{"id":2939,"date":"2013-10-31T15:40:11","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T19:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/?p=2939"},"modified":"2013-10-31T18:15:09","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T22:15:09","slug":"a-spooky-strepsiptera-for-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/31\/a-spooky-strepsiptera-for-halloween\/","title":{"rendered":"A Spooky Strepsiptera for Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As has become tradition in the University of Guelph Insect Systematics Lab<\/a>, when Halloween rolls around, we pull out the knives & hand tools and make a trip to the produce aisle to get ready for a new Ent-O-Lantern. This year our lab is considerably smaller than in the past (4 grad students, an enthusiastic undergrad, and a significant other), but what we lacked in sculptors, we made up for with dedication!<\/p>\n

So what was this year’s creation? Behold, a nightmare for social wasps everywhere, the Spooky Strepsiptera!<\/p>\n

\"Spooky<\/a>

Spooky Strepsiptera looking for love in all the right places — Ent-O-Lantern 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

\"That<\/a>

That pumpkin wasp doesn’t stand a chance with a strepsipteran salad hanging around — Ent-O-Lantern 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

The big male twisted-wing parasite riding atop a poor wasp’s abdomen is in search of females, who spend their lives wedged beneath the tergites of a social wasp’s abdomen, only to be consumed from the inside out by their own progeny! Yes, everything about the Strepsiptera<\/a> is nightmare fodder.<\/p>\n

Strepsiptera are also renowned for their odd wing morphology; males have a single pair of functional wings while their second pair of wings have evolved into haltere-like knobs, similar to true flies in the order Diptera. Unlike flies however, the functional wings of Strepsiptera are the hind wings, while the fore wings form the haltere-like knobs!<\/p>\n

Needless to say, there was a lot to take into consideration when putting together this pumpkin. Here’s the ingredient list and a fully lighted photo to show how it all went together.<\/p>\n

Pumpkin – carved to look like a wasp abdomen<\/p>\n

Orange Bell Peppers – female Strepsiptera poking out from under the pumpkin tergites<\/p>\n

Butternut Squash – thorax and abdomen of the male, carved with great care to show tergites & segments<\/p>\n

Sweet Potato – head<\/p>\n

Ornamental corn – compound eyes<\/p>\n

Cauliflower – filiform antennae<\/p>\n

Dried Mango Slices – maxillary palps<\/p>\n

Carrots – legs (jointed with wire)<\/p>\n

Cabbage – “twisted” functional hind wings which give this order their common name<\/p>\n

Bell Pepper stems – fore wing “halteres”<\/p>\n

\"Ent-O-Lantern<\/a>

Ent-O-Lantern 2013 Construction<\/p><\/div>\n

We just do these big creations for fun, but our department also held a pumpkin carving social event at lunch, so we washed off our tools and put together a true horror show from a single pumpkin: Frankendrosophila!<\/p>\n

Well, not really Frankendrosophila, just a Drosophila<\/em> who’s been subjected to some genetic tinkering with his Homeobox transcription genes, resulting in Antennapedia<\/a>! SCIENCE!<\/p>\n

\"Drosophila<\/a>

Drosophila Antennapedia Horror show for Ent-O-Lantern 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Antennapedia<\/a>

Antennapedia in the light — Ent-O-Lantern 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

Thanks to Meredith, Nichelle, Grace, Jordan & Steve for getting into the spirit of the season and putting together 2 awesome Ent-O-Lanterns this year!<\/p>\n

Did you carve an Ent-O-Lantern this year? Leave a link in the comments below so we can all marvel at your insect geek pride!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As has become tradition in the University of Guelph Insect Systematics Lab, when Halloween rolls around, we pull out the knives & hand tools and make a trip to the produce aisle to get ready for a new Ent-O-Lantern. This year our lab is considerably smaller than in the past (4 grad students, an enthusiastic […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,151,11],"tags":[598,275,499,86,167,166,500],"class_list":["post-2939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entomology","category-fun-stuff","category-life-as-a-grad-student","tag-diptera","tag-drosophilidae","tag-ent-o-lantern","tag-fun","tag-jack-o-lantern","tag-pumpkin","tag-strepsiptera","category-4-id","category-151-id","category-11-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2939"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2950,"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2939\/revisions\/2950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biodiversityinfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}