Holiday In The Hybrid Zone

[Touring Mars]

Here are some pics from a recent trip to France, where I was helping a colleague to count and collect grasshoppers in the Alps. My colleague is a professor of Evolutionary Genetics, and his research involves studying a 'hybrid zone', where two genetically distinct types of grasshopper, which have evolved from a common ancestor and which became separated during the last ice age, have met each other again in a region that cuts a swathe through the Alps near the town of Gap, France. The two types of grasshopper are now interbreeding and 'hybridising'. They are of great importance to the study of evolutionary genetics, and hopefully some high quality papers will come out of it soon... After a brief stop-over in Paris, we headed into the mountains, where we found loads of weird and wonderful bugs and creatures, as well as numerous fossils. The clear, dark night skies made for excellent stargazing opportunities too... anyway, here are some of the pics Click thumbs for larger versions - once open in Imageshack, you may have to click again to get full resolution...


An Assortment of Creatures....



Left to right: a) Cricket with red 'wings' b) Scary spiders c) Another large cricket d) A friendly lizard e) A mantis


Fossils in the Alps




Left: Presumably a fossilised impression of a plant... A Euro coin is (almost) visible for scale comparison Right: Found at an altitude of 2100 m, a rock with an imprint of an ammonite, a marine creature that became extinct in the last mass extinction, around 65 million years ago. This is good evidence to show that the land that is now the High Alps was once part of the sea-bed.... We found ammonite fossils everywhere, but couldn't bring them back because this region is a protected geologic National Park...


Mars in the Mountains (more fossils....)




Left to right: a) Pretending to have a cool vehicle, this van actually had nothing to do with us at all. b) Me capturing a pic of the hybrid zone itself c) Trying to spot grasshoppers d) The climb down means it's nearly time for a beer (hence the smile!) e) Taken on my mobile phone, my shadow...


Gay Paris


Left: Notre Dame cathedral Right: The 'Champ De Mars', from the Eiffel Tower

n.b. Both of these pics were taken on my Nokia 6280 mobile phone, so not quite as good as the pics taken on the proper camera



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[Flerbizky]

Here are some pics from a recent trip to France, where I was helping a colleague to count and collect grasshoppers in the Alps. My colleague is a professor of Evolutionary Genetics, and his research involves studying a 'hybrid zone', where two genetically distinct types of grasshopper, which have evolved from a common ancestor and which became separated during the last ice age, have met each other again in a region that cuts a swathe through the Alps near the town of Gap, France. The two types of grasshopper are now interbreeding and 'hybridising'. They are of great importance to the study of evolutionary genetics, and hopefully some high quality papers will come out of it soon... After a brief stop-over in Paris, we headed into the mountains, where we found loads of weird and wonderful bugs and creatures, as well as numerous fossils. The clear, dark night skies made for excellent stargazing opportunities too... anyway, here are some of the pics Click thumbs for larger versions - once open in Imageshack, you may have to click again to get full resolution...



Gay Paris

n.b. Both of these pics were taken on my Nokia 6280 mobile phone, so not quite as good as the pics taken on the proper camera[/SIZE]



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HOLY FARK - That is one Badass looking Spider !... Tell it it's not welcome here !...

Sweet pictures Mars - Sounds like quite an interesting trip !...

PS... Paris is NOT gay - And Notre Dame is pretty cool from the inside as well :-)

 

[Sambert]

Sweet pictures Mars - Sounds like quite an interesting trip !...

It does indeed look like a wonderful trip, and no-doubt one that will be thought of fondly in years to come. Great pics- it's certainly interesting to see the Alps sans the snow, skiers and members of the House of Windsor. Gee, I'd find it difficult to return to the lab/lecture theatre after enjoying a bit of sun drenched high attitude fieldwork. Perhaps evolutionary biology has it all…

 

[Touring Mars]

Indeed it is a bit of a climb-down (if you pardon the pun) to be working up in the Alps one day and back in Mile End the next

We spotted several of those spiders, answers on a postcard if anyone knows what they are, but apparently they are poisonous

 

[TheCracker]

Just how big were those spiders!?

makes a quick mental note to not visit the alps...

 

[Touring Mars]

Not huge - that photo makes it look bigger than it was... total length of only about 1 inch, but you could see it's fangs quite clearly when it moved

 

[TheCracker]

Not huge - that photo makes it look bigger than it was... total length of only about 1 inch, but you could see it's fangs quite clearly when it moved

That's big enough!

Here's your spider:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Erisidae/Erisidae.htm