No, that’s not a giant black mosquito. The Ptychopteridae family, (phantom crane flies), are a small family of Nemotocera (“longhorned flies”) related to mosquitos, true crane flies and blackflies. A common North American species, Bittacomorpha clavipes, is found east of the Rocky Mountains. Continue reading “79/150: Flying, with its legs! – The Phantom Crane fly”
The European green crab is an invasive species from the North Atlantic coast of Europe and North Africa, first found in Canadian waters in 1951 in New Brunswick and has since spread all over Atlantic Canada. It is a part of the order Decapoda which include more than 8,000 species of crustaceans including shrimp, lobsters, crayfish, hermit crabs and crabs. Continue reading “19/150: Invasive Species Awareness on Crab Appreciation Day”
Hi everyone!
As some of you may know, we here at BIO spend a great deal of our field work sampling in Canada’s beautiful National Parks. In fact, from 2012 to 2014, BIO and Parks Canada partnered up to complete a massive national barcoding project that aimed to map out the country’s arthropod biodiversity: the Canadian National Parks (CNP) Malaise Program. I spent a lot of time planning, organizing, and coordinating this project and am thrilled to finally have results! Continue reading “DNA barcoding and Malaise traps capture the remarkable diversity in Canada’s National Parks”
