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Ok I love phylogenetics so I'm just going to come in and say it:
The name of the game is arbitrary.
Phylogenetics is one of those things that gets weird if you think about it too much, because you quickly discover that where we draw classification lines... doesn't always mean that much. It's all a little arbitrary.
Why? Well, lets start unreasonably broad, because it's 3am and I feel like it: LUCA. The Last Universal Common Ancestor. Everything alive, from bacteria to humans, are descended from this one thing (I have feelings about viruses not being considered alive but that's a different conversation).
So. We're all living things. But, after a while, living things diversify, and get specific, and, for ease and because humans LOVE categorizing, we start lumping things together and splitting things apart into groups.
Here's the problem with this entire argument of "are ants are wasps". There... kind of isn't a right answer. This is a debated topic, and as of yet we don't actually have a "correct" answer.
I can sense you frowning, and thinking to yourself "yes there is! Monoohyletic groups are the only valid classifications!" But seriously. My masters degree had a whole thing with hymenopterans and phylogeny and such, and it is seriously, truly debated how to best classify paraphyletic groups, bc say what you want, they're useful.
The monophyletic group argument, which is the crux of your "ants are wasps" argument, sounds really good at first, and looks really good on paper, but I take some issue with it. Why? Because of something you touched on before: Fish.
All tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds) are descended from fish. This is a fact. So, following the monophylogeny logic, that means that either a) all tetrapods are fish, or b) fish do not exist.
This is a funny thing, because... neither are correct. We KNOW that neither are correct. There's a group of animals that humans call "fish", and these animals exists. At the same time, calling a human a "fish" is not useful, and a little silly.
Instead, we are all vertebrates. We are all chordates. We have things in common due to our common descent, but we are different enough that different labels are warranted and useful.
Honestly, the statement that "ants are wasps" is a similar vein. Can you say that and be technically correct? Well, yes. But is it useful? Ants are hymenopterans, which is an order that includes sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. And the ancestor of Hymenoptera? Still debated. I had so many hours in Genbank and staring at bootstrapping analyses and let me tell you: it's debated. Some might even suggest that, actually, wasps do not exist, because wasps are descended from sawflies, and thus all waps are sawflies.
Of course, this is not yet certain, and other studies have suggested sawflies are a sister taxa to other hymenopterans, but it's a work in progress, and it highlights the uncertainty we often work with when trying to determine evolutionary history.
So, let's bring it back to basics: why do we categorised living things? Because it's useful.
Having fish as a category separate from frogs is useful, because trying to group them together for most perspectives (resources, conservation, sports fishing) wouldn't be useful.
Similarly, separating wasps from ants is more useful to humans than grouping them together. Ants tend to dig more tunnels, and don't pollinate as much, and can be agricultural pests OR agricultural beneficial, but usually we view them as pests. Wasps tend to fly, and tend to pollinate more, and are regarded as overwhelmingly positive for most agriculture. From a pest control perspective, we treat them differently as well. It was useful for humans to separate those two groups, so we did. Their similarities can be comfortably grouped as "hymenoptera" when needed, without the finicky nature of language (and specifically English) getting in the way. Is it arbitrary? Well, yes. But so is the difference between gastropods and cephalopods, if you think about it long enough.
Honestly, I don't personally believe that paraphyletic groups are a big deal. Or, they shouldn't be. Leaning into one specific rule too hard is always going to cause problems, because... well, there's always exceptions. And after a while, the number of exceptions makes the rule no longer useful. Especially since evolutionary history can be foggy as heck. Have you kept up with the debates about turtle evolution? It is WILD, let me tell you. However, I recognise that not everyone agrees with me on this point. It's debatable. People who do phylogenetics debate this. It is currently being debated.
Polyphyletic groups, on the other hand? Evil, pure evil. The family Crabronidae continues to haunt me, as it is both fake and untrustworthy.
I recently learned that ants and wasps are closely related to each other, which makes sense why I was having some trouble telling them apart in photos sometimes. So, if I were to look at a photo of a random winged ant or a wasp, what features are there to help tell them apart? (Also! Thank you for your blog! It's delightful!!)
Thanks! The thing is you CAN’T tell the difference between ants and wasps because ants ARE wasps. It’s like asking what the difference is between a human and a primate! Ants are wasps that are in the wasp family formicidae. They are simply highly specialized for living underground in true social groups (eusocial). There are other wingless wasp families as well, most well known is the family mutillidae, the velvet ants, or cow killers. velvet ants are not ants, but are only named that for their similar appearance.
As for how to differentiate them from other wasps, I’m sorry to say that there isn’t really a one size fits all feature because wasps are an incredibly diverse group that comes in all shapes and sizes and lifestyles, but two things that you can watch out for are 1. elbowed antennae, and 2. petiole with a bump or two.
Here’s another wingless wasp from the family bethylidae. If you showed this to me I would probably even assume it’s a weird ant.
x
One thing, according to bugguide, that differentiates ants from other wingless wasps is that ants have bent antennae, or often called “elbowed.” Plenty of winged wasps have elbowed antennae too so watch for that.
Another thing you can look at is the petiole, which is simply put, the thing that attaches the abdomen to the thorax. All wasps have a petiole, but ants have a petiole that tends to have bumps
x x
instead of being slender tubes or just a narrow “waist” like in other wasps
x x
Even that can be iffy as an identifier though, sometimes the petiole in ants is hidden!
By the way, bees are ALSO wasps. There are six families of wasp we consider to be bees: the andrenidae, apidae, colletidae halictidae, megachilidae, and mellitidae. Bees are vegetarian wasps who decided to get their protein from pollen instead of eating other insects or flesh. Pollen is much easier to collect if you are fuzzy :)
#phylogenetics#i love categorising stuff#but yeah its all arbitrary#even species differences sometimes#when two flies are indistinguishable except for genetics#and COULD interbreed except for like 1 week of temporal separation#then should that be one species or two?#i hate that the answer to that is 🤷#also i apologise if i fucked up any factoids#again it is 3am#the chronic pain is keeping me awake#hopefully my memory serves but it turns out im a human#or am i a fish?#meh i can be both
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to be fair, countershading also appears in predator species, and also in response to protection from the sun’s UV rays. Plus, camouflage has more applications than just anti-predator (i’m looking at you, owls-who-hide-from-songbirds)
but yeah Eons did an AMAZING video on this guy!
“We don’t just have a skeleton,” said one of the nodosaur researchers involved. “We have a dinosaur as it would have been.”
Known as a nodosaur, this 110 million-year-old, armored plant-eater is the best preserved fossil of its kind ever found.
Source | Source
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Me and my thesis supervisor emailing each other
“why are you awake at three in the morning” asks the person who is also awake at three in the morning
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me, looking for the thesis proposal I submitted like 8 months ago: whiCH ONE OF YOU IS THE ACTUAL FILE
the actual file, in a completely different folder labelled “SUBMIT THIS ONE”: 😳😳😳😳
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I moved!!!
I’m at learnyouabiology.tumblr.com now!
I’m doing this bc this sideblog is connected to my shootin-the-shit blog and, due to tumblr having a confusing mobile app, i kePT GOOFING IT D:
so. uh. yeah. follow me there if you wanna i guess
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@faggotwife
but then, every now and again, I’ll see the speck, and my first thought is “who the HECK can ID a picture that blurry??????”
and my second thought is “oh wait that’s definitely a brown marmorated stink bug”
which... probably....says something about me >.>
Sometimes people will send me out-of-focus insect pictures and ask me what species they are.
Often, I can give them a ballpark estimate. "Hmm," I'll say. "Looks like some kind of syrphid fly!"
"But what SPECIES?!???" they'll ask, likely wanting that sweet, sweet specific epithet.
And that's when I have to reveal the sad truth about my job.
Some days are Bug Dick Days. On those days, I stare at bug dicks until i feel like my eyes are bleeding. Why? Because, for some species, the only way to identify the bug to species is with its copulatory organ (i.e. its dick)
THAT, my unfortunate friends, is a fly dick. It's an over-complex organ, and honestly I'm not totally sure how it works. What are all those lobes for????? I just do not know. I only know they're shape because it's the only way to identify these dang species.
My phone is FULL of pictures like these ^, because honestly even the dicks start to look the same after a while and I need some second opinions. I don't even remember what species this picture is of (its definitely a Sphaerophoria male but idk what species..... maybe S. philanthus?).
And I LOVE my job! IDing bugs is like a cool puzzle with twists and turns and an interesting conclusion! But every time someone tells me that I should be able to ID bugs to species from a blurry phone photo taken from 3m away, I lose a little more of my remaining sanity.
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:0 but WHY do they shimmy?????
I read a paper and it doesnt seem to be for mate attraction. And apparently they stop of something spooks them. And they just do it continuously as they go about their lives????
But WHY the WIGGLE???????
Full video: Tichodrome échelette - Tichodroma muraria - Wallcreeper, Ti Bob Productions
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#biology#science#stem#wild green memes#oc#biostatistics#r coding#science memes#biology memes#today's mood is: WHAT DOES CONCATINATE MEAN I FORGOT AGAIN#i have learned how to do this ~5 times now and it's always as painful as the 1st time#but like in a bad way#i love how owlturd lets people meme their comics#v chill of them#10/10#owlturd#wild green memes for ecological fiends
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me: I know how to do statistical analyses using R! Here is a list of codes I have written, and papers/ projects I have written code for!
also me:
#biology#science#stem#ADHD in STEM#r coding#biostatistics#statistics#let me die#every now and then i forget how to R
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Time for my yearly tradition of Relearning How To Do Statistics!
#biology#ecology#wild green memes for ecological fiends#wild green memes#entomology#science#stem life#adhd with stem#adhd in stem#STEM#every now and then i forget how to R#me: 'i can code in R'!#also me: 'what... does concatinate mean....'
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(context: I was at a friend’s discord birthday party, and I didn’t know anyone else who was attending)
friend, affectionately: “hey, are you still a weird bug person?”
Me: “I mean. I think the correct answer here is “no”, but also there is literally a box containing over a hundred dead insects within arms reach of me right this second, so I can’t really say that in good faith.”
everyone else, who does not know who I am or what I do: “Hi, what the fuck?????”
#science#entomology#biology#biologist mood#honestly i used to be so embarrassed about this#but lately ive been leaning into it#i am Weird Bug Friend!!!!!!#I CAN and WILL catch that spider with my bare hands and put it outside#oh you think thats weird?#sounds like a YOU problem ;)#Me: “Oh wait.” *moves box* “two boxes sorry. I forgot about the tachinids.”#im IDing bugs this week so yea there's like >1000 bugs in my room
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I know this is a shitpost but it is also basically my thesis except Im looking at flies instead of spiders
(it’s either bc they’re very hard and dont bend when you hit them, or they’re very springy and if you flatten them pretty much completely they’ll just bounce back to their original shape and be totally fine)
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another excellent mood is when a scientific name isn’t really useful (maybe bc it’s too long and convoluted to be a reasonable thing to say, or maybe bc the identification is a bit ambiguous) and there literally isn’t a common name, so you make up your own common name and then promptly forget that it isn’t used by other people because it literally only exists in your own head and/or your personal notes. So then you’ll be talking to other Science Folk and be like “yeah ive seen a bunch of orange sphere flies around here” and when they go “you’ve seen what” you have to explain that that’s what you call these lil guys:
the second funniest biologist mood is when you LEGITIMATELY forget the common name for something and all you can remember is the latin name and people look at you like “uhhh weird flex but ok” and you have to explain that no, really, I DO NOT REMEMBER WHAT NON-NERDS CALL Nigronia serricornis.
(funniest biologist mood is the same as above, but you only remember the scientific name in a vague way and then call it something kind of similar but wrong. Like, the other day I accidentally called a Sphaerophoria fly a “Sephora” and then stood there for a moment before going “ok no wait that’s definitely incorrect”)
#if anyone was wondering#this is a fly in the genus#Gymnosoma#probably#its name means naked body which is a hilarious etymology tbh#but the identification is a little bit ambiguous#like this could be a totally different genus in the tribe Gymnosini#so i just use sphere fly as a shorthand in my head/ personal notes#bc look at that spherical lil butt O.O
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the second funniest biologist mood is when you LEGITIMATELY forget the common name for something and all you can remember is the latin name and people look at you like “uhhh weird flex but ok” and you have to explain that no, really, I DO NOT REMEMBER WHAT NON-NERDS CALL Nigronia serricornis.
(funniest biologist mood is the same as above, but you only remember the scientific name in a vague way and then call it something kind of similar but wrong. Like, the other day I accidentally called a Sphaerophoria fly a “Sephora” and then stood there for a moment before going “ok no wait that’s definitely incorrect”)
#biology#insect biology#entomology#biology mood#biologist mood#naturalist#me: oh i know what that is! it's an ichneuuuuuuuuuuu *mumble mumble*-dae!#wow look at that melanoma#i MEAN MELANOMYIA#HAHA OOPS#partner: just call it a fly it's ok
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Downside to type 1: sometimes I'll do just... too much of the wrong thing.
"Hey, did you ID those 100 flies to Order?"
"No, but I did ID these 30 flies to species!"
"You... literally didn't need to do that"
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