Scientific Illustration

Another pursuit I wish I had a separate lifetime for is scientific illustration. I like the challenge of trying to render an organism realistically. Sure, it takes some talent to do that, but I owe a great deal of my success to teachers and mentors.

I met the late Elaine R. S. Hodges in 1986, while I was on contract at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) in Washington, DC. She was a staff artist in the entomology department, and took me under her wing. She was the “Founding Mother” of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, the gold standard for professional medical and biological illustrators. She was encouraging, but critical of my own work, and I took her words to heart.

I began doing illustrations to compliment articles I was writing as a volunteer for The Urban Naturalist, a quarterly publication of the Audubon Society of Portland (Oregon). I was further encouraged and inspired by the other volunteer artists on the “staff,” like Martha Gannett, Kris Elkin, and Elayne Barclay.

The Urban Naturalist ceased publication in the late 1990s, but by then had caught the attention of the Oregon Historical Society Press, which published a compilation of articles and essays in the book Wild in the City, edited by Michael C. Houck and M. J. Cody (2000).The above pen and ink illustration of a Snowberry Clearwing moth, Hemaris diffinis, is one of those featured in the book.

The adult “Ponderous Borer,” Ergates spiculatus, shown below, started as a sketch back in the early 1980s. The outline version appeared in the book Cascade-Olympic Natural History, by Daniel Mathews (Raven Editions, 1988). I had been asked by Dan to do the insect illustrations for his book, but did not follow through in a timely manner. He deemed the line drawings acceptable as is, but I was embarrassed.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Mathews got back to me in 2001 and asked if I would do illustrations for his book Rocky Mountain Natural History (Raven Editions, 2003). Dan had been impressed with my work in Wild in the City, and wanted that kind of quality for his own book. This time he had a budget to work with, and I had a much more professional attitude. The result was eighteen pen and ink illustrations for the book, including a finished Ponderous Borer.

I also submitted this illustration for the annual member exhibit of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators in 2005, and it was accepted. It was displayed in the Jacobs Gallery at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon, for much of June, 2005, alongside the work of other GNSI members. My mentor Elaine Hodges complimented me on how far I had come as an artist, and that was even more of a personal honor. The framed picture now hangs in the office of Carl Olson, Associate Curator of Entomology at the University of Arizona. Carl is another mentor, and it was the least I can do to present that as a gift for all the favors he has done for me over the years.

While I am fairly proficient in pen and ink, and graphite pencil (see the pair of Nicrophorus sexton beetles below), I someday hope to learn to render animals in color, and maybe with digital software, too. The field of scientific illustration continues to change, but seems to remain in demand.

More Beetle Excitement

I got some exciting news this past week that I thought I would share. It involves a species of beetle that I collected while on a photo outing on the Fourth of July near the Quabbin Reservoir in Franklin County, Massachusetts.

While in a forest clearing (well, more of a slash pile of logging residue, actually), I saw a metallic woodboring beetle in the family Buprestidae. It seemed non-descript, much less brilliant in color than others I have seen, but I took its picture anyway. I wanted more images, though, so I captured it alive in a vial and took it home.

After chilling this highly active animal in the refrigerator, I placed it on the kitchen table and took more images. I was finally able to see that it was more or less metallic purple, the granular violet nature of its exoskeleton reflecting the light from my camera flash. It looked like the beetle had perhaps hatched out of a geode rather than a pine tree.

I posted my two images, one “in the wild” and the other “staged,” to Bugguide.net in the hopes of confirming my identification of it as Buprestis striata. Much to my surprise, the consensus among the experts is that this is actually a specimen of Buprestis sulcicollis, a much less commonly-encountered species. It was, in fact, previously unrecorded for the state of Massachusetts, though long suspected of occurring here.

Getting a state record is reasonably remarkable, but considering that I have been here in Massachusetts for a grand total of two months, it feels pretty spectacular. It would be great if it translated to a wage increase, but alas, I suspect all I will get out of it is “this stupid t-shirt” equivalent. As luck (good or bad depending on your viewpoint) would have it, the beetle subsequently died before I got around to releasing it. I will get to decide where the specimen will be deposited, which is a reward unto itself, I think.

The beetle deserves a bit of notoriety, too, but very little is known about Buprestis sulcicollis. Adult beetles measure from eleven to 15.5 mm. The recorded hosts for the larvae are pitch pine and eastern white pine. Its distribution is mostly from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard, but there are records as far west as Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

I encourage each of you to not assume that whatever creature you encounter is common, known from your area, or even already known to science. Take pictures, note the habitat, any behaviors you observe, and record the date and precise location you found the organism in. You never know what may become of your patient and careful study.

Lab Excitement

It got a little exciting in the lab today. A live, giant beetle and a dead parasite made my day much more interesting than the average Monday.

Jeff Boettner and Craig Hollingsworth showed up around lunch time with a Tuppermaid (or Rubberware, I always get those two confused) container holding a magnificent specimen of a pine sawyer. A woman brought the insect to Craig, thinking it might be a grasshopper because of the long antennae. Neither Craig nor Jeff had seen this particular species before, though it was obvious to them it was no grasshopper.

Consulting BugGuide, we eventually reached a consensus that the insect was a male “northeastern sawyer,” Monochamus notatus (Drury). Female sawyers have much shorter antennae, and shorter front legs. According to the Field Guide to Northeastern Longhorned Beetles by Douglas Yanega, this species ranges from 23-35 millimeters in body length. This one was every bit of that. Northeastern sawyers occur pretty much east of the Rocky Mountains and bore in dead and dying conifers as larvae, favoring pines. Harvested firewood can yield the beetles indoors when they emerge in stored situations. This specimen is now destined to be pinned for posterity in the University of Massachusetts insect collection. I suppose it achieves something close to immortality in this case. Hopefully more live specimens will show up, as most of my impromptu images did not turn out very well.

Another interesting find came as I was sorting leafhopper nymphs and other hemipterans preserved in alcohol from pitfall traps. One of the nymphs had some kind of dark object attached to its underside, between the first and second pairs of legs.

It turned out to be the larva of a dryinid wasp (family Dryinidae), bizarre parasites of leafhoppers and some other insects. One of the effects of ethanol on dead insects is a clearing of the pigments in some specimens, and increased magnification clearly shows the larval dryinid curled inside a capsule-like pouch.

Adult dryinids are even stranger than the larvae. Females are often wingless, and sport scissor-like front feet used for gripping the leafhopper while an egg is laid on it. The adult wasps have also been observed catching, killing, and half-consuming prey instead of using it as a host for their offspring. For more images of both larvae and adults, please see the BugGuide reference page and Alex Wild’s fantastic images of an adult female.

Hm-m-m-m, I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

House Centipedes

One of the most confounding, and arguably creepiest, creatures I am asked about at AllExperts.com has to be the “house centipede,” Scutigera coleoptrata. Neither insect nor arachnid, it is variously described to me as spidery, an animated feather, a speeding, ghostly apparition, and plenty of other epithets born out of both fear and fascination.

This species seems to be genuinely domestic, occurring mostly in and around human habitations where these venomous predators prowl in search of other invertebrates to eat. It is thought to have originated in the Mediterranean region, but unless one starts speaking Italian or Greek, you could fool me. International commerce has now succeeded in transporting the house centipede to virtually all inhabited corners of the globe anyway.

Related species in the genus often live in caves, and indeed the long legs and antennae of this animal are characteristic of habitats where visual acuity is much less important than a sense of touch. The lanky build of these creatures also makes them appear much larger than the 25-35 mm body length of the average specimen. Couple that with the incredible speed at which they can travel, and you have the heebie-jeebies come to life. I confess they can even freak me out at times because they can climb walls and scurry across ceilings at about Mach 7.

Fortunately, house centipedes are totally harmless to people and pets (well, if you have a flea circus I guess you’d better be careful). I encourage folks who encounter house centipedes to just let them continue their pest control patrol, like this one is doing, or usher the centipede into a container and release it outdoors in a woodpile, rock wall, or other sheltered situation where it will be equally happy hunting for food and mates. Those approaches are certainly preferable to "Honey, can you get me a shoe? A really big shoe?"

Leigh Anne DelRay

I recently met a person so exceptional that she deserves to be featured in both of my blogs, just to make sure you can’t avoid getting to know her. We met via (what else) the Bugguide.net website where she has started submitting images. While she is a certified animal enthusiast, from the feathered and two-legged to the hairy and eight-legged, her passion for life and art is contagious.

Leigh Anne has endured serious tragedy and drama in her life, but you wouldn’t know it from her affectionate, sunny disposition and creative and intuitive personality. She has a way of turning her experiences into a shared tapestry through her evocative photography skills and choice of subjects. Many of her images literally bring me to tears, but Leigh Anne recognizes the power of imagery and uses it to remind us that places, people, and stories are worth knowing, if only briefly.

One of Leigh Anne’s favorite pursuits is hunting meteorites. It has been a real education for me to learn just how popular a “hobby” this is, and the great value, both scientific and monetary, that is attached to “space rocks.” She recently invited me to a party at her employer’s house to watch the television debut of Meteorite Men, featuring her boss, Geoff Notkin, and his teammate Steve Arnold. Who knew Kansas was such a mecca for meteorites? About 30-40 friends of Geoff’s were packed into his living room, riveted to the TV screen, tuned to the Discovery Science Channel. A fun time was had by all, and I thank Leigh Anne for continuing to introduce me to more fascinating people. I’m not the most sociable sort, but she may change that.

Leigh Anne is well-traveled, too, and embraces all that a given location has to offer. While she was in Los Angeles she successfully auditioned as an extra in several films and popular television shows. For example, she was a patient with a broken leg on an episode of ER, and stood in line behind leading man Kevin Costner in the airport scene in the movie Dragonfly (alas she was left on the cutting room floor in that one). That kind of spontaneity speaks to her adventurous nature.

I should really let Leigh Anne’s work speak for itself, so I encourage you to visit her website, Callisto Images, and see if you, too, are not moved by her profound vision, the intimacy of her subjects, and the playfulness that she expresses. Thank you, Leigh Anne, for helping me re-awaken to the depth of life around us, and reminding me to “live in the moment.” Oh, and lest one get the wrong impression, Leigh Anne is with another wonderful gentleman who is a gifted woodworker and a caring, upstanding individual in his own right.

Moving (temporarily) to Massachusetts

Today I accepted a temporary position as a Laboratory Assistant at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. I will be sorting and identifying invertebrates from samples taken in an ongoing survey of forested watersheds, for a total of twenty-eight weeks beginning in late May or early June.

The project is a joint effort of the Department of Natural Resources Conservation at UMass, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

I am quite excited by this opportunity, but a bit apprehensive, too. I still have to find a place to live, for example. Any help in that department is most welcome. I don’t have enough time to pack-up all my belongings (including my large insect collection), so will be maintaining my Tucson residence while I am away. The “new economy” seems to translate to the “nomadic economy.” Lots of short-term work available in my field, but little permanent employment. I am still extremely grateful, mind you.

This blog and Sense of Misplaced will be maintained as best as I am able in the coming weeks and months, but your patience is appreciated during the transition period. Oh, and feel free to recommend a good laptop, too, as it looks like I’m going to need to get one.

Re-directing

I am certainly committing some violation of “netiquette” by doing this, but I would very much like to direct your attention to my other blog, “Sense of Misplaced.” That is a more general nature (and human nature) blog that is actually more challenging and enjoyable for me to write than this one.

The title stems from my disdain for the romantic obsession with “sense of place” that so many of today’s nature writers seem to embrace. My aim is to make people confront their biases, expose the unintended consequences of their best intentions, and encourage them to celebrate their own inner animal. “Get out of your comfort zone” might be the bottom line.

I have been warned that writing just one blog is hard work, and I would tend to agree, but the last thing I want is to be stereotyped as a “bug guy.” I have feelings, too (and thoughts, and ideas, even).

I’ll make you a deal. Should “Sense of Misplaced” fall flat on its face, I’ll devote full attention to this blog alone. Go take a look, though, and I think you will agree that both have merit. Thank you for indulging me. We now return you to your regularly scheduled bug extravaganza.