Plymouth Panoramas

The sound from Mt Edgecumbe

The sound from the top of Smeaton's Tower

Been playing with the new panorama function on the iPhone!!

The Weekday Biologist!

Time for a career change! Due to various bits of restructuring in the university, the department that I am in currently (Biomedical and Biological Sciences) will soon become two departments (Biological Sciences and Biomedical and Healthcare Sciences). That has left me in a bit of a quandry as to what to do and where to go but I have opted for (and been granted) the possibility to go with the new school of Biological Sciences. Kind of a career change but it means I can keep my human biology research interests and develop my biological interests further!!! Looking forward to new things and to leading the Biological Sciences degree programme.......

More on mimicry

You may remember last year I posted on Crypsis and Mimesis in moths? You might have guessed that I like mimicry! Yesterday while looking for bumblebees I came across this:

This is not what it looks like as it is the Hoverfly Volucella bombylans var. plumata which exhibits Batesian Mimicry. Batesian mimicry is all about looking like someone else for a variety of reasons (looking like someone who is toxic when you are not to fool predators for instance). For this Hoverfly, the reason is simpler but more devious as it clearly looks like a Bumblebee. The reason is that they manage to sneak in to Bumblebee nests to lay their eggs and the larvae feed on nest detritus. Indeed there are two forms, var. plumata and var. bombylans that look like Bombus lapidarius and Bombus leucorum/terrestris (below) respectively.



Graphical representation of data

Correct use of the pie chart!!! (With apologies for borrowing the picture!)

Some plants for those who are interested

I have been trying to get my head round plants as there are lots of them I don't know. It is always fun starting almost afresh on a big group as you spend long periods of time puzzling over some of the commonest of species which makes you feel a bit stupid!

Most of these are pretty common:

Yellow Rattle

Lousewort

Kidney Vetch

Sheep's-bit

Pink Sorrel

English Stonecrop

Wood Spurge

Messing about in ponds........

Not much to post about recently.......

Last Friday I took the opportunity to show a new colleague around some sites on Dartmoor that are good for amphibians. Lovely sunny day, messing about with pond nets and a beer to finish - does it get much better?? I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

Toad Tadpoles at Hemerdon

Palmate Newt

Palmate Newt with deformed tail and massive cloaca!

Toad Tadpoles

Common Frog Tadpoles (massive bias towards Toad at all sites)

Shoreweed at Hemerdon

Baby Newt with gills

Dysticus marginalis mummy

Dysticus marginalis baby (with unfortunate Newt)

A hole that used to be Dartmoor

One of the prettiest pools I know

Aeshna juncea larva near Cadover

Contamination in cell culture

Nice contamination in the HL-60 cells today!! Bacilli and maybe fungus..........




And a close-up just for the guilty party!!