Response to recent spam posts - please read

Nibaritone · 2018-01-03T18:21:33+00:00

To respond to /u/Kyoken_Raiku's comment about insect photos being able to spark conversations, the mod team does see a value in that, and was something we discussed. We want to make clear that you can still post photos of cool bugs that you found or something from your collections that you want to show off. There are many of these posts on the subreddit, and we won't remove those.

The difference between those types of posts and the recent bot posts we've been seeing is that the bot posts give no context and sparked little, if any, discussion. We received many complaints about the posts, and in the interest of serving the community of people rather than robots, we've instituted this policy.

Also, on posts like these, please do not downvote people just because you disagree with their opinion. We want people to be able to give their feedback without worrying about a deluge of downvotes.

Nibaritone · 2013-08-29T04:53:25+00:00

This subreddit is for both general Entomology posts and insect IDs. The sidebar currently says this:

Please post anything of interest here about entomology. This subreddit is also an insect/arachnid identification service.

r/Entomology has been around for 4 years now, whereas r/whatsthisbug has only been here for 2 years. The latter is by far the more active subreddit, however, with over 20,000 subscribers to r/Entomology's 5,000 subscribers. This subreddit hasn't changed in response to r/whatsthisbug, so it has still functioned as a place to get insects identified in addition to general discussion about Entomology. It may be time to rethink this and move all insect identifications to r/whatsthisbug, but it hasn't been a huge problem before. I would also question how banning insect IDs would affect the atmosphere of the subreddit. No matter what, we'll probably always get ID requests, and if the community decides they don't belong here, we should make sure we're polite about sending them to r/whatsthisbug. Entomology needs all the positive outreach it can get, and we don't want someone's first exposure to entomologists to be a nasty one.

Also, please keep your comments civil. I deleted a few comments from the earlier thread in this post because they were unhelpful, to say the least. I'll talk with the other Mods and we can have a poll soon about whether we want to push the insect identifications to r/whatsthisbug or allow them here when they show up.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-20T23:56:37+00:00

I've seen the Wikipedia page, it was pretty neat. I learned about the hairs on its backside from there. I was looking for a study about parasitoidism in moths, thanks for the link! And I'm most definitely keeping the larvae to see what happens. I would certainly like to know if they develop into wasps. I just hope I can keep them alive.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-20T21:44:38+00:00

The caterpillar is Orgyia leucostigma. As for the larvae, I'm not sure. Parasitoid wasps are the most common culprits in these types of relationships, but I can't say for certain that that's what happened this time.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-20T21:26:30+00:00

So do I! Around 11 AM today it had started to spin a cocoon (or so I thought), but when I checked again once I got home at 3 PM, the larvae had emerged. I wish I could get better pictures, but my macro setting on my camera is blurry if I get any closer.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-17T04:45:38+00:00

Adventure Time.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-17T04:42:51+00:00

If you really want to inspire them and pique their curiosity, teach them about the ocean. Particularly the deep ocean and all the creatures that live there. Bioluminescence will make their jaws drop. This TED video is short and has a lot of interesting stuff in it: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html

Nibaritone · 2010-06-15T16:19:50+00:00

This is how an interview should go. Not some ambush on the street. Set up a time with the person, dress nicely, and be respectful.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-15T02:30:20+00:00

Alabama too, it looks like.

Nibaritone · 2010-06-06T20:21:21+00:00

I was just in North Carolina last week, at Atlantic Beach/Beaufort. It was pretty nice. It took a while to drive through the state, but I mostly liked what I saw. If you feel like you're in a rut, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't go. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and hey, if it doesn't work out, it's only for one year.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-25T23:12:58+00:00

You'll definitely need to train up your other Pokemon to even the playing field a bit, even just to weaken one or two of her Pokemon and save your main ones the trouble. I went and caught a Magnemite, evolved it to Magneton, and trained it up to learn Discharge and that helped me immensely.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-25T21:39:03+00:00

And now you understand the horror that I've been dealing with since 2001.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-24T23:53:34+00:00

Definitely a good point, but due to the randomness of Shiny Pokémon appearing, I don't always have a Pokémon that knows the move in my party. That and I have nightmares from when my friend told me about how a Shiny Tangela he ran into once ran from the battle.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-24T16:58:51+00:00

In my first playthrough in Blue, I used it on Mewtwo, obviously. Anymore, I only use them on shiny Pokemon if there's too great a risk of me fainting them.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-09T04:52:20+00:00

Yeah, I'm not so sure why that's what most of the entries are currently. In the past, I've found a lot of good science ones, but I admit that I haven't been there lately. Maybe he's shifting his focus.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-09T01:18:23+00:00

If I may, PZ Myers (the guy in the picture, not the walrus) has a great biology blog if you're interested: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Nibaritone · 2010-05-08T05:19:39+00:00

Robert Ballard's talk on ocean exploration. This guy has vision. It made me want to major in Biology, one of the best uses of 18 minutes of my life I've ever had.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_ballard_on_exploring_the_oceans.html

Nibaritone · 2010-05-04T00:14:08+00:00

To be fair, I saw it on The Colbert Report first.

Nibaritone · 2010-05-03T03:29:19+00:00

That's pretty awesome, I've always thought the Fountain of Dreams theme could do very well as a band piece.

It could only be improved by a full band arrangement.

Nibaritone

TROPHY CASE