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13 November 2013
A congress of salamanders
No, that blog post title is not a dig at the goons on Capitol Hill. It’s apparently the proper term for a group of salamanders. We’ve been seeing a lot of them lately ’round these parts. Take a look… Red-backed salamander: Unidentified black salamander: Red eft: Another one of the unidentified black salamanders, with little white spots all over… …and missing the distal-most portion of his tail! Lovely creatures. We …
4 June 2012
Weekend critters from Shenandoah National Park
My penchant for macro photographer of small animals continues unabated. Here are some images from Saturday and Sunday along Skyline Drive and the Whiteoak Canyon / Cedar Run loop in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia: A fly with a hairy back of golden iridescence. Compare it to this one: Very similar in some regards, but check out the size differences in the eyes, and the abdomen… Perhaps this is a case …
27 May 2012
Critter backlog
I’m cleaning out my backlog of old photos. Here’s some small living things that I’ve taken pictures of in the relatively recent past… Let’s start with two butterflies in the Gallatin Range, Montana: Returning to Virginia, here’s a fuzzy little white moth: A crane fly is next… (M.A.G.I.C. has been churning out lots of crane fly fossil macro GigaPans lately, BTW). And lastly, a charming little red eft, a kind …
31 October 2011
My Halloween costume
Here’s what I did for my Halloween costume this year. I decided to be a frog egg mass, with spawning frogs spewing gametes all over in a big orgiastic mess. Start with one ‘normal’ Callan: Switch to frog-egg colored clothing: Don a pair of foam packing bubble wrap “trousers: Add a “tunic” of bubble wrap, hot-glued into a blobby mass: Add a spawning frog in back, and another in front: …
18 February 2010
Salamander shear
Whilst discussing how to quantify strain with my GMU structural geology students recently, I hit upon a cool analogy. In order for you to understand the analogy (assuming you’re not a structural geologist), I’ll have to review some background information first. Stick with it, and I promise you a salamander at the end. Structural geologists are interested in how rocks deform. If we have some idea of the original shape …
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.