The insect was on the exterior wall of a Walmart - it was likely not long for this world. That's the nature of science though. The story does remind me of a documentary I saw on a researcher of rare lizards in the Australian outback. Over 30 years he collected thousands of specimens. The interviewer asked if he might be harming the population of the various lizard species he was studying. The researcher thought about it for a second and said he used to believe the populations were large enough that it did not matter, but then admitted he isn't so sure now.
Is there any indication that the insect was alive and reproductively relevant when he plucked it off the side of the building? I've lived in areas where swarms of dead & dying mayflies (aka fish flies) appear on the sides of buildings every year.
> Skvarla found the specimen in 2012, but misidentified it and only discovered its true identity after teaching an online course based on his personal insect collection in 2020.
As an aspiring entomologist (when I was younger) its very common. I would have put it in a jar when I got home and observed it but you have to know that insects have very short lives and one in a polluted urban setting would not live long anyways. I think people conflate insects lifespans with mammals(which can be as long or longer than humans).
Yes, especially these days when we are driving the 6th mass extinction event, and we have all kinds of other options for documentation.
It was one thing a century and a half ago when wildlife was still close to plentiful. Now, take some photos and videos, log the location & conditions, and let it live...
Killing & mounting isn't science anymore, it's a snuff fetish.
EDIT:
Yes, I get it, it was one insect and in this case he didn't even realize it was rare until years later, and often getting hand-on DNA helps, and overlighting, pollution, habitat destruction are far larger drivers.
But teaching the habit of collecting and mounting bugs goes far beyond the handfuls of PhD entomologists. I remember being taught about it and encouraged in something like 6th grade. It's not harmless like collecting stamps and, unless you're going to actually do DNA analysis on that sample, still seems to me like more of a cargo-cult/fetish activity, so I'd hope we could get beyond it.
> Now, take some photos and videos, log the location & conditions, and let it live...
From the article, a microscope and DNA testing were required to confirm:
> "We were watching what Dr. Skvarla saw under his microscope and he's talking about the features and then just kinda stops," said Codey Mathis, a doctoral candidate in entomology at Penn State. "We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing. I still remember the feeling. It was so gratifying to know that the excitement doesn't dim, the wonder isn't lost. Here we were making a true discovery in the middle of an online lab course."
> For additional confirmation, Skvarla and his colleagues performed molecular DNA analyses on the specimen. Since confirming its true identity, Skvarla has deposited the insect safely in the collections of the Frost Entomological Museum at Penn State, where scientists and students will have access to it for further research.
When it comes to insects, I think your anger is misplaced. Capturing and mounting a specimen hardly makes a dent compared to how many die on car windshields, due to pesticide use, or from loss of habitat. Adult insects also tend to have a short life - for many species only one season.
And in this case the collection was done for a valid scientific purpose, not just for funsies.
Capturing and mounting a specimen hardly makes a dent compared to how many die on car windshields
Well, the point here is that this was a "rare" insect. Comparing the number of a particular rare insect to the number of common mosquitoes doesn't make sense.
The predation load on the insect population from all entomologists worldwide is infinitesimal. Capturing and mounting an insect will almost surely not change the course of that species' survival.
Plus, most insects lay thousands and thousands of eggs. Whatever the carrying capacity of the local environment is, insects will fill it quickly.
Pesticide use and loss of habitat make that carrying capacity smaller. Smashing bugs on your car windshield and collecting specimens just makes room for more juvenile bugs to survive to adulthood in a few hours/days.
I bet there are a lot of sciency things you can do to a specimen that you can't do to a photograph of a specimen. And it's not like a few thousand specimens in museums are driving mass extinction. It's habitat destruction and climate change.
There aren't that many insects that live longer than a year because they're sensitive to cold and most overwinter as eggs or pupae of some kind. This one in particular would've been dead in a few days.
Anyhow, if you study these, and I have done so, then yes, you absolutely will notice any unusual insects around you, to the point where I can remember pretty much every time I ever saw a Buckeye butterfly, any sort of giant silk moth, mole cricket or Queen.
Photograph & video it, log the location data, and let it live.
When it is "a rare, surviving eastern population of giant lacewings that evaded detection and extinction. ", it is very much like a panda, and a single premature death can make a difference in the survival of a population.
It helps to not make incorrect assumption about who has read what.
You add nothing with such a vague comment, only distraction. If you have a problem with what I wrote, state the problem or don't bother subtracting value.
(Hint: I did, and yes I understand that he didn't even realize what it was until years later. I also recall being taught in middle school to capture and mount insects, so it isn't just the handful of PhDs doing it who will actually do DNA analysis on it...)
The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect bounced back from a remnant population of 24 individuals once rediscovered and taken to a larger habitat free from the predation that extirpated them from their original island.
> In 2014, an unauthorised climbing team sighted live stick insects near the summit of Ball’s Pyramid, in a thicket of sedge plants rooted in very thin soils at an altitude of 500 metres, suggesting that the insect’s range on the island is more widespread than previously thought, and that its food preferences are not limited to Melaleuca howeana.
That species likely was a goner, barring the human breeding program. Successful reintroduction is going to require humans to finish wiping out the rat population on Lord Howe Island (which wiped the insects out there in just two years after their 1918 introduction).
Yup, professional entomologists study insects all the time. Is what they do.
And to identify it they need to look at things that aren't visible in a photo. Moreover, photos are not a valid proof of anything anymore because they are easily falsifiable.
Individuals are not important, we protect populations. And to detect valuable populations we need to take samples.
That could be true, if you knew anything about me. But the fact is that like all science, there are ethical considerations to be considered. Here is an article that attempts to address this issue:
You made a cheap glib remark about an entire scientific group and now you want to try and backtrack with a link as though you weren't acting like a pretentious teenager. Just take the loss and move on.
