Where’s Biodee? 7

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1. 

   Chris Schults Posted 2:59 am
   02 May 2006

   Where in the world is Biodee?I'm guessing Hawaii or Florida.
   
   Vote for Grist in the 2006 Webby Awards magazine category.

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2. 

   caniscandida Posted 9:31 am
   02 May 2006

   darling crittersPalmetto bugs (your cockroach is presumably one of them), originally from Florida, have been spread far and wide for a long time now.  Whether they can survive outdoors here in the Northeast during the winter, I do not know.  But they certainly have established themselves indoors.  Why, there is one that comes out every evening in our apartment and sits on a cornice over a livingroom window, wagging its antenna.  It looks down at me, I look up at it, and in that way we commune.  I do not kill it, it does not kill me.  (So far.)  So in a way it has become a kind of icon of the divine.
   The two lizards, whom I want to hug and kiss they are so cute, are probably less adaptable.  The traditional range of geckos in the East is right around the Gulf Coast, and all Florida to the Atlantic.  The traditional range of anoles is larger, but still restricted to the Southeast, not further North than North Carolina, or further West than eastern Texas.
   So, since you are obviously trying to make a startling (and extremely important!) point, I shall guess: Suburban DC?

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3. 

   atreyger Posted 3:26 pm
   02 May 2006

   nice call to armsBut is that really the reason for why we should care about biodiversity? I mean, that reason is being phased out by most biodiversity proponents, present company excluded. One of the more important reasons is the specialization and redundancy that biod provides, thereby maximizing ecosystem processes and services. I could write a hell of a lot more but it's late.

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4. 

   Mauichris Posted 5:03 pm
   02 May 2006

   HawaiiIf that cockroach can fly you took the pics in Hawaii. I know we have all three of those pictured there, although the gecko looks different. Those giant flying cockroaches are annoying and most likely come out of some bad sci-fi movie.
   Invasive species are a real problem here in Hawaii. Especially since 1/4th of the endagered species listed in the US are from Hawaii.
   That's why you shouldn't bring any produce, plants or animals with you.
   
   

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5. 

   Biodiversivist Posted 6:21 pm
   02 May 2006

   Day geckos are native to Madagascar.The roach can fly and is also native to Africa... but the Green Anole is native to North America. My teenage daughter recorded over today's pictures or I would have posted some more clues. Maybe tomorrow.
    
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

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6. 

   caniscandida Posted 7:02 pm
   02 May 2006

   the gecko clinches it for:Hawaii!  (Or so we tentatively believe, until we can check the answers at the back of the book.)  The anole is apparently the good ol' green anole, native to the SE USA, rather easily captured and raised in captivity, and so distributed to all sorts of places, where of course many of its kind can escape or be released.  So it tells us nothing about where this location is.  
   The cockroach can be pretty much anywhere, too.  Size is irrelevant; palmetto bugs are that big, such as the one that hangs out in our livingroom.  Flight is irrelevant; I have observed a less welcome palmetto bug flying through our house, when it believed (quite reasonably) that it was being pursued.
   In Bio-D's daughter's friend, note the divided reddish stripe above the wings, and the reddish coloring at the end of the abdomen.  And the relatively smooth hind legs, without large hooks.  An expert in Blattidae should easily be able to tell the species.  I am not such an expert.  No doubt the identification of the species should give us a hint about where the dear thing is posing for its photo op.  But given the transportability of bugs like this, we should not be surprised wherever in the world it turns up.
   The trees are what should have told me before that guessing suburban DC was really crazy.  I am afraid I did not look at them seriously.  Oblique, smooth trunk: definitely like nothing in
   
   the mid-Atlantic US.  Could be a palm tree, no?
   (And in that connexion, we were told, twice in the same NY Times article, on Sunday, that Keith Richards, renowned dinosaur guitarist with one of rock's very greatest bands, "fell out of" a palm tree, while doing something no doubt quite impressive, on Fiji, and has ended up, poor dear, with a mild concussion, in a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.  I have no difficulty believing that Richards might have been monkeying around in a palm tree.  But I have grave difficulties with the expression "fell out of" -- a palm tree is not an oak or a maple or a sycamore, with lots of branches surrounding anybody who climbs into it, which thick leafage one might very well "fall out of"; but palm trees have only those frondy things at the very top, and that is all.  You can indeed fall "down from" a palm tree, when at the age of 62 you are foolishly trying to reach a coconut; but you could never call that, "falling out of" it.)
   The gecko is probably the "broad-tailed day gecko," Phelsuma laticauda, native to Madagascar, but well established in Hawaii.
   So Hawaii looks like the best choice (for now).  The adorable cockroach and the shy anole are irrelevant.  The trees are somewhat more helpful.  And the gecko is most helpful of all.
   And if you are in Hawaii, see if you can find any of those invasive brown snakes, "brown vine snakes" I think they are called, Oxybelis aeneus, which are getting into many of the Pacific islands and eating up the birds.  Stomp on them, you have my permission, so long as you do it quickly.  At the beginning of Mel Gibson's strange movie "Passion of the Christ," Jesus Christ finishes praying in the Garden, and sees a rather pretty pale little boa, coming towards him across the earth, and stomps it to death -- and I knew at that moment I was not going to enjoy this movie.  Which turned out to be quite true.  Nevertheless, see what you can do about the brown vine snakes in Hawaii.

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7. 

   echopr Posted 1:38 am
   09 May 2006

   Madagascar Day GeckoMore than likely these were taken in the Florida Keys. (possibly dade county Miami)  

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