Marilyn Ortt: A Mentor and a Friend

This is a different type of post than I normally write, and one that is vastly more personal. I've been trying to write it for months, but it's been difficult. Please forgive me if I ramble a bit; I feel like I need to write it all.

There's a lot of talk out there about the importance of having a mentor, for any facet of life really. I most often hear about mentoring in the context of academics, especially in grad school, which is certainly important. During the past few months, however, I've spent a lot of time thinking about having a mentor in the more general sense, and who my mentors are. For now, I'll focus on one: Marilyn Ortt.

You may know that between my time as an undergraduate and graduate student, I spent a year working as an Americorps VISTA with the Friends of the Lower Muskingum River, a watershed conservation organization in my hometown of Marietta, Ohio. It wasn't an entomology job, but I had a blast and enjoyed my year. It was a good time to reflect on what it meant to give back to my community and work with a group that made the health of the river and the community around it its main focus. I met and worked with many wonderful people during this time, and worked closely with Marilyn, who was the president of FLMR.

I knew Marilyn before I started my job, having first met her during my freshman year at Marietta College. When I was a senior, she invited me to give a talk about the wheel bug (the focus of my capstone project) for the Marietta Natural History Society. By this time, I knew her better and knew that she was involved in many of the conservation projects in Marietta. She used to be a state botanist and had a strong interest in the natural world, and I had a shy admiration for her. While working with her as a VISTA, I quickly learned that this admiration was justified.

After I finished my VISTA term, I started my graduate work at the University of Arkansas, but kept in contact with Marilyn via email, updating her on what I was doing and inquiring about the goings-on in Marietta. We were both busy, so weeks would pass between our correspondences, but it was nice to touch base every so often.

In late May, I was busy preparing for an intensive sampling project on the outskirts of Fayetteville. I was also planning my trip back to Ohio, to take place in mid-June to collect millipedes. I was hoping to see friends while I was there, including former professors and Marilyn as well, since I hadn't seen her since December.

As I was returning home after spending a few hours in the field, however, I received a phone call from a friend. Marilyn had died earlier that evening.

Marilyn had been undergoing chemotherapy for a while, which I knew about, but she preferred to keep details of her health private. She didn't want others to worry about her, which was just part of her personality. She was extremely motivated and passionate, and didn't want concerns about her to distract from whatever work was going on.

Despite knowing that she hadn't been in the best health, the news was still a shock to me. I drove home, still digesting the news, but only made it half a mile before my eyes welled up with tears. Her death affected me more than I would have thought, and I found myself crying a few more times in the following days.

My friendship with Marilyn wasn't rooted in personal knowledge of each other's lives. I'm not sure she even knew the names of my parents, for example, but we never discussed things like that. Whenever we would talk, our conversations were about nature or the surrounding community. I think our friendship was based on our shared passion for the natural world, and Marilyn was an astounding encouragement to me in that respect. She was a botanist by training, which complemented my interests as an entomologist. She didn't know insects as well as she did plants, so she would always happily listen to me talk about whatever particular group I was interested in at the time. She had an insatiable curiosity for natural history, and she used her curiosity, passion, and motivation to accomplish great things during her life.

Her obituary lists some of these accomplishments, and illustrates how much of an asset she was to her community. I spent many hours at the natural areas she helped establish, especially the Beiser Field Station east of Marietta and the Kroger Wetlands. It was in these places that I cut my teeth on natural history, finding millipedes, identifying plants, and standing in awe of hundreds of flashing fireflies. Marilyn was too modest to take much credit for establishing these areas, and would surely try to downplay her role in developing my interest in natural history. But the truth is that much of her work trickled down into my development as a scientist, in ways I wouldn't recognize until after she was gone.

I think the mark of a good mentor is that they push you to want to be a better person. Marilyn had a subtle way of doing that for me. After working closely with her for a year, I found myself with a new sense of pride in my community. As a VISTA, I led trail and river clean ups, taught children and adults about the benefits of a clean river and environment, and learned much more about local history. I hadn't previously appreciated where I came from, but getting involved in my community with FLMR changed that. It gave me a new, strong motivation to apply my knowledge and skills in entomology to highlight the neat diversity of arthropods in southeast Ohio, which still informs my work today, in both Ohio and Arkansas.

My writing can't do justice to the impact Marilyn had on me, but it's important that I try. We often focus on the well-known celebrities of various disciplines and laud their work, which is certainly well-deserved. Often, however, it's the unsung heroes of our communities who have put in their time and hard work to do what they could to improve their communities that impact us more. The people living in southeast Ohio live in a better place because of Marilyn's hard work. Her name might not be known by many outside of Ohio, but that doesn't diminish her accomplishments.

I like to think of Marilyn when I run into difficult times. I never heard her complain, and she was always pursuing goals and juggling tasks, which usually led to her being late for our lunch meetings. Her passion was unlike anyone else's, and she tapped into it to accomplish great things.

One of my favorite memories with Marilyn was planting a chinquapin oak outside FLMR's office. She had bought a young one to plant near an older tree outside the office, in the hopes of getting it to develop acorns a few years down the line. She was delighted to have it planted, thinking of how large it might grow in the future. I'm not sure if she ever heard this phrase, but I'm sure she would agree: "The best time to plant a tree is yesterday. The second best time to plant a tree is today."

I'll end this post with the following paragraph I wrote on Facebook after I heard the news of Marilyn's death. It was hard to write, but turned into a nice post of people sharing their memories of Marilyn and how she affected their lives, all for the better. Marilyn was an exceptional mentor and an even better person, and the world would be a better place if there were more people like her:

Marilyn was a wonderful person, and undoubtedly one of the most driven that I've known. I had the privilege of working with her for a year during my VISTA service, and even before then, she was always happy to listen to what I was doing with my bug stuff. Despite her battle with cancer, she never stopped doing what she cared deeply about, which was making her community a better place to live. Whether it was finding funding for the recycling program, planting trees, or making opportunities to educate the public about the environment, she poured her entire being into her work. She was an inspiration, and will be dearly missed. Marietta won't be the same without her, and it's to everyone's detriment that she's gone. She did so much good work, and it's up to the rest of us to pick up her mantle. Her obituary sums it up best: "She strongly believed that you should leave this world in a better place for future generations and she did so." Rest in peace, Marilyn.

 Marilyn surveying some land in the watershed with FLMR's former watershed coordinator, Jesse Daubert

Ohio Collecting Day 1: Marietta

My first collecting day in Ohio took place near Marietta, on a trail system I've walked many times. It's where I learned to identify many spring wildflowers and hunted for morel mushrooms, so I already knew where to find areas with good millipede habitat. In particular, I was searching for an unknown millipede that was found there last fall.

I arrived a little after 2 PM on June 18th, and the weather was in the high 70s/low 80s. A nice perk of hunting for millipedes is that I'm in forests most of the time, so I was shaded from the heat and enjoyed quite nice temperatures. The forest composition was mostly maple and beech, with some oak, sweet gum, and other deciduous trees thrown in.

The first area I walked through was a bit dry, so I checked a moist crevice at the bottom of a maple tree and found my first species: Oxidus gracilis, the greenhouse millipede (above photo). Unfortunately, this is an introduced species from Asia, found throughout the United States. The individual in the lower right is an immature specimen, as evidenced by its lighter color.

I continued on, stomping through overgrown grasses and shrubs, searching for the unmaintained path I remembered being there last Spring. Visiting it in Summer was a very different experience.

Though my quarry was millipedes, I took some time to notice what else was around. This is one of my favorite flowers, blooming from Blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium. If you squint, you can even see one of my most hated plants in the background, Multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), a terrible invasive.

Also hanging around was Geina periscelidactylus, known as the Grape Plume Moth. The plume moths are an interesting family, and one which I don't know much about.

After some rooting through the leaf litter, I uncovered what I was looking for! The above photo is of Apheloria virginiensis corrugata, also known as the cherry millipede. The scale bar shows inches. If you look closely, you can see some condensation on the millipede, a side effect of living in its moist microhabitat. Most millipedes can't close their spiracles (the holes on the sides of their body they breathe through), so dehydration is a constant danger. It's why you don't find many millipedes in dry areas. You can also see some mites walking on its back, which like to hitch a ride.

Nearby, I found this millipede. It's the same species, but it has recently molted. They don't get their deep black color until they mature a bit.

The above two photos show another Xystodesmid millipede found in the leaf litter, and the unknown species I was looking for! It seems to be in the genus Nannaria, and both photos show a female, which are tan with peach highlights on the paranota and collum.

At this point, all the other millipedes I found were icing on the cake. Luckily, I love icing and found many more millipedes. But first I had to pass this:

I only fell through it twice. It was only my right foot, but still. I then found out the metal parts of the bridge were sturdier to walk on.

Once past the bridge, I found a number of millipedes in the genus Abacion. They're known as the crested millipedes, due to the series of longitudinal crests on their back. Ohio has three species, but they're not separable from photos. Abacion is probably the fastest millipede in Ohio, and is also quick to release its chemical defenses. They tend to make your hands smelly for a number of hours.

I stopped at a dead log and pulled it open, and another millipede greeted me.

The American millipede, Narceus americanus, Ohio's largest millipede. It can grow to about 5 inches long and has a long lifespan, up to 2 years. This one wasn't cooperating for photos and decided it would rather dig deeper into its log, where it munches on the dead wood and fungi within.

All in all, I collected seven species, which wasn't a bad haul. There are certainly more that I missed, but it was a good start to my collecting trip, and I had a nice hike. In my next post, I'll have photos from my second collecting day, which took place near Chillicothe.

Invasive Insects in Ohio: The Hemlock Wooly Adelgid

Globalization strikes again! The main invasive pests I've been hearing about in Ohio over the past few years have been the Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) and Asian Longhorn Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis), but I now have a new one to add to my list: the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae). The Hemlock Wooly Adelgid (HWA) is a true bug in the order Hemiptera and is sort of like an aphid. Adelgids suck plant juices out of conifers, and HWA prefers hemlock trees, specially the eastern and Carolina hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis and Tsuga caroliniana, respectively). This is a problem.

HWA was introduced into the US from Asia in the 1920s, first in the Pacific Northwest, and then in Virginia in the 1950s. That was the start of its foothold in the east, and it spread to other states from there, including Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It didn't reach Ohio until 2001, and has spread into about 27 counties since then.

Unfortunately, in 2012 it was detected in my home county, Washington County. It was found in Belpre and Marietta, probably due to natural spread from nearby areas--possibly from across the Ohio River: Wood County, West Virginia has reported HWA. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources held an informational meeting about the HWA yesterday in Marietta to talk about its biology, risk to hemlock trees, and what the state is doing to stop its spread, so I attended and took some notes. The next few paragraphs are a quick summary of the meeting.

Eastern Ohio is where most of our hemlocks (T. canadensis) grow. Eastern hemlock prefers rocky sandstone gorge type habitats and is very shade-tolerant (so think Hocking Hills region). It can often develop into pure stands where it grows, but is also planted as an edge tree in more urbanized areas. It can act as a foundation species for an ecosystem, supporting many bird species (nearly 100 have been identified as being associated with eastern  hemlock in some way) and it can also strongly regulate aquatic ecosystems by shading streams.

Ohio's forests don't have many conifers. Most of the forests consist of deciduous trees, but eastern hemlock is one of our common conifers, which means HWA poses a real threat to taking out a good-sized chunk of Ohio's conifer trees. HWA can cause tree mortality in 4-10 years, less if the tree is stressed by factors such as drought. HWA feeds on the tree's leaves and can be detected on a tree by the white, waxy residue that covers its body (hence the "wooly" adjective in its name). Essentially, it will look like cotton candy or spider webs on the tree.

HWA has a complex life cycle, and only the first instar (life development stage) is very mobile. There are two generations per year, and the winter generation can produce egg sacs with up to 300 eggs. The complex life cycle makes it difficult to control by introducing predators, but there has been some success on that front and beetle introduction is seen as a long-term solution. Another control option is the use of insecticides.

When it comes down to it, the state agencies involved in invasive species management need the help of the public to do their job. Tackling the HWA is no different. This includes keeping an eye on the trees and reporting the movement of wood products in counties with quarantines. Otherwise, HWA can spread under the radar. Whenever it's reported from a county, it's usually because someone noticed something strange on their trees and called it in. For example, an infested site in Marietta was found because a college student fell out of a tree and brought down some infested branches with him.

There's not nearly enough funding devoted to detection and eradication of invasive species, so we have to do the best we can with the resources we have. For more information on the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, check out the links below. And if you notice something on any hemlock trees that looks out of the ordinary, report it!

Ohio Division of Forestry Fact Page
Ohio Department of Agriculture Fact Page

What's out there? Compiling a biotic index.

Do you know the insect species that inhabit your backyard? What about a local park or nature preserve? How about your county? These are important questions to think about. If no one knows the animal diversity in their area, then why would they stop to think about protecting that diversity?  Some of the most interesting animals are very specialized and need certain habitats to thrive; without those habitats, they'll disappear. I think we can all agree that nature is important, and having a knowledge of your local species (of insects, mammals, birds, plants, fungi...) is empowering. You can see ecological connections and gain a new-found respect for your fellow organisms, just from being able to identify species and know what's around you.

 A Luna Moth (Actias luna) soon after emerging from the ground. Its wings aren't yet ready to fly--you can see how small they are.

With this topic in mind, I've been working for the past few months on gathering together pictures and information about arthropod species that occur at the Barbara A. Beiser Field Station (BBFS) near Marietta, Ohio. As I've written about before (here and here and in an article for the Marietta Natural History Society newsletter here [PDF]), I conducted a lot of my undergraduate research at the BBFS and found many species. I never quite had the time to identify and write down all the species I found while I was an undergraduate, so I put it off for a while.

Until now.

An Ichneumon wasp, Megarhyssa macrurus, drilling into a dead tree to parasitize a wasp larva.

After months of identification, I've completed the project! (I'm looking for a good way to put this list online.) This is the first biotic index (list) of species from the BBFS, and focuses only on arthropods (it will be expanded to plants and other groups in the future). All in all, I identified 181 species including insects, arachnids, and millipedes/centipedes. This is nowhere near a complete list, but it's a start. I only included arthropods whose identifications I was sure about, so I left out a few species I was unsure of, falling just short of my 200 species goal. But that's okay--the list isn't useful unless it's accurate, after all!

A pair of Euryurus leachii millipedes under UV light. Usually found in decaying logs, these millipedes fluoresce a pretty bluish-green color.

I gained a lot of experience with local insects while working on this project and feel pretty confident about being able to identify many of the insects in Washington County. I now have a much greater knowledge base about insect taxonomy and what a "species" really means. When it comes down to it, a species is someone's hypothesis, and sometimes the hypothesis isn't accepted by everyone. It can be based on tiny characteristics that are a real pain to hash out, especially when you're trying to identify an insect in a group that's not well-studied!

What did I learn after putting together this list? Most importantly, I learned that I still enjoy taxonomy after hours and hours of (sometimes frustrating) work. I also learned that we have some astounding arthropods at the BBFS, and in the county. Throughout this post I've included pictures of arthropods I found there that I never knew about before, with life histories that are seriously interesting and unfortunately too long to include in this post. There's a diversity of life in southeast Ohio I never would have known about before undertaking the research I've done and I'm lucky to have had that opportunity. It's taught me that you don't have to go to the rainforest to find beautiful and interesting animals; sometimes the forests of southeast Ohio can beat out the rainforest!

A male Marbled Orbweaver, Araneus marmoreus. This spider has many color forms, of which the black and yellow form is especially striking.

I hope to use my experience to encourage others to take a second look at the critters in the area and to truly take pride in them. Why not say "These things are astounding!" and put these animals on a pedestal? Arthropods like the Luna Moth, the Ichneumon Wasp, our UV-fluorescent millipedes, the Locust Borers, the Wheel Bugs: these "bugs" are crazy awesome and should be celebrated!

The Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar, Papilio troilus. This unique caterpillar changes throughout its life stages--young caterpillars look like bird poop, while older ones (like this one) mimic snakes!

In order to accomplish this goal, I'm working on completing another biotic index--this time for Washington County, with some input from surrounding counties. I want to adapt this larger biotic index into a field guide to arthropods in the area, with pictures and information about each species. It will introduce people to these bugs and save them some time in trying to identify them. Essentially, I want everyone to have the same pride in our many-legged fauna as I do.

Narceus americanus, the gentle giant. This is the largest millipede in our area and eats dead leaves. Interestingly, it sometimes scales trees.

It doesn't help anyone appreciate our arthropods if I keep my knowledge locked up in my head, so I need to spread it! I have no idea about how long this project will take, nor when it will be done, but it hopefully won't take more than a few years max. If you can help out in any way, please contact me!

Dr. Hildreth and his cicadas

I've always had an interest in history and still enjoy it, though my main focus has shifted to natural history. Over the past few years I've discovered the richness of southeast Ohio's history. There's a rock etched with George Washington's initials in my hometown, mounds built by Native Americans are scattered throughout the area, and the first towns established in the Northwest Territory are in southeast Ohio--the first was Marietta in 1788.

It was during this research that I came across a true Renaissance Man: Samuel Prescott Hildreth. He was a doctor that lived in Marietta during the 1800s, but he also dabbled in history, politics, geology, natural history, and more. I've previously written about Hildreth here after finding a notebook of insect notes he wrote (with illustrations), and it's his writings on natural history that interest me most.

Hildreth's natural history research was particularly helpful to researchers of North America's periodical cicadas, which are classified in the genus Magicicada. His observations of the 1812 and 1829 periodical cicada emergence events were the first detailed and accurate reports of the cicadas' 17 year life cycle. Those reports, along with his verification of the 1795 emergence, provided the documentation to confirm the periodical cicadas' unique habit of emerging en masse every 17 years.

A snapshot of a more recent emergence: a 4-year acceleration of Brood V in Marietta, OH; May 2012.

I first learned about Dr. Hildreth's work in Dr. Gene Kritsky's book: In Ohio's Backyard: Periodical Cicadas, published by the Ohio Biological Survey in 1999 and available for order here. The book is a great resource and has an extensive bibliography, which has aided my research on Hildreth considerably. The last time Dr. Hildreth published a scientific paper was during the 1800s, so his papers aren't exactly easy to find. Thankfully, today we have the Internet and libraries that digitize their collections.

As I conducted research over the past few weeks (by both searching online and visiting libraries), I came across four papers published by Dr. Hildreth about periodical cicadas. I could have missed a few, as I wasn't able to find those published in German or French publications, but the ones I found seem to be the main four which are referenced in other publications. In these, he writes about the life cycle of the cicadas and their effects on the area's wildlife (including humans). 

His first paper, Notes on certain parts of the state of Ohio, published in 1826, details the periodical cicada emergence of 1812 with the notes he wrote in his journal at the time. His journal notes describe the cicada emergence in late May until the cicadas are gone, by the end of June. He confirms the 1795 emergence in this paper.

Hildreth's next publication came out in 1830, entitled Notices and observations on the American  cicada, or locust. This was his first paper focused solely on the periodical cicada Magicicada septendecim, known then as Cicada septemdecim. This is the most eye-catching publication of the batch, as it opens with a plate of illustrated cicadas. 

Hildreth's cicada plate from Notices and observations on the American  cicada, or locust, published in the American Journal of Science and Arts, 1830. Notice the watermark--Google Books helped me out here.

Hildreth begins his five page paper with a bold (and very true!) statement:

"No part of natural history more abounds in wonderful and extraordinary productions, than that portion of it embraced in the study of Entomology."

The paper goes on to cover the 1829 emergence that occurred during the previous summer and gives an overview of the periodical cicada's natural history. Hildreth mentions a "smaller form" of cicada in this paper--the first account of the species Magicicada cassini, formally described by J.C. Fisher in 1851.

Hildreth regales the reader with stories of how the local wildlife responds to the sudden buffet: by taking advantage of it like there's no tomorrow. Hogs, birds, squirrels, etc. "fatten on them," and birds are so focused on the cicadas that they don't even bother to eat the cherries in Hildreth's garden! Interestingly enough, some people even used the cicadas to make soap, taking advantage of the fact that the cicadas are "plump and full of oily juices." Maybe that was a kind of revenge against the creatures, as the males could be heard singing from morning until night and be heard from a mile away. I personally love the sounds they make, but not everyone feels that way. If you've never heard them before, skip to 1:39 in the video embedded below and Sir David Attenborough will help you out.

In 1847, Hildreth published two more papers: one included topics other than cicadas, such as a meteorological journal he kept in Marietta during 1846. The second article was a shorter reprint of the first, including only the pages about the periodical cicada. These articles document the periodical cicada emergence of 1846, making it the fourth emergence Dr. Hildreth wrote about: not too shabby!

Adult Magicicada septendecim

After spending many hours looking for old references just to learn about a bug, I appreciate historians a bit more now. I also have even more love for libraries. The Marietta College Legacy Library's Special Collections department in particular was very helpful during my search, and is the reason I found Hildreth's A Portfolio of Insects that I wrote about previously. Washington County's Local History and Genealogy Archives was also a great resource. Since neither of those libraries had these papers by Hildreth, I sent them copies for their collections, just in case anyone else in the area wants to learn more about Hildreth's work. There's no sense in keeping them locked up in my computer, after all.

You can expect more posts about Dr. Hildreth in the future--he wrote about much more than just periodical cicadas. I'm finding out more and more about his life; he was a very interesting guy.

I encourage you to do some research into your local history as well! You never know what you'll find. Maybe there was a person similar to Dr. Hildreth in your town.

For those of you who don't live near Marietta, Ohio, I've uploaded all four documents to Google Drive and they can be downloaded at this link. They're a great look into the scientific writing of the past, and Hildreth's writing is surprisingly readable.

References:
Hildreth, Samuel Prescott. 1826. Notes on certain parts of the state of Ohio. American Journal of Science and Arts. 10: 152-162; 319-331.
Hildreth, Samuel Prescott. 1830. Notices and observations on the American cicada, or locust. American Journal of Science and Arts. 18: 46-50.
Hildreth, Samuel Prescott. 1847. Abstract of a Meteorological Journal, for the year 1846, kept at Marietta, Ohio,  Lat. 39° 25' N., and Long. 4° 28' W. of Washington City. American Journal of Science and Arts. 3: 212-222.
Hildreth, Samuel Prescott. 1847. On the habits of Cicada septendecim. Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 20: 136-141.
Kritsky, Gene. 1999. In Ohio's Backyard: Periodical Cicadas. Ohio Biological Survey Backyard Series No. 2. Columbus, Ohio. vi + 83 pp. [ISBN: 0-86727-132-9]

A Portfolio of Historical Insects

I had some extra time after work today, which I used to visit Marietta College's Special Collections. They keep scores of old documents, many dating back to when the Ohio Company of Associates first established Marietta in 1788 as the first settlement in the Northwest Territory. What I was after today, however, had an Entomological bent to it.

A young Hildreth, via Wikipedia.

Samuel Prescott Hildreth, a doctor who lived in Marietta during the early to mid-1800s did some of the first work in Ohio studying insects. He was a naturalist and published the first observations of the periodical cicada's 17 year life cycle, which is what I was after. I didn't find any of his cicada papers, but the librarian did bring me a book he wrote and illustrated, entitled "Portfolio of Insects."

This book includes paintings by Hildreth of various insects from Marietta and elsewhere in Ohio. When I first opened the book, I was greeted with beautiful illustrations of the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) during all of its life stages. I had an immediate visceral reaction to that page--the tobacco hornworm is one of the first insects I raised when I became interested in Entomology, and it was emotional for me to be confronted by this right after opening the book. It was a direct connection to a naturalist who had written this Portfolio 150 years ago.

That caught me by surprise. I was excited, but sheesh, that almost brought tears to my eyes.

I soldiered on, invigorated by each page and by the connection I felt with Hildreth. His book was a veritable menagerie of the most charismatic insects you can find around Marietta, and which are still around today--one of the perks of having a lot of woods and natural areas in the county.

The book is only about 40 pages long, and each page showcases a colorful new creature: a brilliant Luna moth, a royal walnut moth, a smattering of other large moths and butterflies, a giant water bug...even a red eft (Notophthalmus viridescens) and a sketch of what Marietta College looked like during his time! As for his handwriting, it was difficult to read. I could make out some descriptions and names of plants and insects, but that was about it. Fortunately, his labels for each illustration were neater. I recognized the scientific names for each species and even noted some that had changed during the previous 150 years. Imagine that, eh?

Hildreth was truly a Renaissance man: in addition to being a naturalist, he was a doctor, geologist, and historian. He was active in the community as well, and today has a street in Marietta named after him.

Sadly, I only had an hour to look at the book before I had to leave, but I'll definitely return soon. I have some more research to do vis–à–vis Hildreth's cicada research, which I hope will also feature some of his illustrations.

Hildreth's Portfolio of Insects is an achingly beautiful direct connection to the past. It means a lot to me, being a native to Marietta, and for me, it inspires a timeless feeling of camaraderie with Dr. Hildreth. I recognize these insects drawn so long ago and I can still go out and find them. Had we lived at the same time, I think he and I would be good friends.

I wish I had at least one picture from the book, but I'll have to speak with the librarian about any effects taking pictures would have on it. Who knows, maybe we can get it digitized. In lieu of any pictures, I will leave you with a quotation Hildreth used to begin a paper on cicadas he published in 1830:

"No part of natural history more abounds in wonderful and extraordinary productions, than that portion of it embraced in the study of Entomology."

The Summer of the Reduviidae: The Beginning

Let's just say that my summer project with assassin bugs is going well so far.

More to come soon!

Líquenes de Costa Rica

I had the great fortune of going to the Poás Volcano this weekend and seeing all the interesting biota there. The first thing I noticed after stepping off the bus on starting the walk up to the crater was the intense smell of sulfur. It was almost suffocating and apparently some people got a bit sick from it. Of course, what else can you expect from a volcano?

 The main crater, which is 950 feet deep.

The volcano is located within Poás Volcano National Park, so naturally there was a gift shop. It had a wonderful selection of books that were 50% off, and I found one about lichens! This was a pretty big deal to me, since it's difficult enough to find books about lichens in the United States, so I promptly bought it. It's Líquenes de Costa Rica, by Loengrin Umaña and Harrie Sipman, and is published by INBio, the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, a huge Biodiversity institute in Costa Rica. The book has some general information about lichens, and identification information for 55 species of Costa Rican lichens.

It's always nice to find some extra information about lichens since they are generally overlooked. It's amazing to think that a lichen is a symbiosis between a fungus and an algae; it looks radically different from either of those. They're grouped in the Kingdom fungi, and are referred to as lichenized fungi, showing the limits of our taxonomic systems.

Lichens are useful as biomonitoring agents. They're slow-growing and are apt to acquire minerals and things from the air. They hold onto these materials for a long time, and so can be used to monitor air pollution levels in an area. This particular characteristic is something important for at least two studies going on in Marietta, Ohio, measuring manganese levels and air quality.  In the above picture, the lichen doesn't look terribly healthy, and this is probably due to the sulfur levels in the area.

Kayford Mountain lichen, notice the discoloration near the top.

Another example of air quality and lichen biomonitoring can be found in the area near Kayford Mountain, West Virginia, where a mountaintop removal mining site's air pollution can be seen in the lichens.

Lichens are pretty useful, and a lot more interesting than they get credit for. Hopefully I'll find some more information about them while I'm down here. I might even learn something I can take back to Ohio and use.