeft verder twee duidelijk zichtbare antennes, drie paar poten en twee paar vleugels, de bovenste zichtbare vleugels hebben een meestal groene kleur met een metaalachtige glans die verschillende tinten kan hebben. De lichaamslengte exclusief uitsteeksels zoals poten en antennes ongeveer een centimeter lang, de lichaamslengte kan verschillen per soort maar is maximaal ongeveer een centimeter. De gewone rietkever (Donacia vulgaris) bereikt een lichaamslengte van 6 tot 8 millimeter,[4] de soort Donacia aquatica wordt ongeveer 6 tot 10 mm lang.[5]
De kop of cephalon is relatief klein en draagt verschillende aanhangsels. Aan de voorzijde van de kop zijn de antennes gelegen. De antenenes zijn draadvormig (filiform) en zijn duidelijk gesegmenteerd. Aan het uiteinde van ieder segment is een verdikking aanwezig, het laatste lid is iets verdikt maar niet knopvormig zoals bij andere insecten voorkomt. De ogen zijn rond en kraalachtig en vaak donkerder tot zwart van kleur.
Het borststuk of thorax is het gecompliceerdste deel van het lichaam van de kevers. Het borststuk lijk uit één geheel te bestaan maar is in feite een samensmelting van drie delen. De verschillende delen van het borststuk worden van voor naar achter het propleuron, het mesopleuron en het metapleuron genoemd. Ieder deel draagt een paar poten aan de onderzijde en de twee voorste delen dragen ieder een paar vleugels aan de bovenzijde.
Net als andere kevers is het borststuk is het deel waaraan alle poten en vleugels zijn gehecht. Het voorste deel van het borststuk wordt beschermd door het halsschild of pronotum en het achterste deel is onder de dekvleugels of elytra gelegen. Het pronotum is sterk gewelfd, in het midden is een groef aanwezig in de lengte en aan weerszijden zijn enkele bulterige structuren aanwezig.
De dekschilden zijn langwerpig en eindigen spits, ze hebben een groene kleur met een duidelijke metaalglans. De dekschilden zijn voorzien van rijen talrijke kleine putjes. Deze breken het licht zodat ze lijken op rijen kleine vlekjes.
De poten bestaan net als andere kevers uit drie delen, die afwijken ten opzichte van andere kevers. De poten zijn lang en sprieterig, iets wat bij de meeste verwante bladhaantjes ontbreekt. Het eerste deel van de poot wordt de heup of coxa, deze pootbasis is aan de onderzijde van het lichaam gepositioneerd en moeilijk te zien. De heup is middels de dijbeenring of trochanter verbonden met de overige drie delen van de poot, die wel onder de dekschilden uitsteken en duidelijk te zien zijn. Het eerste deel is de dij of femur, de dij eindigt in een verdikking.
De mannetjes hebben aan de tibia van het achterste potenpaar een duidelijk stekelachtige structuur die naar achteren wijst een een spoor wordt genoemd. De sporen spelen een rol bij de paring van de kevers, de mannetjes ankeren zich met behulp van de sporen aan een vrouwtje. Sporen komen ook wel bij sommige andere kevers voor, maar de rietkevers zijn aan deze uitsteeksels makkelijk te onderscheiden van gelijkende kevers.
Het achterlijf of abdomen is het grootste deel van het lichaam, het wordt geheel verborgen onder de dekschilden. Het achterlijf is gesegmenteerd en wordt beschermd door verstevigde platen. De platen aan de bovenzijde van het achterlijf worden de tergieten genoemd en die aan de onderzijde van het achterlijf zijn de sternieten. aldus wikipedia
12A_0318XACCN
rozar con la yema de tus dedos
la superficie tibia de un cristal
una y otra vez miles de veces
-
rub with your fingertips
the warm surface of a glass
and over a thousand times
A house cricket (Acheta domesticus) climbs over a bread bun. Magnification at 2,1x on FF-sensor, slightly cropped.
Taken with Canon EOS 5D and Schneider Componon-S 35mm/f4 reversed on bellows, flash, paper cylinder diffuser; stacked with Zerene, mix of DMap & PMax method.
DESCOBERTAS PALEONTOLÓGICAS NO SÍTIO DE PEIRÓPOLIS EM UBERABA-MG.
Desde a década de 1940, descobertas paleontológicas já traziam nova notoriedade para a região. Informado de que fósseis de ossos haviam sido encontrados durante obras de retificação da linha da linha férrea Mogiana, o paleontólogo gaúcho Llewellyn Ivor Price (1905-1980), começou a trabalhar em Peirópolis em 1947. Realizou uma escavação sistemática na região de Caieira, entre 1949 e 1961. Como resultado, foram recuperadas centenas de ossos fossilizados do período Cretáceo Superior (100 a 65 milhões de anos atrás), sobretudo de dinossauros do grupo dos titanossauros.
Por quase 30 anos, o Ivor Price pesquisou as terras do Triângulo Mineiro e de municípios paulistas. Considerado o pai da paleontologia brasileira, permaneceu na região até 1974. Todo o acervo de fósseis coletado por ele e seus auxiliares, ao longo de três décadas, integra a coleção do Museu de Ciências da Terra do Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral (DNPM), no Rio de Janeiro.
Museu e Centro de Pesquisas.
Em 1991, a Prefeitura Municipal de Uberaba restaurou o prédio da estação e outras dependências no entorno para instalar o "Centro de Pesquisas Paleontológicas Llewellyn Ivor Price", criado no ano seguinte sob supervisão do geólogo Luiz Carlos Borges Ribeiro. A antiga estação passou a abrigar um laboratório de preparação de fósseis e um pequeno, mas atraente museu paleontológico, aberto à visitação pública e vinculado à Fundação Cultural de Uberaba. Outros imóveis no entorno foram transformados em residências para pesquisadores.
Dentre as atrações do museu, destaca-se hoje o esqueleto fossilizado do crocodilomorfo do Cretáceo Superior Uberabasuchus terrificus – descoberto na região no ano 2000 e um dos mais completos do tipo já encontrado no mundo – que está exposto no museu ao lado de uma réplica do animal. O Uberabasuchus terrificus pertence a uma família de crocodilomorfos denominada Peirosauridae em homenagem a Peirópolis. Estima-se que ele media aproximadamente 2,5 metros de comprimento e pesava cerca de 300 kg.
Mais recentemente foram descobertos na região fosseis do Uberabatitan ribeiroi, o maior dinossauro brasileiro já encontrado. Fósseis de três indivíduos dessa espécie foram descobertos em 2004 na região de Serra da Galga, entre as cidades de Uberaba e Uberlândia, durante a realização das obras da duplicação da rodovia BR-050. O trabalho de retirada dos fósseis foi concluído em 2006, após os técnicos escavarem manualmente cerca de 300 toneladas de rochas que datavam do período Cretáceo e Paleogeno para a extração do material. Em 2011, foram feitas novas descobertas na mesma área, que incluem um fêmur de 1,4 metros do Uberabatitan.
Rede Nacional de Paleontologia.
Em 2003/2004 o Governo Federal, por meio do Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia, liberou recursos para a construção em Peirópolis da sede da Rede Nacional de Pesquisas Científicas em Paleontologia. Diversas controvérsias envolveram o projeto que teria como objetivo proteger sítios fossilíferos e divulgar a paleontologia.
Apesar de um grande prédio ter sido construído próximo ao antigo museu para sediá-la, a Rede Nacional nunca se concretizou e terminou extinta. Suas instalações passaram a ser utilizadas para mostras científicas, atividades lúdicas e pedagógicas sobre a paleontologia, direcionadas a crianças e estudantes de Uberaba e região. Hoje o prédio abriga um auditorio para palestras, salas para oficinas, alem da sede da Associação dos Amigos do Sitio Paleontológico de Peirópolis - AASPP. Abriga também as réplicas de um Megaterium (Preguiça Gigante) e de um Titanossauro, ambos encontrados na região.
Em 2011, o novo prédio e seus equipamentos – juntamente com o Museu e o Centro de Pesquisas – foram integrados ao novo Complexo Científico Cultural de Peirópolis vinculado à Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) e à Secretaria de Estado de Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior de Minas Gerais.
Fonte.............. pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peir%C3%B3polis
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A maior atração do museu é o rico acervo de fósseis de dinossauros e outros vertebrados. Conta ainda com painéis explicativos sobre a evolução da vida e dioramas que reconstituem os cenários da vida e dos animais e vegetais que habitaram a região de Uberaba há milhões de anos. Está instalado no prédio da antiga estação ferroviária de Peirópolis, construída em 1889, em estilo inglês.
Horário de visitação: terça a sexta das 08 as 17h e sábado, domingo e feriados das 08h as 18h.
No período de janeiro (férias) o Museu também está aberto às segundas-feiras. Durante o período de Carnaval fechará apenas no dia 10 de fevereiro.
BR 262, km 784, Bairro de Peirópolis.
(34)3338-1526.
Fonte............ www.uberaba.mg.gov.br/portal/conteudo,706
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PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN THE SITE OF PEIRÓPOLIS IN UBERABA-MG.
Since the 1940s, paleontological discoveries have already brought new fame to the region. Informed that bone fossils had been found during the rectification of the Mogiana railway line, Gaucho paleontologist Llewellyn Ivor Price (1905-1980) began working in Peirópolis in 1947. He performed a systematic excavation in the region of Caieira, between 1949 and 1961. As a result, hundreds of fossilized bones from the Upper Cretaceous period (100 to 65 million years ago), mainly dinosaurs from the titanosaurs group, were recovered.
For almost 30 years, Ivor Price surveyed the lands of the Triângulo Mineiro and the municipalities of São Paulo. Considered the father of Brazilian paleontology, he remained in the region until 1974. The collection of fossils collected by him and his assistants for three decades is part of the collection of the Museum of Earth Sciences of the National Department of Mineral Production (DNPM) in Rio de Janeiro.
Museum and Research Center.
In 1991, the Municipality of Uberaba restored the station building and other dependencies in the surroundings to install the "Llewellyn Ivor Price Paleontological Research Center", created the following year under the supervision of the geologist Luiz Carlos Borges Ribeiro. The old station started to house a fossil preparation laboratory and a small but attractive paleontological museum, open to public visitation and linked to the Cultural Foundation of Uberaba. Other surrounding properties have been transformed into residences for researchers.
Among the attractions of the museum, the fossilized skeleton of the crocodilomorph of the Upper Cretaceous Uberabasuchus terrificus - discovered in the region in the year 2000 and one of the most complete of the type already found in the world - is exhibited in the museum next to a replica of the animal. Uberabasuchus terrificus belongs to a family of crocodilomorphs called Peirosauridae in honor of Peirópolis. It is estimated to be approximately 2.5 meters long and weighs about 300 kg.
More recently they were discovered in the fossil region of Uberabatitan ribeiroi, the largest Brazilian dinosaur ever found. Fossils of three individuals of this species were discovered in 2004 in the region of Serra da Galga, between the cities of Uberaba and Uberlândia, during the works of the duplication of highway BR-050. The work of removing the fossils was completed in 2006, after the technicians manually excavated about 300 tons of rocks dating from the Cretaceous and Paleogene for the extraction of the material. In 2011, new discoveries were made in the same area, which include a femur of 1.4 meters from Uberabatitan.
National Network of Paleontology.
In 2003/2004, the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Science and Technology, released funds for the construction in Peirópolis of the headquarters of the National Network of Scientific Research in Paleontology. Several controversies involved the project that would aim to protect fossiliferous sites and promote paleontology.
Although a large building was built near the old museum to house it, the National Network never materialized and ended up extinct. Its facilities began to be used for scientific shows, play and pedagogical activities on paleontology, aimed at children and students of Uberaba and region. Today the building houses an auditorium for lectures, workshop rooms, and the headquarters of the Association of Friends of the Peirópolis Paleontological Site - AASPP. It also houses the replicas of a Megaterium (Giant Sloth) and a Titanosaurus, both found in the region.
In 2011, the new building and its equipment - together with the Museum and the Research Center - were integrated into the new Peirópolis Cultural Scientific Complex linked to the Federal University of the Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) and the State Secretariat for Science, Technology and Education Superior of Minas Gerais.
Link .............. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peir%C3%B3polis
-------------------------------------------------- -----------------
The museum's greatest attraction is the rich collection of fossils of dinosaurs and other vertebrates. It also has explanatory panels on the evolution of life and dioramas that reconstitute the scenarios of life and of the animals and vegetables that inhabited the region of Uberaba millions of years ago. It is installed in the building of the old railway station of Peirópolis, built in 1889, in English style.
Visiting hours: Tuesday to Friday from 08 to 17h and Saturday, Sunday and holidays from 08h to 18h.
In the period of January (holidays) the Museum is also open on Mondays. During the Carnival period it will only close on February 10.
BR 262, km 784, Bairro de Peirópolis.
(34) 3338-1526.
Link ............ www.uberaba.mg.gov.br/portal/conteudo,706
This ichneumon wasp we found wandering across the kitchen floor should really be tucked away somewhere safe this time of year. She'd clearly been disturbed from her over-wintering spot, and spent a while cleaning herself, using a spur on her fore legs to preen her antenna by pulling it through a notch in the tibia covered in hairs.
The pollen basket or corbicula is part of the tibia on the hind legs of the four related lineages of apid bees that used to compose the family Apidae: the honey bees, bumblebees, stingless bees, and orchid bees.The corbicula ("little basket") is a polished cavity surrounded by a fringe of hairs, into which the pollen is placed; most other bees possess a structure called the scopa, which is similar in function, but is a dense mass of branched hairs into which pollen is pressed, with pollen grains held in place in the narrow spaces between the hairs. A honey bee moistens the forelegs with its protruding tongue and brushes the pollen that has collected on its head, body and forward appendages to the hind legs. The pollen is transferred to the pollen comb on the hind legs and then combed, pressed, compacted, and transferred to the corbicula on the outside surface of the tibia of the hind legs. A single hair functions as a pin that secures the middle of the pollen load. Honey and/or nectar is used to moisten the dry pollen, producing the product known as bee pollen or bee bread. The mixing of the pollen with nectar or honey changes the color of the pollen. The color of the pollen can identify the pollen source.
As the day breaks on Hazard Island, Dax turns to his companion, and says, "It's quite a hike for us to get to the compound, Doctor Tibias is in, Annabelle.., Annabelle!"
Once of our dirtball species. Common, found almost everywhere including people's gardens and in our agricultural fields. This is group (Halictus) if often identifiable in the males by the the dark spot/section on the outer face of the hind tibia. If you don't key in on that they are often misidentified as Lasioglossum species, which have many species that have the dark metallic green feel your see here. Collected in Prince George's County (possibily in my garden) and photographed by Sydney Price.
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know
" Ode on a Grecian Urn"
John Keats
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Marylandhttp://bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
Tipo Confort
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Detail from plate 6, engraved anatomical illustration of the "jonctures and articulations of the arm and leg - articulation of ye thigh-bone with ye tibia" from: Anatomy improv'd and illustrated with regard to the uses thereof in designing. (London: John Senex, 1723).
This volume of engraved plates and text was originally published in Rome in 1691, and was re-engraved and republished in London in 1723. The dissections were done for the Italian edition by Bernardino Genga, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery and physician in the hospital of San Spirito in Rome, and the explanatory text by the papal physician Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1654-1720). The book, designed for artists rather than medical students, includes plates of famous classical statues from Rome and is described as 'A work of great use to painters, sculptors, statuaries and all others studious in the noble arts of design'.
The English edition is dedicated by the publisher to Richard Mead, FRCP, FRS (1673-1754), 'a favourer of the politer arts'.
Part of the Anatomical Atlases in Special Collections & Archives, SPEC Anatomy 6. Cropped inscription on the titlepage, 'Tho. Dixon's Book 1799' and the pencilled name' Miss Annie Jackson, 19 North Street' on the front flyleaf, with pencil measurements possibly from a dissected skeleton on the back of the last (index) page.
The volume has had some plates cut out, but has also been grangerised with later anatomical illustrations pasted in.
Images from Medical books in Special Collections at University of Liverpool
Plate 8 showing engraving of the bones of the leg from: Anatomy improv'd and illustrated with regard to the uses thereof in designing. (London: John Senex, 1723).
This volume of engraved plates and text was originally published in Rome in 1691, and was re-engraved and republished in London in 1723. The dissections were done for the Italian edition by Bernardino Genga, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery and physician in the hospital of San Spirito in Rome, and the explanatory text by the papal physician Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1654-1720). The book, designed for artists rather than medical students, includes plates of famous classical statues from Rome and is described as 'A work of great use to painters, sculptors, statuaries and all others studious in the noble arts of design'.
The English edition is dedicated by the publisher to Richard Mead, FRCP, FRS (1673-1754), 'a favourer of the politer arts'.
Part of the Anatomical Atlases in Special Collections & Archives, SPEC Anatomy 6. Cropped inscription on the titlepage, 'Tho. Dixon's Book 1799' and the pencilled name' Miss Annie Jackson, 19 North Street' on the front flyleaf, with pencil measurements possibly from a dissected skeleton on the back of the last (index) page.
The volume has had some plates cut out, but has also been grangerised with later anatomical illustrations pasted in.
Medical Education
Image of bones/skeleton of leg
Shark attack at Davidson's surf break in Kekaha, Kauai.
It happened after sunset on Oct. 9th, 2017.
According to the so-called "experts", there have "only" been TEN FATAL shark attacks in Hawaii since 1980. Here's a list of those fatal attacks. (note asterisk * indicates fatal attack confirmed by so-called experts).
5/24/81 - Roger Garletts - Haena, Kauai - Scuba diving
4/20/86 - Levi Chandler - Kalihiwai Point, Kauai - shore fishing
4/15/87 - Daniel Kennedy - Kailua-Kona - swimming
4/15/88 - Avery Goo - Powerboat overturned, Waihe'e, Maui
1/8/89 - Ken Ahlstrand - Wailua, Kauai - swimming with 3 others when he disappeared. Lower part of body found 6 days later, x-rays revealed teeth marks in femur & tibia
10/14/89 - Ray Mehl - Kahe point, Oahu - scuba diving
2/17/90 - Roy Tanaka - Mokapu, Kaneohe Marine Base - scuba spearfishing
11/19/91 - Suk Kyu (Steve) Park - Maliko Point, Maui - washed into ocean while shore fishing
11/26/91 - Martha Morrell - Olowalu, Maui - swimming *
2/19/92 - Bryan Adona - Leftovers, near Waimea Bay, Oahu - body boarding
11/4/92 - Aaron Romento - Keaau Beach Park, Oahu - body boarding
12/1/93 - Daniel McMoyler - Waipio, Hawaii - surfing
1/31/94 - Jim Broach - Velzyland - surfing - body parts seen but not recovered.
4/28/96 - Wayne Leong - Lobster diving lost near Laie Point, Oahu. Wetsuit remnants showed evidence of attack by large tiger shark.
7/14/96 - Trimurti Day - disappeared while jumping off rocks after midnight at Nakalele Point, Maui. Shark bitten remains found later.
3/18/1999 - Nahid Davoodabai - offshore south-east Maui - kayaking
4/4/04 - Courtney Marcher - Velzyland - surfing
4/7/04 - William McInnis - Kahana, Maui - surfing *
2/23/06 - Anthony Moore - Makena, Maui - free diving
8/30/08 - Kameron Brown - McKenzie Beach Park , Pahoa - cliff jumping / swimming (Great White Shark)
4/11/09 - Paolo Dominici - Kona - spearfishing
8/14/13 - Jana Lutteropp - Makena, Maui - snorkeling *
12/2/13 - Patrick Briney - offshore Makena, Maui - kayak fishing *
4/29/15 - Margaret Cruse - Kanahena cove / Ahihi, Makena, Maui - snorkeling *
9/17/15 - Loren "Jamie" Salis - Upolu Point - night spearfishing
10/14/16 - Joshua Goodwin - Hana, Maui - missing while spearfishing
5/25/2019 - Dr. Thomas Smiley - Kaanapali Shores, Maui, tourist swimming*
6/23/2019 - Vladimir Sukhoparov 58, of Cincinnati Ohio goes missing while swimming offshore Wailua beach, Kauai. East swell was minimal and waters were calm but very murky due to several days of rain. A helicopter searched exhaustively for 3-days before search was called off. The guy looked fit for his age. No mention of shark in news, but c'mon, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize what likely occurred.
7/23/19 - Fathi Twalib 34, Queens Pond area of Polihale beach Kauai. Entered ocean at 7:30 P.M. and disappeared after ducking under a small wave near shore. Next morning a very large tiger shark was filmed by drone swimming just 30 yards offshore beach in line with missing man's truck.
10/4/2019 - Alan Delatorre 45, Kailua-Kona, failed to return from a night spear fishing venture. Hawaiʻi Fire Department divers recovered clothes and diving equipment in the waters near the buoy that were identified as belonging to Delatorre. They indicated the damage to the clothing to be attributed to sharks.
7/31/2020 - William "Scott" Stanga, 52, of Hana, Maui disappeared while spearfishing alone at Ku'au Bay beach below Mama's Fish House in Paia during the late afternoon.
12/8/2020 - surfer Robin Warren 56, Honolua Bay, Maui. 17-inch wide bite taken out of surfboard also made severe wound to his left side buttock and upper thigh. Victim was listed as stable after surgery but died the next day.*
6/20/2021 - Nelson Kupenes, 47, disappeared while spearfishing alone during the late afternoon / evening at Glass beach near 'Ele'ele, Kauai. KFD rescue divers recovered his dive float, weight belt, and two spear guns just 25-30 yards offshore. I heard that some body parts were also recovered but that was not in the news reports.
9/14/2021 - 67 year old woman from California disappeared while snorkeling on a dive tour at Molokini Islet offshore of south Maui. The conditions were choppy but she vanished without anyone seeing what happened. All the tour boats present searched for her as did the Coast Guard.
12/14/2021 - Tourist man from Wisconsin age 62, last seen swimming off south point at Chang's Beach fronting Makena Surf Resort. Rescue divers had to quickly exit search area when a large tiger shark appeared. The swimmer's dive mask, snorkel, and one swim fin were subsequently found.
3/7/2022 - Huy Nguyen, 44, disappeared at dusk (7 PM) at Rock Quarry Beach in Kilauea, Kauai. The U.S. Coast Guard said Nguyen had been surfing before handing off his board to his son, saying he was going to swim to shore. A dead humpback whale had washed into the shallow reef area just off the beach prior (Dec. 2021) at the surf spot Pila'a which is just a half mile from Rock Quarry. An oil slick has been visible from atop Pila'a cliff ever since.
12/8/2022 - Kristine Allen from Bellingham, Washington State, 60, was snorkeling 50-75 yards offshore Keawakapu beach in Kihei with her husband Blake when they encountered a large tiger shark. Reportedly he fought off the shark as it made several passes. He managed to swim ashore but his wife vanished during the incident and was never seen again. Her mask & snorkel were recovered where she was last seen. One report mentioned that a piece of her blue bathing suit washed ashore. A 10-12 foot tiger shark was observed in the same area the following morning. *
12/30/2023 - Jason Carter age 39 of Haiku, Maui died of injuries sustained in a shark attack while surfing at Pa'ia Bay on the north-east side of the island. *
06/23/2024 - Tamayo Perry, renown Pipeline surfer and C&C Honolulu Lifeguard is killed likely by a tiger shark while surfing at Goat Island, Malaekahana on Oahu's east side. He sustained multiple bites and lost an arm and a leg. *
9/23/2025 - Bryson Higashi, 44, last seen solo spearfishing at Waikoko's in Hanalei Bay. Shredded camouflage blue diver wetsuit material discovered washed ashore a couple days after.
1/28/2026 - Matthew Kaimana Packard-Asai, 19, of Kapaa - swept into the ocean while shore fishing along rocky coastline at Kahili beach / Rock Quarry in Kilauea. Female companion was also swept into the ocean and suffered a laceration to her leg. She was rescued shortly thereafter but Matthew Kaimana Packard-Asai disappeared from view. On Saturday January 31, 2026 his shark devoured remains were found in the vicinity.
These 41 fatalities may not have had the multiple eye-witnesses that the eight "expert-confirmed" attacks did, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what a shark chewed and regurgitated wetsuit or surf shorts implies. Nor does drowning in a tiger shark's jaws as it takes a victim underwater invalidate the fact that death and subsequent consumption was due to a shark attack (ie. Anthony Moore at Makena, Maui 2006). Likewise, does anyone really think Bryan Adona (whose body was never found) died from some other cause when a large tiger shark was seen within a few yards of where he was when he went missing and a huge shark bite taken out of his body-board was subsequently discovered?
* indicates fatal attack confirmed by so-called experts
wizardofbaum.blogspot.com/2011/05/history-of-reported-fat...
take a good look kids - it's my freshly broken leg. it's nice and puffy and boy does it hurt!
two labs pwned me and busted my leg at the dog park last night.
and again, broken Tibia & broken Fibula...
Dr. Erin Wilson will fix Gidget's leg tomorrow, and she should be back on her feet pretty soon.
Eldad
Chadian military doctors perform surgery to repair a fractured tibia April 13 at the Military Teaching Hospital in N’Djamena, Chad. The tibia is that of a Chadian soldier who suffered a gunshot wound to the leg, which caused the bone to fracture. Doctors performed an external fixation procedure as a team of U.S. military medical professionals observed. The U.S. team came to Chad to participate in Medical Readiness and Training Exercise 15-3 known as MEDRETE 15-3. The exercise is a joint effort between the Chadian government, U.S. Army Africa, the Army Reserve Medical Command and the 7th Civil Support Command. MEDRETE 15-3 serves as an opportunity for U.S. and Chadian forces to hone and strengthen their life saving skills as well as reinforce the partnership between both countries. (U.S. Army Africa photo by Staff Sgt. Andrea Merritt)
b>To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil
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Both Tibia and Fibula just below the knee. 3 months in this cast, which went all the way to the hip. Weighed about 5kg of solid plaster. Also meant I had a significant leg length difference, I have about 3cm anyway but this monstrosity took it nearer 5 inches. Could only pivot on it, even with a walking frame, I couldn't move around.
Grasshoppers are insects of the order Orthoptera, suborder Caelifera. They are sometimes referred to as short-horned grasshoppers to distinguish them from the katydids (bush crickets) which have much longer antennae. They are typically ground-dwelling insects with powerful hind legs which enable them to escape from threats by leaping vigorously. They are hemimetabolous insects (do not undergo complete metamorphosis) which hatch from an egg into a nymph or "hopper" which undergoes five moults, becoming more similar to the adult insect at each developmental stage. At high population densities and under certain environmental conditions, some grasshopper species can change colour and behaviour and form swarms. Under these circumstances they are known as locusts.
Grasshoppers are plant-eaters, sometimes becoming serious pests of cereals, vegetables and pasture, especially when they swarm in their millions as locusts and destroy crops over wide areas. They protect themselves from predators by camouflage; when detected, many species attempt to startle the predator with a brilliantly-coloured wing-flash while jumping and (if adult) launching themselves into the air, usually flying for only a short distance. Other species such as the rainbow grasshopper have warning coloration which deters predators. Grasshoppers are affected by parasites and various diseases, and many predatory creatures feed on both nymphs and adults. The eggs are the subject of attack by parasitoids and predators.
Grasshoppers have had a long relationship with humans. Swarms of locusts have had dramatic effects that have changed the course of history, and even in smaller numbers grasshoppers can be serious pests. They are eaten as food and also feature in art, symbolism and literature.
CHARACTERISTICS
Grasshoppers have the typical insect body plan of head, thorax and abdomen. The head is held vertically, at an angle to the body with the mouth at the bottom. It bears a large pair of compound eyes which give all-round vision, three simple eyes which can detect light and dark and a pair of thread-like antennae which are sensitive to touch and smell. The downward-directed mouthparts are modified for chewing and there are two sensory palps in front of the jaws.
The thorax and abdomen are segmented and have a rigid cuticle made up of overlapping plates composed of chitin. The three fused thoracic segments bear three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings. The forewings, known as tegmina, are narrow and leathery while the hind wings are large and membranous, the veins providing strength. The legs are terminated by claws for gripping. The hind leg is particularly powerful; the femur is robust and has several ridges where different surfaces join and the inner ridges bear stridulatory pegs in some species. The posterior edge of the tibia bears a double row of spines and there are a pair of articulated spurs near its lower end. The interior of the thorax houses the muscles that control the limbs.
The abdomen has eleven segments, the first of which is fused to the thorax and contains the auditory organ and tympanum. Segments two to eight are ring-shaped and joined by flexible membranes. Segments nine to eleven are reduced; segment nine bears a pair of cerci and segments ten and eleven house the reproductive organs. Female grasshoppers are normally larger than males, with short ovipositors. The name "Caelifera" comes from the Latin and means chisel-bearing, referring to the sharp ovipositor.
Those species that make easily heard noises usually do so by rubbing a row of pegs on the hind femurs against the edges of the forewings (stridulation). These sounds are produced mainly by males to attract females, though in some species the females also stridulate.
Grasshoppers are easily confused with the other sub-order of Orthoptera, Ensifera (crickets), but differ in many aspects, such as the number of segments in their antennae and structure of the ovipositor, as well as the location of the tympana and modes of sound production. Ensiferans have antennae that can be much longer than the body and have at least 20–24 segments, while caeliferans have fewer segments in their shorter, stouter antennae.
PHYLOGENY AND EVOLUTION
The phylogeny of the Caelifera based on mitochondrial RNA of 32 taxa in six out of seven superfamilies is shown as a cladogram. The Ensifera, Caelifera and all the superfamilies of grasshoppers except Pamphagoidea appear to be monophyletic.In evolutionary terms, the split between the Caelifera and the Ensifera is no more recent than the Permo-Triassic boundary; the earliest insects that are certainly Caeliferans are in the extinct families Locustopseidae and Locustavidae from the early Triassic. The group diversified during the Triassic and have remained important plant-eaters from that time to now. The first modern families such as the Eumastacidae, Tetrigidae and Tridactylidae appeared in the Cretaceous, though some insects that might belong to the last two of these groups are found in the early Jurassic. Morphological classification is difficult because many taxa have converged towards a common habitat type; recent taxonomists have concentrated on the internal genitalia, especially those of the male. This information is not available from fossil specimens, and the palaentological taxonomy is founded principally on the venation of the hindwings.
DIVERSITY AND RANGE
The Caelifera includes some 2,400 valid genera and about 11,000 species. Many undescribed species probably exist, especially in tropical wet forests. The Caelifera have a predominantly tropical distribution with fewer species known from temperate zones, but most of the superfamilies have representatives worldwide. They are almost exclusively herbivorous and are probably the oldest living group of chewing herbivorous insects.
BIOLOGY
DIET AND DIGESTION
Most grasshoppers are polyphagous, eating vegetation from multiple plant sources, but some are omnivorous and also eat animal tissue and animal faeces. In general their preference is for grasses, including many cereals grown as crops. The mandibles chew the food slightly and salivary glands in the buccal cavity chemically begin to digest the carbohydrates present in it. The food is then passed via the oesophagus to the crop where it is stored temporarily and chemical digestion continues. Next it moves to the gizzard which has muscular walls and tooth-like plates which grind the food. From here, food enters the stomach, where six hepatic caeca add further enzymes and digestion is completed. At the junction between mid and hind-gut, several fine tubes known as malpighian tubules add the excretory products (uric acid, urea and amino acids) to the contents of the gut. Absorption of nutrients takes place in the ileum and any undigested residue is passed on to the colon. Here water is absorbed and the residue becomes solid. After storage in the rectum, the faeces are expelled as small dry pellets.
SENSORY ORGANS
Grasshoppers have a typical insect nervous system,[11] and have an extensive set of external sense organs. On the side of the head are a pair of large compound eyes which give a broad field of vision and can detect movement, shape, colour and distance. There are also three simple eyes (ocelli) on the forehead which can detect light intensity, a pair of antennae containing olfactory (smell) and touch receptors, and mouthparts containing gustatory (taste) receptors. At the front end of the abdomen there is a pair of tympanal organs for sound reception. There are numerous fine hairs covering the whole body that act as mechanoreceptors (touch and wind sensors), and these are most dense on the antennae, the palps (part of the mouth), and on the cerci at the tip of the abdomen. There are special receptors (campaniform sensillae) embedded in the cuticle of the legs that sense pressure and cuticle distortion. There are internal "chordotonal" sense organs specialized to detect position and movement about the joints of the exoskeleton. The receptors convey information to the central nervous system through sensory neurons, and most of these have their cell bodies located in the periphery near the receptor site itself.
CIRCULATION AND RESPIRATION
Like other insects, grasshoppers have an open circulatory system and their body cavities are filled with haemolymph. A heart-like structure pumps the fluid to the head from where it percolates past the tissues and organs on its way back to the abdomen. It circulates nutrients throughout the body and carries metabolic wastes to be excreted into the gut. The haemolymph and the circulatory system are not involved in gaseous exchange. Respiration is performed using tracheae, air-filled tubes, which open at the surfaces of the thorax and abdomen through pairs of valved spiracles. Larger insects may need to actively ventilate their bodies by opening some spiracles while others remain closed, using abdominal muscles to expand and contract the body and pump air through the system.
JUMPING
A large grasshopper such as a locust can jump about a metre (twenty body lengths) without using its wings; the acceleration peaks at about 20 g. Grasshoppers jump by extending their large back legs and pushing against the substrate (the ground, a twig, a blade of grass or whatever else they are standing on); the reaction force propels them into the air. They jump for several reasons; to escape from a predator, to launch themselves for flight, or simply to move from place to place. For the escape jump in particular there is strong selective pressure to maximize take-off velocity, since this determines the range. This means that the legs must thrust against the ground with both high force and a high velocity of movement. However, a fundamental property of muscle is that it cannot contract with both high force and high velocity, which seems like a problem. Grasshoppers overcome this apparent contradiction by using a catapult mechanism to amplify the mechanical power produced by their muscles.
The jump is a three-stage process. First, the grasshopper fully flexes the lower part of the leg (tibia) against the upper part (femur) by activating the flexor tibiae muscle (the back legs of the immature grasshopper in the top photograph are in this preparatory position). Second, there is a period of co-contraction in which force builds up in the large, pennate extensor tibiae muscle, but the tibia is kept flexed by the simultaneous contraction of the flexor tibiae muscle. The extensor muscle is much stronger than the flexor muscle, but the latter is aided by specializations in the joint that give it a large effective mechanical advantage over the former when the tibia is fully flexed. Co-contraction can last for up to half a second, and during this period the extensor muscle shortens and stores elastic strain energy by distorting stiff cuticular structures in the leg. The extensor muscle contraction is quite slow (almost isometric), which allows it to develop high force (up to 14 N in the desert locust), but because it is slow only low power is needed. The third stage of the jump is the trigger relaxation of the flexor muscle, which releases the tibia from the flexed position. The subsequent rapid tibial extension is driven mainly by the relaxation of the elastic structures, rather than by further shortening of the extensor muscle. In this way the stiff cuticle acts like the elastic of a catapult, or the bow of a bow-and-arrow. Energy is put into the store at low power by slow but strong muscle contraction, and retrieved from the store at high power by rapid relaxation of the mechanical elastic structures.
LIFECYCLE AND REPRODUCTION
Grasshoppers lay their eggs in pods in the ground near food plants, generally in the summer. The eggs in the pod are glued together with a froth in some species. After a few weeks of development, the eggs of most species go into diapause, and pass the winter in this state; in a few species the eggs hatch in the same summer they were laid. Diapause is broken by a sufficiently low ground temperature; development resumes as soon as the ground warms above a threshold temperature. The embryos in a pod generally all hatch out within a few minutes of each other. They soon shed their membranes and their exoskeletons harden. These first instar nymphs can then jump away from predators.
Grasshoppers have incomplete metamorphosis: they repeatedly moult (undergo ecdysis), becoming larger and more like an adult, with for instance larger wing-buds, in each instar. The number of instars varies between species. At the final moult, the wings are inflated and become fully functional. The migratory grasshopper, Melanoplus sanguinipes, spends about 25–30 days as a nymph depending on sex and temperature, and about 51 days as an adult.
Males stridulate, rapidly rasping the hind femur against the forewing to create a churring sound, to attract mates. Females select suitable egg-laying sites, such as bare soil or near the roots of food plants according to species. Males often gather around an ovipositing female; in some species she is mated as soon as she takes her ovipositor out of the ground. After laying the eggs, the female covers the hole with soil and litter.
PREDATORS, PARASITES AND PATHOGENS
Grasshoppers have a wide range of predators at different stages of their life-cycle. Eggs are eaten by bee-flies, ground beetles and blister beetles. Hoppers and adults are taken by predators including other insects such as ants, robber flies and sphecid wasps; spiders; many birds; and small mammals.
Parasitoids include blowflies, fleshflies, and tachinid flies. External parasites include mites. It has been found that female grasshoppers parasitised by mites produce fewer eggs and thus have fewer offspring. This is probably because the individuals concerned allocate resources in response to the parasitism which are then not available for reproduction.
Spinochordodes tellinii and Paragordius tricuspidatus are parasitic worms that infect grasshoppers and alter the behaviour of their hosts. The grasshopper is persuaded to leap into a nearby body of water where it drowns, thus enabling the parasite to continue with the next stage of its life cycle which takes place in water. The grasshopper nematode (Mermis nigrescens) is a long slender worm that infests grasshoppers, living in the insect's hemocoel. Adult worms lay eggs on plants and the host gets infected when it eats the foliage.Grasshoppers are affected by diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. The bacteria Serratia marcescens and Pseudomonas aeruginosa have both been implicated in causing disease in grasshoppers, as has the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana. This widespread fungus has been used to control various pest insects around the world, but although it infects grasshoppers, basking in the sun has the result of raising the insect's temperature above a threshold tolerated by the fungus, and the infection is not lethal. The fungal pathogen Entomophaga grylli is able to influence the behaviour of its grasshopper host, causing it to climb to the top of a plant and cling to the stem as it dies. This ensures wide dispersal of the fungal spores liberated from the corpse.The fungal pathogen Metarhizium acridum is found in Africa, Australia and Brazil where it has caused epizootics in grasshoppers. It is being investigated for possible use as a microbial insecticide for locust control. The microsporidian fungus Nosema locustae, once considered to be a protozoan, can be lethal to grasshoppers. It has to be consumed by mouth and is the basis for a bait-based commercial microbial pesticide. Various other microsporidians and protozoans are found in the gut.
ANTI-PREDATOR DEFENCES
Grasshoppers exemplify a range of anti-predator adaptations, enabling them to avoid detection, to escape if detected, and in some cases to avoid being eaten if captured. Grasshoppers are often camouflaged to avoid detection by predators that hunt by sight. Their colouration usually resembles the background, whether green for leafy vegetation, sandy for open areas or grey for rocks. Some species can change their colouration to suit their surroundings.
Several species such as the hooded leaf grasshopper Phyllochoreia ramakrishnai (Eumastacoidea) are detailed mimics of leaves. Grasshoppers often have deimatic patterns on their wings, giving a sudden flash of bright colours that may startle predators long enough to give time to escape in a combination of jump and flight.
Some species are genuinely aposematic, having both bright warning coloration and sufficient toxicity to dissuade predators. Dictyophorus productus (Pyrgomorphidae) is a "heavy, bloated, sluggish insect" that makes no attempt to hide; it has a bright red abdomen. A Cercopithecus monkey that ate other grasshoppers refused to eat the species. Another species, the rainbow or painted grasshopper of Arizona, Dactylotum bicolor (Acridoidea), has been shown by experiment with a natural predator, the little striped whiptail lizard, to be aposematic.
RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANS
IN ART
Grasshoppers are occasionally depicted in artworks, such as the Dutch Golden Age painter Balthasar van der Ast's still life oil painting, Flowers in a Vase with Shells and Insects, c. 1630, now in the National Gallery, London, though the insect may be a bush-cricket.
Another orthopteran is found in Rachel Ruysch's still life Flowers in a Vase, c. 1685. The seemingly static scene is animated by a "grasshopper on the table that looks about ready to spring", according to the gallery curator Betsy Wieseman, with other invertebrates including a spider, an ant, and two caterpillars.
Symbolism
Grasshoppers are sometimes used as symbols, as in Sir Thomas Gresham's gilded grasshopper in Lombard Street, London, dating from 1563;[a] the building was for a while the headquarters of the Guardian Royal Exchange, but the company declined to use the symbol for fear of confusion with the locust.
When grasshoppers appear in dreams, these have been interpreted as symbols of "Freedom, independence, spiritual enlightenment, inability to settle down or commit to decision". Locusts are taken literally to mean devastation of crops in the case of farmers; figuratively as "wicked men and women" for non-farmers; and "Extravagance, misfortune, & ephemeral happiness" by "gypsies".
AS FOOD
In some countries, grasshoppers are used as food. In southern Mexico, grasshoppers, known as chapulines, are eaten in a variety of dishes, such as in tortillas with chilli sauce. Grasshoppers are served on skewers in some Chinese food markets, like the Donghuamen Night Market. Fried grasshoppers (walang goreng) are eaten in the Gunung Kidul area of Yogjakarta, Java in Indonesia. In the Arab world, grasshoppers are boiled, salted, and sun-dried, and eaten as snacks. In Native America, the Ohlone people burned grassland to herd grasshoppers into pits where they could be collected as food.
It is recorded in the Bible that John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey (Greek: ἀκρίδες καὶ μέλι ἄγριον, akrides kai meli agrion) while living in the wilderness; attempts have been made to explain the locusts as suitably ascetic vegetarian food such as carob beans, but the plain meaning of ἀκρίδες is the insects.
AS PESTS
Grasshoppers eat large quantities of foliage both as adults and during their development, and can be serious pests of arid land and prairies. Pasture, grain, forage, vegetable and other crops can be affected. Grasshoppers often bask in the sun, and thrive in warm sunny conditions, so drought stimulates an increase in grasshopper populations. A single season of drought is not normally sufficient to stimulate a massive population increase, but several successive dry seasons can do so, especially if the intervening winters are mild so that large numbers of nymphs survive. Although sunny weather stimulates growth, there needs to be an adequate food supply for the increasing grasshopper population. This means that although precipitation is needed to stimulate plant growth, prolonged periods of cloudy weather will slow nymphal development.
Grasshoppers can best be prevented from becoming pests by manipulating their environment. Shade provided by trees will discourage them and they may be prevented from moving onto developing crops by removing coarse vegetation from fallow land and field margins and discouraging luxurious growth beside ditches and on roadside verges. With increasing numbers of grasshoppers, predator numbers may increase, but this seldom happens sufficiently rapidly to have much effect on populations. Biological control is being investigated but with little success. On a small scale, neem products can be effective as a feeding deterrent and as a disruptor of nymphal development. Insecticides can be used, but adult grasshoppers are difficult to kill, and as they move into fields from surrounding rank growth, crops may soon become reinfested.
Grasshoppers, like the Chinese rice grasshopper, are a pest in rice paddies. Ploughing exposes the eggs on the surface of the field, to be destroyed by sunshine or eaten by natural enemies. Some eggs may be buried too deeply in the soil for hatching to take place.
LOCUSTS
Locusts are the swarming phase of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae. It has been shown that swarming behaviour is a response to overcrowding. Increased tactile stimulation of the hind legs causes an increase in levels of serotonin. This causes the grasshopper to change colour, feed more and breed faster. The transformation of a solitary individual into a swarming one is induced by several contacts per minute over a short period.
Following this transformation, under suitable conditions dense nomadic bands of flightless nymphs can occur, producing pheromones which attract them to each other. With several generations in a year, the locust population can build up from localised groups into vast accumulations of flying insects known as plagues, devouring all the vegetation they encounter. The largest recorded locust swarm was one of the now-extinct Rocky Mountain locust in 1875, which was 2,900 km long and 180 km wide.
An adult desert locust can eat about 2 g each day so the billions of insects in a large swarm can be very destructive, stripping all the foliage from plants in an affected area and also consuming stems, flowers, fruits, seeds and bark. Locust plagues can have devastating effects on human populations, causing famines and population upheavals. They are mentioned in both the Koran and the Bible and have been held responsible for cholera epidemics, resulting from the corpses of locusts drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and decomposing on beaches.
The FAO and other organisations monitor locust activity around the world. Timely application of pesticides can prevent nomadic bands of hoppers joining together and proliferating before dense swarms of adults are built up. Besides conventional control using contact insecticides, biological pest control using the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium acridum which specifically infects grasshoppers has been used with some success
IN LITERATURE
The Egyptian word for locust or grasshopper was written snḥm in the consonantal hieroglyphic writing system. The pharaoh Ramesses II compared the armies of the Hittites to locusts: "They covered the mountains and valleys and were like locusts in their multitude."
One of Aesop's Fables, later retold by La Fontaine, is the tale of The Ant and the Grasshopper. The ant works hard all summer, while the grasshopper plays. In winter, the ant is ready but the grasshopper starves. Somerset
Maugham's short story "The Ant and the Grasshopper" explores the fable's symbolism via complex framing. The Canadian philosopher Bernard Suits retells the story with the grasshopper as "the exemplification of the life most worth living." Other human weaknesses besides improvidence have become identified with the grasshopper's behaviour. So an unfaithful woman (hopping from man to man) is "a grasshopper" in "Poprygunya", an 1892 short story by Anton Chekhov, and in Jerry Paris's 1969 film The Grasshopper.
The 1957 film Beginning of the End portrayed giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago. In the 1998 film A Bug's Life, the heroes are the members of an ant colony, and the lead villain and his henchmen are grasshoppers.
IN AVIATION
The name "Grasshopper" was used for light aircraft such as the Aeronca L-3 and Piper L-4 used for reconnaissance and other support duties in World War II.
WIKIPEDIA
(It's a tree. Covered in lights. At the Lincoln Park Zoo.)
Nine months ago, on March 18th, I tore my left anterior cruciate ligament while skiing. I didn't even know it happened, just that I twisted my knee, felt a pop, and while skiing down, my knee sometimes slipped laterally when I pushed off of it. Seventeen days later, I had surgery. They had numbed my entire left leg by injecting lidocaine near my femoral and sciatic nerves. The entire limb was limp and flaccid, a bulky slab of flesh. In three hours, my surgeon, JML3, sliced my knee open, extracted the middle third of my patellar tendon and bone as a graft, drilled through my tibia and femur, threaded the graft through, screwed some plastic in there…Twenty hours later, my leg awoke from its sedated, zombie state. The subsequent journey was nothing I had planned, anticipated nor ever conceived--a journey of mental, intellectual, emotional, physical anguish, confusion, amusement and curiosity. Some of it I documented and described previously. Gross feelings, revelations on knee surgery, molecular basis of healing, the unknowns, the inevitable morbidity, why's, how's, what to do about it all took residence in my brain. I have since endeavored to figure all these things out. I learned you cannot find anything meaningful by querying "gimp" or "gimpy" in the NCBI PubMed literature search.
Thus, a list of ten memorable knee things I read:
1. Mechanisms of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury in World Cup Alpine Skiing
See, I'm not crazy. There's a technical term describing how I tore my ACL. It's called the "slip-catch mechanism." Yeah, that's right, I'm a World Cup alpine skier. Not.
2. The "Ligamentization" Process in Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction
Published two weeks after my surgery, this literature review describes the healing process of the ACL graft as observed in numerous animal models and biopsied samples from humans. I read it and freaked out when I came upon the part where they described the graft becoming necrotic about four weeks post-surgery. Necrosis = cell death, in an unnatural, destructive manner. The thing in my knee was dying. Rotting. Zombifying. Gag.
A 26-year old man, 18-months post-ACL surgery, died. They took his knee, cut it apart and looked at it. It was mostly healed and the graft had integrated in such a way that looked normal. The bone plugs of the graft were indeed necrotic (acellular) at the core, but the periphery had viable cells and had fused to the femoral and tibial tunnels. The tendonous portion of the graft, also necrotic at the core, had otherwise revascularized and was re-colonized by fibroblasts. Until this study, observations of the stages of healing and graft incorporation were based on animal studies; healing in humans were based on superficial biopsies.
4. Potential of Skin Fibroblasts for Application to Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tissue Engineering
They synthesized an ACL graft in vitro and put it into a goat! Two bone scaffolds from a pig, a string between the two bone plugs, some goat ACL fibroblasts, artificial growth media, exogenous collagen, one week in an incubator, and voila! De novo synthesis of a graft. After being put into a goat, the graft became vascularized and innervated and colonized by cells. It got remodeled in the goat's knees, as would the usual other grafts. But it was weak, only 36% of the strength of the native ACL after 13 months. Nevertheless, impressive!
Forty days post-surgery, I finally hit the wall and became impatiently frustrated by the gross feelings in my knee and adjacent part of my lower leg. It made it very hard to focus on the tasks at hand. Then, I realized my skin, lateral and inferior to my scar/incision site was numb to both touch and temperature. Epidermal insensitivity. This was the first article I found that helped me make sense of this. Damage to the dermatome--in particular, the infrapatellar nerve, a branch of the saphenous nerve, which runs down the inside of your leg. This article also made me aware of the long-term post-surgical knee morbidity that I would come to experience. Not everything would be honky-dory after all. At the time, I only cared about the feeling in my skin, since I could quantify it. They reported the numbness would persist, probably forever. I followed the changes weekly. I still exhibit 22.7 square centimeters of numbness to touch.
On my second day of physical therapy, 18 days post-surgery, I rode on a stationary bicycle. At the time, I was still wearing my brace locked in full extension. I only ever took the brace off to shower and do my physical therapy exercises and had yet to bear weight on my left leg without the brace (that's right, I had to sleep with the thing on--it sucked). The muscles were functionally retarded and unable to coordinate my weight when my knee was bent. I recall asking my physical therapist, "How do I get on the bike with only one leg?" Looking unconcerned, she said, "You'll figure it out." Man, tough crowd. I hopped over and managed to mount the thing. Afterwards, when it was time to get off, I didn't even bother asking how I should best do this, and just pushed off the seat and hopped down onto my right leg. At that moment, my physical therapist, in a serious tone, said, "Careful! You don't want to tear your other ACL." Me, horrified, baffled, whimpered, "What?! That can happen?" Yeah, that can happen. I found this paper and it was ghastly. Of 33 female athletes that had undergone ACL reconstruction, 10 of them tore their ACL a second time. 76% of the time, it happened in the other leg! I showed this paper to my physical therapist and she said to me, "You shouldn't be reading this type of material. It's best to focus on recovery and prevention." I justified to myself that this fits under prevention. PREDICTORS of secondary tears, hence, things I need to work on.
7. Gluteus Medius: Applied Anatomy, Dysfunction, Assessment, and Progressive Strengthening
Physical therapy? What is that? I was walking fine before surgery, why can't I do it after? Two months post-surgery and the pieces were still not yet falling into place in my head, and many things I was experiencing I still had not found a decent explanation for. I just didn't get it. In addition, I wanted to know why I was doing bizarre exercises in physical therapy. My physical therapist, who treated me for four months from the time after surgery, humored my curiosity and inquiries. She gave me this review. It became a gateway article to my queries into understanding the biomechanics of one's lower extremities, how strengthening the gluteal muscles subsequently aid to stabilize your knees, ankles, everything. I followed the key words that led to my realization that rupturing of the ACL results in loss of neuromuscular signaling of the knee to brain about joint position, gait abnormalities, increased internal rotation of the tibia, confused and weakened the quadriceps and hamstrings…consequences that at this time I had assumed only to affect my balance and coordination.
8. ACL Surgery: How to Get It Right the First Time and What to Do If It Fails
This is a really informative textbook. It has almost everything you need to know about anatomy, diagnosis, biological mechanisms that lead to the failure of the graft to heal itself, types of grafts, fixation devices, pros/cons and technical specifications of these hardware, the technicalities and variations of the surgery (it's crazy complex!), a generalized gist of the molecular healing process, plus what to expect post-surgery in terms of rehabilitation and muscle weakness and inflammation and answers to many of those "why" questions I had (that I had eventually found in circuitous searches through the scientific literature), minus the experimental details. You would be surprised how most mechanical graft failures are attributed to technical errs of the surgery (i.e. graft installed at a bad angle, poor screw fixation, missed/improper diagnoses, etc).
It would have been nice to read this before surgery, though I might have been grossed out by the gory surgical photos of splayed open knees. I went into the surgery entirely naive about what to expect afterward and why. The extent of my knowledge was "Brace locked in full extension for four weeks, in brace unlocked to flex to 90 degrees until six weeks, walking unfettered afterwards, running at 3-4 months, cutting/pivoting at 5 months, back to sports at 6 months. Increased rate of osteoarthritis. Some discomfort at the scar when kneeling." Sounded easy--perhaps this was for the best?
9. Knee Function and Prevalence of Knee Osteoarthritis After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction
The first scientific article I came upon of many on this topic. Ultimately (as gleaned from other papers), osteoarthritis (OA) appears to be a direct consequence of the ACL rupture. The twisting of the knee, tearing other things, and banging of the bones (bone and cartilage bruising) may contribute, but simply snipping (transection of) the ligament alone is sufficient to immediately induce the cellular signals that precipitate the joint and cartilage degeneration. Severing of the ligament physically destroys neuromuscular transmission between the ligament to adjacent muscles and the brain. An intra-articular blood vessel is usually ruptured, resulting in joint effusion, inhibition of quadricep function, and unfavorable changes to the articular environment: plasmin dismantling of the fibrin clot that forms as a healing scaffold on the torn ligament; upregulation of matrix metalloproteases that destroy the cartilage and matrix proteins in the joint that serve as lubrication; inflammatory cytokine signaling that affect chondrocyte (the cartilage producing cells) metabolism and viability; reduction of proteoglycan IV (aka lubricin), a "lubricating" joint matrix protein that buffers the cartilage and stimulates chondrocyte activity. The altered neuromuscular signaling also leads to muscular weakness, gait changes, force loading on different parts of the cartilage in the joint, increased friction and wearing of the cartilage, factors of which are not entirely restored by surgery or rehabilitation… Regardless of reconstruction, ACL tears have been reported to lead to osteoarthritis in 20-80% of the population 10-12 years post-injury, 90% OA by 15 years, 45% total knee arthroplasty (replacement) by 35 years. A pretty grim and sobering outlook.
I am not a fan of having a statistically sealed fate and I am thus holding out a small sliver of hope that I can be the anomaly that defies these near-inevitable odds.
10. Phys Ed: Can Running Actually Help Your Knees? (New York Times Article)
There's a lot of interesting reading in the Wellness blog section of the NYTimes. Anyway, there's no defined protocol on how to avoid OA, nor what differentiates those 10% of people that don't get it in 15 years from the 90% that do. However, numerous correlative studies have found that physical activity keeps the joints lubed up and healthier. They advocate low-impact activities, but without consistent and definitive empirical justification. This article, and many others, discuss observations on how in runners, chondrocytes in the knees continually produce cartilage and maintain cartilage volume; this is in contrast to sedentary folks, where cartilage thinning is observed. The consequences are not clearly defined for previously injured knees, but assuming aberrant cartilage loading due to neuromuscular imbalances, repetitive impact would accelerate joint degeneration. On the other hand, exercise increases and maintains muscular strength, and weight-bearing exercises have, in some cases, been observed to increase cartilage surface area and/or thickness.... I'm going to figure out an experiment to do that involves running. It will span a decade. We will see what happens to me. At worst, I will get OA and require a knee replacement, which at this rate, will occur with a 45% likelihood.
Another reason to run? "Runner's high" is actually from increased production of endocannabinoids, not endorphins. Endocannabinoids are fat-soluble signaling molecules, the same class of molecules acquired from use of marijuana. The lipid quality of these molecules allow them to readily cross the membranous blood-brain barrier and stimulate the brain to feel "high." Endorphins are proteinaceous, and thus do not readily diffuse through lipid membranes. Anyway, so running may be beneficial, if not for my left knee, then for my brain. I can feel it in my vastus medialis.