Are You Cool Enough for a Superfamily?

Superfamilies. The answer is yes! As an ape, you are a card-carrying member of the superfamily Hominoidea. Taxonomy classifies all living beings from three domains of life through 8 different levels to the most specific final categories of genus and species. At times, eight levels just aren’t enough to properly group. When this occurs, we […]

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The Mosquito Has a Smile Like No Other

How do you pronounce “proboscis?” One of my favorite teachers, a forensic entomologist, held a pet peeve for pronouncing the mosquito’s mouthparts as “pro-baa-skus (prəˈbɑːskɪs)” instead of “pro-baa-sis” (prəˈbɑːsɪs). She would remind everyone we study “Science,” not “Sky-unce.” Long before I learned about this controversy, I remember stabbing my juice box with my dinosaur-mosquito mouthpart […]

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A Tale of Two Mosquitoes

Ah, spring.  It is the best of times, it is the worst of mosquitoes.  It is the season of light, it is the season of disease.  While Dickens described the French Reign of Terror, we will discuss the mosquito Reign of Terror organizing in your backyard. Every good story needs an antagonist.  Ours is the […]

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