Tonight’s entomological challenge is for the fighting Illini. What is this orange monstrosity?
Points will be awarded as follows to the first person to correctly name:
- the structure (4 points)
- the family of arthropods to which it belongs (4 points)
- the chemicals it produces (1 point each)
The cumulative points winner for the month of February will take home their choice of 1) any 8×10-sized print from my photo galleries, or 2) a guest post here on Myrmecos.
Good luck!
Osmeterium, Papilionidae 🙂
Osmeteria from a larval member of the Papilionidae (swallowtails) butterflies. The chemical it produces are deterrent terpenes I believe…
Orange dog horns! Osmeterium, found in the family papilionidae. Looks like different genera secrete different compounds, including monoterpene hydrocarbons, Sesquiterpenes, Aliphatic Acids, and esters (Honda 1980).
Gah! I knew one for once!
When do these go up anyway?
shhhhh — it’s a secret !!! but all will be revealed if you cleverly note the times of 1st comments on a few Monday Mystery posts.
In any case, if you use the “Subscribe” to RSS feed you can get near instant notification of any post, provided you are “at” and paying attention to your computer or RSS receiving device. Some RSS feed programs/devices can even sound an alarm ! [… those sneaky programmers]
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-rss-reader-aggregator.htm
1- Osmeterium
2- Papilionidae
3- Sesquiterpenes
B-selinene
Selin-en-4a-ol
Yeah, one I actually could’ve gotten…perhaps a Black Swallowtail…maybe even this particular one getting a squeeze?
http://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Lovely-Lepidoptera/16743211_zhLRNc#!i=1471044106&k=zbZg26m
I mean this one. Hopefully that links works out better…
I think everyone answered the osmeterium of papilionidae. Is the chemical: 2-methylbutyric acid and isobutyric acid?
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