adventures in china

Well, it’s almost the world’s largest moth, according to some #2, but that’s debatable. This is an atlas moth We caught it laying eggs on one of Jocelyn’s tadpole basins this morning. And I thought the lunar moths of Wisconsin were big…

Jocelyn has described tadpoles as marshmallows with tails. You know, they taste really good, and are not particularly good at swimming, big blobs with a little fin at the back, everything likes to eat them. Pretty much marshmallows with tails.

AWESOME.

No, I didn’t find this guy walking around in some forest. Not even on a path in the gardens. It was on a Chinese student’s shirt in the library! I pointed it out, but he was aware of this. The beetle is his pet. He brings it home every night and feeds it fruit in a cage, but during the day he puts it on his shirt and it just hangs out, crawling on him, never flying away, never biting, just enjoying itself.

Maybe I’m not that weird after all. I keep my pet bugs in plastic boxes.

Okay, I promise – the next post will be about something other than frogs or work… maybe…

My experiment has begun! This past week was spent collecting eggs, setting up buckets to raise tadpoles in, and finally, today, introducing tadpoles to the buckets. On a smaller scale it’s a breeze. I’ve raised dozens, even hundreds of tadpoles on my own in the basement. But now thousands?! This is a whole different game. Hours (days) of water changes, bleaching buckets, never ending prune fingers, and mud everywhere, on everything, regardless of how often I sweep or mop my bedroom floor and porch. This is how it should be.

Also, I got a new (borrowed) computer and Skype – username devin.edmonds. I’ll keep it open when I’m not in the field or at the lab, so feel free to say hi. I can only handle interacting with academics for so much of each day!

>> Giant metallic-winged bee <<

This is my new pet mantis. Help me name it (What was aunt Jane/Conner’s mantis called?)

The day my stuff got stolen, Jocelyn pointed out this mantis crawling next to her door. I ran back to my room to get a bag to collect it with, but by the time I had returned the mantis had flown three stories down to the ground below and couldn’t be found. Yesterday, I spotted this guy crawling up the second story of the dorms, perhaps trying to make it’s way back up to Jocelyn’s room?

Now it lives in a jar by my bed and I feed it bugs.