So much of what goes on in the insect world would make brilliant fodder for bad horror movies.

These incredibly tiny parasitic wasps

emerge from the mummified remains of a caterpillar.

That’s right, they all wiggle out of those little holes.  Sam Raimi’s got nothing on evolution.

Since all of the Gypsy moth caterpillars from the greenhouse experiment are now dead or pupated, I’ve been organizing things.  First I took all of the emerged moths out of the freezer and put them into little glass vials.

Obviously they’re all dead - the ones that say “dead” are the ones that didn’t make it to adulthood, but died along the way.  Now I’m working on organizing the lab’s parasitoid collection (hence the horror movie intro).  I’m taking this

and turning it into this

which entails dividing into species and then subdividing into gender, and finally subdividing once more into host groups. A large part of this work had previously been done, and then partially undone in the effort to identify species and subspecies, so it’s not as though I just have a jumble of random wasps to work with.  I’d have offed myself by now.

All of this seems particularly appropriate right now with the wasp bloom we’re experiencing in Toronto this summer.

This thing is freaking cool.

I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s better than a lava lamp, and I want one in my living  room.  It’s in one of the labs with the freeze dryers and centrifuges, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it.

In other news, I finally managed to make something on the wheel in pottery! Okay, there was that one cup thing a few months ago, but it’s way too small to be useful.  Tonight I made 3 bowls! Actually I made 4 bowls and a cup, but one of the bowls collapsed when I tried to knife the bottom, and the cup was too thin and would have cracked during firing.  I present to you my new cereal bowls:

I also picked up a bowl that I glazed last week which may yet become a christmas gift, so I don’t want to post it, and Mom’s birthday present is finally finished.  I’ll post that before the end of September, but I don’t her to stumble across it and ruin the surprise.

No, not an emo post.

Today I finished putting all the gypsy moths in individual bottles, and of course had to dispose of the empty pupa shells:

Looks tasty, doesn’t it?

I also took some shots of one of the nicer shells, from a large female:

And her final molt:

I like that you can see the split in the head where she wriggled out.

Monday! Time to quit slacking.
Spent a few hours at the greenhouse, grinding poplar leaf samples, then preparing oak leaf samples for freeze-drying.
Saw a cute bug and let him crawl all over me before letting him loose in the lab. Pictures of him will follow at a late date, because I took them with the proper camera rather than the iPhone.
Watched some guys do roadwork.
Ate a huge yummy sandwich. Brie, ham, caramelized onions, granny apple slices on focaccia.
Going to see Moon with Jonathan. Yay!

Pictures all in a jumbled heap: