One week ago today I posted that I was going to start posting once a week. That means I better get going on that deal.
So, to make things easy for myself I am going to post about my new temp job that is about to end because it was only a 3 month gig. It's a job of intense excitement. I am a referee at the local Beetle Larvae Races. I am pretty much one of 3 referee's, and it's a pretty cool gig.
Here are some pictures to describe my job:
My work station
An incubator for the little beetle larvae. We are measuring the effect of temperature on the growth of pine beetle larvae from two populations of pine beetles. The incubator holds 7 phloem sandwiches which are the nurseries for the little developing larvae.
A phloem sandwich with the galleries containing wriggling larvae (my job is to follow the little larva along its gallery and measure its size each day. There are 4 juvenile stages (called instars) that it must go through before it becomes a pupa and finally an an adult.)
Sometimes the phloem sandwich gets funky with fungi (that's the green/grey stuff).
I know these look disgusting...like these larvae are growing in your larynx or something. Or I've just documented alien life on a distant planet...Jupiter. Really, it's just the effect of taking a picture through an eyepiece on the microscope without a camera mount. I didn't want to take too much time fiddling around taking pictures, so this is what you get. It is actually quite beautiful under the microscope. The larvae are off-white or pearly-white depending on which life stage they are in.
I know, I am one lucky lady. Best part about the job is that I can listen to audio books. I have listened to several classics this way. Here's the list so far for those of you who aren't on Goodreads with me (two of which are now in my top 20 favorite books of all time, they are denoted with a star):
*The Virginian (Owen Wister)
Love Among the Chickens (P.G. Wodehouse)
The Phantom of the Operal: The Original Novel (Gaston Leroux)
Pollyanna (Eleanor Porter)
The Last Man (Mary Shelley)
Pollyanna Grows Up (Eleanor Porter)
Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
The Last Trail (Zane Grey)
*Tarzan (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
The 3 Musketeers
7 comments:
YIKES! That looks like so much fun! I am mostly really jealous that you get to listen to all those books! 5 of them I have been wanting to read but haven't found the time.
What does the beetle do? Is it a good beetle or a bad beetle?
Thank you for posting! I missed you!
Ewww that's gross, looks like what's growing in the tupperware in my fridge, minus the bugs.
Hi this is random but I am currently doing research with bark beetles and I did a google search looking for more info on phloem sandwiches and your blog popped up ...anyways I was wondering if you could give me some insight as to how you made the sandwiches- what they were made out of, what beetles you used, and how you got the beetles to colonize? thanks, sam
Sam, I'd love to contact you and tell you more about phloem sandwiches, but I don't have your email. So if you happen to check back please include a way for me to contact you...and I will erase the comment promptly so that your info isn't just sitting out there in cyberspace.
You want pine bark beetles? I'll give you pine bark beetles!! Come to Colorado this year with me. Please???
Hi there, I am also working on bark beetle larva (Scolytus multistriatus, Smaller European Elm Bark Beetle). I am trying to make phloem sandwiches and am having a very hard time balancing the moisture content and the bacterial/fungal growth. I was wondering if I could also get some information from you as Sam did. My email address is bond.sarah.m@gmail.com. Thanks, Sarah.
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