As I “skeletonize” more and more butterfly species, there have been some interesting surprises -- one being Graphium weiskei or the Purple Mountain Swallowtail. This species of butterfly is known for it's stunning colors, unique in the animal world. After I removed the scales (skeletonization) on the left side of the butterfly, the vibrant green, blue and pink colors remained. This was surprising and after a little research discovered these are very rare pigments (sarpedobilin and ommin) that are part of the wing - not scales on the wing. I love my job!

Tags: Graphium weiskei , skeletonized

I developed a new technique of removing the scales of butterfly wings to reveal the amazing architecture that lies underneath. Check out these first pictures of "Skeletonized Butterflies".

Tags: skeletonized, butterflies

photo credit: AMC

Looking forward to the season premier of IMMORTALIZED on AMC this Feb. 14th. I was honored to be picked as a contestant to compete against the talented Beth Beverly. Check out the show and see how insects are a force to be reckoned with.

Tags: immortalized, kevin clarke, insects , amc

When one thinks of a locust swarm we usually think of the Biblical Plagues, a divine intervention to punish humanity in a past far gone. But a more recent biblical plague played out in the Great Plains of the United States during the summer of 1875.

Keeping with the tales of the past, farmers watched in panic as the skies dimmed as trillions of locusts came over the horizon moving faster than any natural disaster. These insects moved so quickly that people literally had to run for shelter to escape the swarms.

Witnesses reported trees breaking under the weight of the insects and layers forming on the ground up to six inches thick. There were so many locusts that their brined and solidified bodies clogged the Great Salt Lake in Utah and formed walls six feet high extending two miles away from the lake. The swarm was speculated to contain more than 3.5 trillion locusts and span over 198,000 square miles, larger than the state of California.

The locusts destroyed crops, killed poultry that gorged on the insects, and infested the soil with the sheer number of eggs that were laid beneath the surface. But these swarms were not a punishment from God, but rather from a mutation that occurs when large numbers of grasshoppers are forced to live close to one another during times of drought.

The close living proximity causes changes in the types of eggs that the female grasshoppers lay. The nymphs that hatch out of the mutated eggs grow longer wings, tend to stay in large swarms, and even change in size and color. The result is a huge migratory population of locusts that no longer resemble their grasshopper parents.

Even more mysterious then the appearance of this locust swarm was its sudden disappearance. By the turn of the century the Rocky Mountain Locust had died off completely and they have not been seen alive since 1902, much to the relief of farmers everywhere.

Tags: locust, plagues

photo credit

In the fifth century BC, an account from India reported a mysterious bird whose orange droppings excreted a poison, that in amounts no bigger then a grain of wheat, could bring down a man. Similarly, in China in 739 AD, there appears a description of a beetle poison so strong it could remove tattoos, boils or ringworms. It has been speculated that those bright orange “bird” droppings and the mysterious Chinese beetle are actually one and the same, the Paederus beetle, better known today as the Nairobi fly.

The Paederus beetle is attracted to our modern lighting fixtures but when the light switch goes off they have a natural tendency to simply let go, dropping from onto whatever unfortunate soul is sitting or sleeping below. Though they do not bite or sting, when they hit our skin, we humans have a habit of swatting them. When crushed these beetles release a toxic poison called Pederin.

Pederin can cause rashes that often lead to blisters, and even serious infection if the wound is not kept clean. If this poison gets in the eye it can cause excruciating pain and even temporary blindness, known as “Nairobi eye.”

Despite their namesake, the Paederus beetle is found outside of Kenya. This beetle has managed to cause some serious inconvenience for military troops around the world whose bright base lights attract the bugs in mass numbers.

Though the bite from the Paederus beetle can be seriously annoying, there is hope that it may do good as well. The poison that was once used by the ancient Chinese for tattoo removal is currently being experimented with as an antitumor agent in cancer patients.

Tags: beetles, poison