Vampire moth help
Hi all,
Gearing up for my evolution course, I need a semi-simple and hopefully interesting or even fun article on phylogeny and its uses. I have vague memories from undergrad 12 years ago of a neat discussion of the origin of blood-sucking behavior in moths in just such a context but have had no luck finding it. Another example I know of (which I also can't find) is the origin of color vision pigments in primates. Anyone have access to these (or other) articles/book sections that would fit this bill. I would also love a nice reading on evolutionary transition in a group (such as whales reentering the water and that physical transformation). I don't seem to be keyed into how to find less-technical, interesting, undergrad-level readings!
Thanks!
8 comments:
Hi TT, I'm not sure of the study you're thinking of, but a woman named Jennifer Zaspel did fantastic phlylogenetic work on blood-sucking moths for her PhD in the past few years. I'd imagine it is published by now, but don't have a citation for you.
Hi TT,
For a really great read on the transition of whales, try "At the Water's Edge : Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea" by Carl Zimmer. I can't recommend the book highly enough.
I so love how nerdy we are!
TT- I have no good sources for you but am excited to learn that vampire moths exist!
So I love the PBS series on Evolution. They were 1 hour episodes and they also have teaching clips. Also, the National Geographic Article "Was Darwin Wrong?" from Nov 2004 is great. I have my students read Jerry Coyne's article "The Faith that dare not speak it's name" from the New Republic. I'm also using Into the Jungle this year which I liked and hope the students do too.
Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. I got a great whale evolution article from Brian Beatty and I have At the Water's Edge on order. I'm also going to use the "Ears" chapter in 'Your Inner Fish." I did get in touch with Jennifer. Surprisingly, she gave me no refs on the moths, but a great article on oropendulas that uses phylogeny to trace character evolution. I did track down the vampire moth thing I remembered (they do pierce skin to drink blood, but I may have made up the name). Turns out it was only a hypothetical example in an early edition of a behavior text book that did give real examples of species that drink blood, tears, fruit juice, etc). Not a great example for an evolution class, but it did stick in my memory. It's rinky-dink but interesting as an explanation of how evolution could happen using a kind of cool example, and written in a fun way. I'd be happy to send it to anyone who wanted a copy...
Update: Jennifer Zaspel has submitted her dissertation work, but not had it accepted yet. I'm on her reprint list for whenever it comes out. Such a neato topic!
I've used several things from the Berkely Understanding Evolution page http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/phylogenetics_02
Other overall great things are the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at Buffalo
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html
and BioEd On line
http://www.bioedonline.org/
and Action Bioscience are cool
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/futuyma.html#educatorresources
Oh, I've done several of the exercises at http://www.phylo.org/sub_sections/outreach/outreach_c
and they are wonderful.
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