Practicing Macrophotography

Whoops. Meant to post this a long time ago. Started the draft and then never got around to finishing it or IDing any of the species. For now, enjoy the pretty pictures. :)
 

A very tiny jumping spider (seriously, only a few millimeters):

A very pretty damselfly.

Damselfly nymph, perhaps?

I AM ANT, HEAR ME RAWR!!

Ant without the flash diffuser.

Ants with the flash diffuser.

You tryin' to take a picture of me?

Another ant.

Hey, look, an ant!

Did someone mention ants?

Some species of ladybird beetle.

Again with the ladybird.

Oh hai!

So, yeah, nothing about the biology of these things at the moment. Just the pictures. Enjoy.

The Art of Natural Selection: Gecko Camouflage

I always get a kick out of seeing geckos everywhere, even after all these years. In Thailand, you can see Common House Geckos, Hemidactylus frenatus, just about everywhere you look. Mostly, they are running up walls and getting out of sight.

On a tree by the bus stop at the front of the village where my school is, I am often lucky to get to see one close-up hanging out there. I always get a kick out of how well they match the tree bark. They look like the texture of lichens growing on bark, and they can vary their coloration to match the general background color. Here are several pictures of this.

You may recognize this from above

The dangers of moving from light to dark backgrounds. Notice the tail still blends really well.

From a different angle with different contrast, it blends in better

If this one hadn't moved, I probably would not have seen it at all

Nearly blended with the area to the left

A near perfect match

As for why this or these geckos frequent this tree, there seems to also be a colony of Singapore Ants, Monomorium destructor, occupying the tree as well (there is always a line leading to cracks and what appear to be bore holes, presumably where the colony is located).

Close-up of Singapore Ants using the Olloclip Macro

 
If the geckos are eating these, then it would be a nearly constant, reliable food source.

Oddly, I cannot find any good research papers about the mechanisms or evolution of their color changing ability. As for the pattern, regular variation plus natural selection would easily mould variable spots and lines into the lichens-on-bark (or pebbles on sand, in a different background) pattern we see.

A rather simple, common thing to see, but no less awesome for that.

Ostracod under the 'scope

So, I recently got an Arcturus Labs "Magnifi" iPhone case/microscope adapter mount in order to more easily take photos using the microscopes at school. This morning, I managed to grab some decent photos and a bit of video of an Ostracod. Check it out:

And the video:

Neat! 

Help me identify this wasp(like insect), please.

This guy was riding the bus with me the other day. It looks like some kind of wasp, but I've never seen one like this before. It was about 2cm long, including antennae.

Any ideas?

[late update - 31 July 2012]
After doing some looking and with some suggestions from a friend, it seems likely that this is an ichneumon wasp (family Ichneumonidae) or similar (family Braconidae). I'm not experienced enough and I can't see the wing vein patterns clearly enough to decide between the two, though I'm told the body is more ichneumon wasp style. Some cursory googling made me think possibly a "yellow-banded ichneumon wasp" (Lissopimpla spp), but there isn't much banding on this one, and I didn't find any similar enough to feel confident that's the right genus. I would still appreciate any further help.

All images take with an iPhone 4s and Olloclip macro lens.

Yet another biology blog?

Hello! Welcome to Biological Entities, my own little place on the web talk about the most awesome, intricate, and amazing phenomenon so far discovered in the universe: life. I'm Alex, and I'll be your host, so let me tell you a little about what I want to do here, and then a little about who I am.

The world may or may not need another biology blog. In my experience, the biologists out there who are blogging are doing a fantastic job, as are the very experienced science writers who report on the newest research (links to some of my favorites will make their appearances eventually). There probably really isn't much I can add to that. So, why set up yet another blog? Well, mainly for myself, to get myself back into reading research and trying to understand and interpret it, and then break it down into understandable chunks for my students. Secondly, for my students, who may or may not follow this blog, but if they do, then perhaps it will help them understand when their crazy biology teacher rambles on about some other thing he thinks is cool but they can't understand why. And finally, for anyone else who stumbles across this place. If my writing helps you understand the living world just a little bit better, then awesome.

So, what am I going to do around here? Well, the main focus will obviously be biology. I'll basically be reading research papers and then posting thoughts about them here. I plan to ask the authors of such papers to check out my posts if they have time, and if they are so gracious to do so, make sure I've understood their work correctly. I also plan to link to other blogs and articles and post my thoughts about them as well. And, I'm sure not every post will be biology related, so don't be surprised if I have a few random tangents here or there.

Finally, I'll be posting things here, such as graphics, links to videos, apps, etc. that I use in class so that my students have an easy place to come and find information that I've talked about.

So, that's the plan. We'll see how well I do at following it.

And, just who am I?

I'm currently a high school biology teacher in Bangkok Thailand. I've been doing this for the past 5 years. My background is biology, and I have a BS in Marine Biology from Florida Institute of Technology. I have spent the last 11 years outside of the United States, first teaching English as a Second Language in Japan and Morocco, and now teaching biology here in Thailand. I am completely fascinated with biology, and I hope to pass some of that fascination on to my students, though I'm not too sure that I'm being successful at that. Still, maybe some of my passion for this branch of science will rub off on some of them.

So, here with go with yet another biology blog: Biological Entities. Hope you enjoy what you find here. :)