Kai's research thread/caddisfly geekout

[LMNO]

Congrats, Kai.

How excited are you?

[Kai]

Longshot question:

Are you familliar with Elise Craddock? She's a horrible old Australian woman who taught my intro to bio class, and considers herself a Big Deal in entomological circles. Apparently discovered some species of hawaiian fly.

No, I haven't heard of her. From the hits that come up on Google Scholar, it looks like she works with Hawaiian Drosophila, something I have little interest in.

Usually, when people talk big about themselves they are not all that important, in entomology anyway. So shes discovered a species of Hawaiian Drosophila? My adviser has described probably over 100 species of insects and has had 14 named after him by other people, and yet he doesn't boast about it. Theres a woman here in the southeast that knows more about the beetle fauna of the area than any other person, written several large books with good keys, yet she has never had a biology course in her life and has never received a degree in entomology, or been published in an academic journal. Shes very humble about it. I think she should receive an honorary doctorate for her work, but what do I know, I'm just a lowly unpublished graduate student.

[Cramulus]

  troof. Well I'm glad you haven't heard of her because I hated that woman.

She only taught upper level bio classes until she was forced to teach something freshman level, which she did with a marked tone of disgust. Her class was fast-paced and unforgivingone of the roughest classes I took in college - prior to the final, the average grade in the class was a 60-something. It was first sememster Freshman year - and she seriously made me consider dropping out of college.

Anyway, congrats on the discovery! That's gotta be so exciting to be squinting at something nobody's ever squinted at before.

[Kai]

Congrats, Kai.

How excited are you?

I've been seeing the terminalia (the terminal abdominal appendages, including external genetalia (Yes, caddisfly penis)) all night, I can picture it clearly, and in a bit I am going to go in and check the cleared abdomen. I'm extremely excited, I mean, there comes a time in an entomologist's life when they describe their first species. I used to think it would never happen to me, but man...

I mean, the naming alone. Even if it isn't named after me, it will still have my name attached to it as the author, so it will be Ceraclea sudaruensis Surname. Then I get to describe it formally, say why its different than others, draw relevant pictures, and publish, I get to be published in a journal.

When this is confirmed, I will indicate here. If I find more species in the batch (likely!) I will put them here too.

[Kai]

troof. Well I'm glad you haven't heard of her because I hated that woman.

She only taught upper level bio classes until she was forced to teach something freshman level, which she did with a marked tone of disgust. Her class was fast-paced and unforgivingone of the roughest classes I took in college - prior to the final, the average grade in the class was a 60-something. It was first sememster Freshman year - and she seriously made me consider dropping out of college.

Anyway, congrats on the discovery! That's gotta be so exciting to be squinting at something nobody's ever squinted at before.

Yeah, its pretty exiting to walk around the lab thinking "I've got a new holotype right here in my hands, a novem nominem, oh TEH POWA!" Or something like that. Its not just squinting either, the species is of moderate size as far as caddisflies go.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Awesome!

So is it a completely new species or subspecies? I can never keep the two clearly separate in my head.

[Vene]

troof. Well I'm glad you haven't heard of her because I hated that woman.

She only taught upper level bio classes until she was forced to teach something freshman level, which she did with a marked tone of disgust. Her class was fast-paced and unforgivingone of the roughest classes I took in college - prior to the final, the average grade in the class was a 60-something. It was first sememster Freshman year - and she seriously made me consider dropping out of college.

Anyway, congrats on the discovery! That's gotta be so exciting to be squinting at something nobody's ever squinted at before.

Yeah, its pretty exiting to walk around the lab thinking "I've got a new holotype right here in my hands, a novem nominem, oh TEH POWA!" Or something like that. Its not just squinting either, the species is of moderate size as far as caddisflies go.

I never knew caddisflies had penises so large.

I've been seeing the terminalia (the terminal abdominal appendages, including external genetalia (Yes, caddisfly penis)) all night, I can picture it clearly, and in a bit I am going to go in and check the cleared abdomen. I'm extremely excited, I mean, there comes a time in an entomologist's life when they describe their first species. I used to think it would never happen to me, but man...

In all seriousness, cool discovery, here's hoping you find a lot more.

[Kai]

UPDATE: The organism is actually some sort of Parasetodes. Its in the same family, and its still possible its a new species, but its not a Ceraclea.

Also, I am hating with vile vile hatred this translation of the african key right now.

Edit: ALSO also, the whole fucking thing seems like a waste of time. I took this project on because I thought it would be fun, but these samples are 25 years old, the key is shit, I've got other things to do and in a couple weeks my adviser isn't even gonna be around to help me. Not that he seems like he wants to anyway. Why the FUCK can't we just send these vials back to bloody England, why is it that they have to be identified first? I don't know what any of the reasons are, what any of the RULES are, and I don't want to be working on this just because some dumb shit took them out on loan 25 years ago and never thought to finish them.

Okay, okay. Back up here a sec. I need to think about this more reasonably.


If these samples have been out for 25 years, then that means no one has found anything particularly pressing about returning them. If it was of maximum importance (really, maximum) the adviser would have done it years ago. No one is working on these samples. No one was working on them when I first started working on them. Which means, whats the deadline? If I didn't start working on them, they would have just sat there until someone else came along so....essentially....there is no deadline. If no one was willing to work on them before I picked them up as a "hobby", then if I drop them again cause I don't have time, then there is no one who's telling me how to work them. In essence, no one can tell me what to do with these, I could stop working with them at any time. I have nothing particularly pressing that is the result of them being returned. There is a PhD student in the lab who needs to take a loan out from the London Museum, and can't until these are returned. Thats why I started working with them in the first place, I thought it would be a fun thing to do and make a friend-for-life. However, as shitty as her life is going right now, if she really felt that it was pressing in the worst way, she would work on them. So....I take my time. If someone pushes me to go faster, I ask them if I'm getting payed, and if not, what would happen if I don't work on them, the answer being "they would set in the vial room for possibly years until someone else came along with the motivation to work on them. So she doesn't get the specimens she needs. Its not my place or life to solve other peoples problems, and its not my job unless I'm getting payed to do it. There also have been no groundrules set for how far in I have to identify these before they get sent back. "As far as you can take them" is NOT a good answer. Note: need to talk to adviser about setting clear lines for what constitutes a conclusion to this project that the British Museum would accept. I also don't know how the specimens need to be handled, or what type of vials they need to go in when I separate them, or if there are any vial trays I can use so I can organize and store as I go. I need to find something comfortable I can sit on to extend my height while I am sitting so I can look into the scope more easily instead of craning my neck. I need to get something to cover the desk so that every time I drop alcohol on it, it doesn't turn the paint (its an old old desk) into a tacky mess. And I need to figure out better characters for this key. As it is right now, its horrible, it uses spur numbers and half the time you are missing legs and spurs and maybe even maxillary palps, most certainly at least SOME antennal segments (note: maybe use Wiggins' key and its setal wart characters to suppliment?). At least figure out what the word corbe means for fucks sake.



tl;dr = internal reconsideration, review, listmaking, rambling, notetaking and outcome visualization.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, I haven't heard of her. From the hits that come up on Google Scholar, it looks like she works with Hawaiian Drosophila, something I have little interest in.

Usually, when people talk big about themselves they are not all that important, in entomology anyway. So shes discovered a species of Hawaiian Drosophila? My adviser has described probably over 100 species of insects and has had 14 named after him by other people, and yet he doesn't boast about it. Theres a woman here in the southeast that knows more about the beetle fauna of the area than any other person, written several large books with good keys, yet she has never had a biology course in her life and has never received a degree in entomology, or been published in an academic journal. Shes very humble about it. I think she should receive an honorary doctorate for her work, but what do I know, I'm just a lowly unpublished graduate student.

Kai, this is stunningly relevant to another discussion I'm having elsewhere. Would you mind if I quoted you?

[Kai]

No, I haven't heard of her. From the hits that come up on Google Scholar, it looks like she works with Hawaiian Drosophila, something I have little interest in.

Usually, when people talk big about themselves they are not all that important, in entomology anyway. So shes discovered a species of Hawaiian Drosophila? My adviser has described probably over 100 species of insects and has had 14 named after him by other people, and yet he doesn't boast about it. Theres a woman here in the southeast that knows more about the beetle fauna of the area than any other person, written several large books with good keys, yet she has never had a biology course in her life and has never received a degree in entomology, or been published in an academic journal. Shes very humble about it. I think she should receive an honorary doctorate for her work, but what do I know, I'm just a lowly unpublished graduate student.

Kai, this is stunningly relevant to another discussion I'm having elsewhere. Would you mind if I quoted you?

Of course not. Everything I write here is Kopyleft, as long as there is attribution. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

THANK YOU!

[Kai]

So, update from yesterday (hope this shit doesn't start turning out to be a research Live Journal).

I looked at the four other species of Parasetodes from Africa, and compared them to the one I had. I can make a rather strong case that this organism is a species new to science now. Question is, with all my work on my thesis and no funding to go beyond 2 years in a masters program, do I really have time for this?

I was sitting at the bar last night scribbling away on note cards, some options (pre-intoxication; by the time I had a drink and a half in me I was more or less done writing for the night):

1) Do my thesis on Cheumatopsyche. Drop the Nigerian caddisfly project completely, including n. sp. Parasetodes digitalis (probably what I'm going to call it if I do it). Reason: I should be gearing up to do my research proposal but instead I've been working on this side project. Even if it is a new species, it takes time to describe, make drawings, write the paper and publish. I don't know if I have that time. I don't have the funds to be here for 5 years right now either.

2) Same as above, except keep the new species project going. Reason: I want to get published, and I want to describe a new species. I might have the time to do that. It is possibly fesable I could publish on a new species and work on my thesis at once.

3) Drop the Cheumatopsyche thesis project. Somehow adapt this side project with Nigerian caddisflies into a thesis project. Reason: I'm having fun with this side project. Conversely, there are some days I wonder if I am a total fool for taking on this Cheumatopsyche project as a thesis, if its too much work, or if its just a darn fool idea because everyone else who has worked on it has failed to produce significant outcome. In the Nigerian caddisfly project, I have a new species ready to be described, I'm working on a current key to the African families of caddisflies, and there is no reason I couldn't do genera as well. There are also interesting possibilities just for publishing on records of caddisflies from Nigeria, a place that has little to no information on caddisfly fauna. There may be more novum nominem in the specimen vials and I just have to find them.

4) Somehow do both projects. Reason: If I could get funding, to live and pay for classes, I would LOVE to stay a masters student for 5 years and do both of these. It would be amazing to do so. However, right now I have nothing, no funding, no money. I am living on loans. If I can't get funding I am going to have to choose.

Those are my options, providing I stay in the masters program and no other interesting, significant projects come up.

[Vene]

Do you think that you could write a thesis on the discovery of a new species?  I honestly don't know how much work that would require.

I don't know about anybody else here, but I happen like reading about your research, even if it does turn into a livejournal type thing.

[Kai]

No, I couldn't turn the discovery of one species into a thesis.

I could, however, turn a thesis from records of Nigerian caddisflies, with new species descriptions and an updated key to the Afrotropical families of caddisflies.

[sungoldysue]

There are too many "Proffessionals" that have their parents pay for their education for them to have a name nailed to their door to give us a name as to what's wrong with us.  If you asked me ( and you probably wouldn't)  most people that have a mental illness have just had a really bad time in life over the last few years and they respond with the the only way that they know how ... primordial instincts.  Don't push me and I won't push you.  This hasn't worked for so long ... but why shouldn't it work.  This planet has been evolving for over 150,000,000 years and the rest, and is still evolving... Can't we connect on a spiritual level and feel the vibe without all the shit that is happening in front of us so that we feel that we are malformed or we have something wrong with us.  WE ARE THE FUTURE but we have to be very careful as to what we do to to create this new world.