The Drama of Pollinators

When we last lived in Louisiana , I began to pay attention to pollinators, taking photos of what tiny creatures inhabited or visited my mountain mint or aster patch. I really enjoyed stalking bees and butterflies in my garden, and the pollinators were prolific. Here in Arizona, I have noticed fewer pollinators, maybe because I have been paying more attention to planting than to those visiting the plants, as the yard and gardens of the place we bought had been neglected. But soon after we moved into our home--before I got busy with picking up trash, re-purposing what was left behind by the previous owners, and weeding the flower beds and garden area that had been abandoned--I took some photos of pollinators that visited the surviving plants of a gardener two owners back, someone who had lovingly planted daisies, echinacea, daylilies, hollyhocks, roses, Russian sage, lamb's ear, garlic chives. 

The following are photos I took last year, not long after we moved into our new home at 7200 feet above sea level near the White Mountains of Arizona. This year I have been too busy cleaning up the yard and garden, experimenting with what will grow in a climate that gets about 10 inches of rain annually (as compared to the annual average of 60 inches of rain in Louisiana, where we lived 35 ft. above sea level) to pay as much attention to the visitors to my plants. Next year, with a new camera and macro lens, perhaps I'll have more time to return to watching the pollinators I have come to love.

It's easy, though, to overlook the tiny creatures that visit flowers, but when the flowers of our vegetables and fruit fail to produce, we start paying attention. We need these little creatures. And so I am hoping that some pollinator will find attractive the flowers of the Armenian cucumber plants that I planted in our Arizona garden this year. 

This crab spider and fly faced off on a daisy (July 2015, Apache County, AZ)

The encounter didn't end well.

And a bee encounter with a crab spider doesn't end well, either.

I haven't forgotten the wonder and drama of the lives of pollinators.

Finding Fossils: Where Academic Research, Citizen Science, and Commercial Fossil Hunting Intersect

In Springerville, Arizona, near where I now live, is a small dinosaur museum with academic connections and big dreams founded by paleontologist Douglas Wolfe and his wife Hazel --the White Mountain Dinosaur Exploration Center. After experiencing the rich geological history of the area in which I now live and then visiting the dinosaur museum and meeting Doug and Hazel, I have become more interested in paleontology, particularly as it connects with citizen science. Then, this morning I came across a recent article in an online news source in Montana, Last Best News, for which one of my old friends writes: "Fossil Hunter Nate Murphy back in the news." Author Ed Kemmick links to several articles about Nate Murphy, a commercial fossil hunter in Montana who has a somewhat shady reputation. One of the problems of any honest fossil hunter or paleontologist is being able to protect fossil-rich areas from exploitation and vandalism. I think of the Petrified Forest National Park near where I live, and the problems with people picking up pieces of petrified wood. Or the fossil shops in Montana where one can purchase slabs of rock with the imprints of ancient marine animals. So I started thinking of how citizen science, paleontological research, and commercial fossil hunting intersect and decided to begin reading more about the subjects. On this page,  I am listing links for my own purposes, to have a place on my blog on which to update what I discover about the intersections (or not) between citizen science, academic science, and commercial, for-profit, fossil hunting.

Public Library of Science: PLOS
One of the stumbling blocks to citizen science (or to any non-expert person interested in exploring topics in science) and even to scientists researching and publishing in their own area of expertise is the pay wall of science publications. PLOS, the Public Library of Science, is attempting to remove that stumbling block by making research accessible through Open Access publication.

PLOS was founded to catalyze a revolution in scientific publishing by providing a compelling demonstration of the value and feasibility of Open Access.

Innovation is an open revolution in progress. What began as a ripple with the goal to make research accessible and free has propagated into a current of Open Access – and now Open Science – moving through the scientific community to provide millions of readers around the world increasing opportunities to make important, positive impacts on global health, scientific discovery, policy and education. (link: https://www.plos.org/innovation)

And PLOS does have a blog for the paleo community: http://blogs.plos.org/paleocomm/

Citizen Science in Paleontology 

White Mountain Dinosaur Exploration Center
Founders: Doug and Hazel Wolfe
link: http://www.whitemountaindino.com/

"Father and Son Discover New Dinosaur." Matt Mygatt. Los Angeles Times. September 7, 1997. link: http://articles.latimes.com/1997/sep/07/local/me-29648

"Zuniceratops christopheri: The North America Ceratopsid Sister Taxon Reconstructed on the Basis of New Data." Douglas G. Wolfe, James I. Kirkland, David Smith, Karen Poole, Brenda Chinnery-Allgeier, and Andrew McDonald.  Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems, 1998. Published also in  New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium.
eds., Michael J. Ryan, Brenda Chinnery-Allgeier, David A. Eberth. Indiana University Press, 2010.  Available online at Academia.edu: 
https://www.academia.edu/3977069/Zuniceratops_christopheri_n._gen._and_n._sp._a_ceratopsian_dinosaur_from_the_Moreno_Hill_Formation_Cretaceous_Turonian_of_west-central_New_Mexico

"The Creature from the Zuni Lagoon." Heather Pringle, Grant Delin. Discover. August 1, 2001. link: http://discovermagazine.com/2001/aug/featzuni

"New Dinosaur Species Found." Wired. June 18, 2001. link: http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2001/06/44599

"On a Hadrosauromorph (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) From the Moreno Hill Formation (Cretaceous, Turonian) of New Mexico." Andew McDonald, Douglas G. Wolfe, and James Kirkland. Late Cretaceous Vertebrates from the Western Interior: Bulletin 35. Eds. Spencer G. Lucas, Robert M. Sullivan. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. January 1, 2006. Online at Google Books.

"Zuni Basin Paleontological Project." Arizona Museum of Natural History. link: http://arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org/for-educators/paleontology/zuni-basin-paleontological-project

"New Mexico's Peculiar, Two-Horned Dinosaur." Brian Switek. Smithsonian.com. October 18, 2011. link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-mexicos-peculiar-two-horned-dinosaur-110896440/

"Zuniceratops." Wikipedia. Updated 5 July 2016. 
 link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuniceratops

Commercial Fossil Hunting 

Nate Murphy
Judith River Dinosaur Institute: http://www.montanadinosaurdigs.com/

"Is Nate Murphy Holding a Dinosaur for Ransom?" Jacqueline Ronson, for Inverse, July 5, 2016. link: https://www.inverse.com/article/17806-sauropod-dinosaur-discovery-montana-fossil-hunter-paleontology-nate-murphy

"Discovery and Deception: Spectacular Finds, Criminal Charges." Ed Kemmick. The Billings Gazette. May 3, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-spectacular-finds-criminal-charges/article_3135e99b-7c7e-51a7-a7f0-975d770ad079.html

"Discovery and Deception: Bones unearthed, deceit discovered." Ed Kemmick. The Billings Gazette. May 4, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-bones-unearthed-deceit-discovered/article_f6e549dc-669b-58ce-b349-9b86d50e54ef.html

"Discovery and Deception: Raptor finds, turtle tales." Ed Kemmick. The Billings Gazette, May 5, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-raptor-finds-turtle-tales/article_f1eb1737-1f74-5a12-a2a6-5bebc946d43e.html

"Discovery and Deception: A bogus bio, a derailed career." Ed Kemmick.  The Billings Gazette. May 6, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-a-bogus-bio-a-derailed-career/article_01c0dcb8-57e2-5fd1-9775-d04304a07407.html

to be updated

One Year Later in Arizona

It's been a year since I last wrote a post for this blog. I've spent the year learning more about the area where I live and creating living and gardening spaces at my new home. My husband and I are learning to garden in an area that's 7200 feet above sea level and that has an annual rainfall of 10-12 inches, quite a change from our home in Louisiana, which was 35 feet above sea level and had an average annual rainfall of 60 inches. Over the past year, we have built a chicken house, taken down a fence that divided our backyard, built a greenhouse out of the framework of an old chicken house, picked up trash and debris left by former owners, weeded and re-worked long-neglected flower beds, and got our new house in order. We've also hiked many trails in the area, with plans to hike even more. Below are a few photos that illustrate some of the outdoor work of the past year.

July 2015--The yard was full of weeds, the fruit trees
and an old garden area neglected.

July 2015--The old chicken house and yard were ramshackle and dirty.

old hen house and yard

August 2015--new chicken house and yard--Tom built the chicken house and yard; I painted it.

The previous owners cross-fenced the backyard for their several dogs. I removed
the cross-fence to allow unimpeded traffic from the back yard to the fenced-in garden.

Tom built a greenhouse on the frame of the old chicken house.

I don't have a photo of the garden area before I cleaned it up
(lots of trash and weeds), but this is the area in Sept. 2015, after I had spaded it up.

And by June of this year, our Arizona garden was full of leaf lettuce, radishes,
tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beet plants, cucumber sprouts, basil sprouts, etc.

We are settling into our Arizona home.