Winner of the Actual ESA Limerick Contest

We had a lot of fun making naughty limericks up at the Bug Blog, but I thought people might be interested in the actual winner of the REAL Entomological Society of America (Not-At-All-Ribald-Please-Keep-It-Clean) Limerick contest. The winning limerick was not only clever, it illustrates an interesting relationship between two firefly species.

The Official ESA Winner:

Au Naturel Selection: Photinus meets Photuris

A firefly who was benighted
saw a light and became so excited–
he rushed to his fate
while selecting a mate:
lost his head, lost his heart, was de-lighted.

~Martha Lutz

Love it!

In case you aren’t familiar with the two genera of fireflies referenced in the limerick, their clever and deadly system of sexual mimicry was first described by Thomas Eisner.  The flashes that attract males from the genus Photinus could be from female Photinus fireflies that want a hookup. But they could also be from the “Femmes Fatales” of the genus Photuris. They don’t want to have sex–they want to have a snack.

Photinus males aren’t just flashy dudes–they contain defensive chemicals in their blood. These chemicals repel predators like spiders. The Photuris females steal these chemicals from the males…by eating them.  As you can see in the photos above, there isn’t much left when she’s done. Just some wings, like an empty candy bar wrapper.

The graph on the left is from tests of 29 females/group exposed to predator spiders–one group of females that had eaten Photinus males (“Fed”), and another group of females that haven’t had the special love bite (“Unfed”).  Just eating two males is enough to completely protect the Photuris females from spider predators!

So pity the Photinus male; when out cruising for love, he must choose very, very carefully who he flashes.

You can read Eisner’s original paper here.  I’m tempted to call it a “seminal” work.

Eisner T, Goetz MA, Hill DE, Smedley SR, & Meinwald J (1997). Firefly “femmes fatales” acquire defensive steroids (lucibufagins) from their firefly prey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 94 (18), 9723-8 PMID: 9275191

Argh.

Well, job continues to kick my butt, so it looks like I’ll be offline for another couple of weeks. Here’s another pretty photo to brighten up the place.  This is a wonderful bee-mimic robberfly  (Asilidae) from deadmike.

You might remember them  from the  Not-A-Bee series from earlier this year.

Insect leaf mimics

Another busy day, so how about some more pretty photos?
A collection of animal camouflage.

Can you spot the mimic?

An amazing collection of insect crypsis, including some videos. Enjoy!

Not A Bee FAIL #2

Ugh. Almost half of the “bees” in this honeybee news story slideshow are, in fact, flies. I’m really hoping that these are photos contributed by the public, and not part of the original article.

Sigh.

Related posts:

• Things that aren’t bees #3
• Things that aren’t bees #2
• Things that aren’t bees #1

Out Sick

Ugh. Sinus Infection. Antibiotics making me sicker.

How about another cute photo of a bee fly to tide you over until I am upright again? (Diptera: Bombyliidae, Bombylius major )

Thanks Maxi Millipede for the photo.

Not A Bee: FAIL

See, this is why knowing your bees from bee mimics is important–

You don’t want to have a snarky entomologist like me point out that your website about bees is prominently featuring….a syrphid FLY.

Not a Bee.

LOL!

Related posts:

• The Bee Movie, McDonalds, Conservation International, and greenwashing

Things that aren’t bees (#3)

Here’s one of my favorite bee mimics–the bee fly, Family Bombyliidae. 

These little balls of fuzz are amazing flyers, able to hover at will.  They typically don’t land on a flower while feeding, but hang in mid-air, having a snack.  This may protect them from being snatched by waiting predators.

The other odd feature of this group is the long proboscis they use to lap up nectar.  It sticks out in front in a way that bee tongues…well, don’t.  It makes them easy to spot in a flower patch.

This group also has the two characteristics we discussed before as identifying flies, not bees: only 2 wings, and short antennae with a bristle.

Bee flies have a dark side to all that fluff: their larvae are usually parasitoids of bees and wasps. Parasitoids are insects that live inside another living host, eating it from the inside out, rather like in the movie Alien.  As Ripley found out, having a parasitoid means you will come to a spectacularly bad end.  It’s not something the host insect survives.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this Not-A-Bee post.  Thanks so much SimonL for the use of your fly!

Related posts:

• Things that aren’t bees #2
• Things that aren’t bees #1

Things that aren’t bees (#2)

Yesterday, I discussed a common group of flies that mimic bees and wasps. Here’s a more challenging mimic. This one is also a fly, but a pretty convincing fake bumble bee!

In fact, there is a whole genera of flies known as bee-like robber flies.  They typically are described as having a “beard” on their face.  Personally, I’d say it was more of a Vandyke goatee–but why quibble.

Robber flies are predatory flies, and can often be seen on a perch, looking for their next victim.   If you see something that looks like a bee lounging about on a leaf, it’s likely to be a robber fly.

You can find some truly amazing photos of a bee-like robber fly and it’s prey at CirrusImage.

Thanks to Ben.Lease for this photo!

Things that aren’t bees (#1)

I get a lot of “what is that?!” questions, and I thought it would be fun to have a series of things that look like bees and wasps, but are not bees or wasps. There are thousands of mimics around, and some of them are pretty good copycats.  Here’s one of the most common mimics: A syrphid fly.

In this lovely photo, you can see two of the common signals that tell you it isn’t a bee or a wasp:

1. There are only two wings! Flies have only one pair of functional wings, unlike bees and wasps.  Bees and Wasps have 4 wings (2 pairs).

If you look closely under the right wing of this fly, you’ll see a little knob sticking out. It’s called a haltere, and a pair of halteres is all that’s left of the second pair of wings.

This is why Flies are in the Order Diptera–”two wings”.

2. The antennae are all wrong for a bee. Flies have antennae that look like a knob with a big hair sticking out of it–you can see that nicely here.  Regular bees–particularly honeybees–tend to have longer antennae that look like an arm with a bent elbow.  Wasp antennae are more variable, but they are much longer than this fly.

Over the next few months, I’ll put up more photos of things that aren’t bees, and tell you some other ways to know the buzzing insect next to you is a faker.

Myrmecomorphy (ant mimicry)

I just love Flickr. Today’s discovery: artour_a has posted a whole collection of photos of insects that mimic ants!

Artour’s page has a whole different range of insects (and spiders) that mimic ants, but I had to link to this one: a membracid ant mimic! And what a gorgeous photo!