dunes
awild | April 24, 2008
Eusattus dilatatus - dune darkling beetle (Tenebrionidae)
California, USA
Sand dunes are an unusual habitat, and the creatures found on them are equally odd. One of the more charismatic dune endemics is Eusattus dilatatus, a large darkling beetle found in southern California. This scavenging insect has long legs for digging and a waxy cuticle to prevent dessication.
Eusattus is not the easiest photographic subject. It seemed uncomfortable out in the open and would burrow as soon as I placed it on the sand. The series below spans 30 seconds.
**update** Tenebrionid expert Kojun Kanda…
esiegel | March 31, 2008 Those of you who know me know that I'm unhappy living here in Arizona. The landscape and ecosystem of the Sonoran Desert, while beautiful to many, is too dry, rocky, and devoid of life for me to enjoy living here.
After my time here, I've decided that, were it somehow offered to me, I would probably pass on the opportunity to go to Mars. And so I present to you a little game I call "Mars or Arizona," where I will show you some pictures, and you get to guess which ones are pictures of Mars and which ones are pictures of Arizona. Sound easy?
Well let's bring on the pictures, and see if you…
esiegel | March 3, 2008People love to speculate that Mars was once a great place for life to form, and claim that there is plenty of evidence that there used to be oceans and rivers there. But this isn't true. People used to claim there were big Canal-like features on Mars, and used this as evidence that Mars was very wet.
It was later realized that these weren't canals, but rather geological features caused by impact craters from astroids. But more recently, people have been claiming that images like the one above are examples of dried-up riverbeds.
But this turns out not to be the case. When we take a closer…