What the fucke is this purple thingie??? People homed in on the correct answer extremely quickly, and even taught *me* a few things about it I didn’t know.
The first to correctly guess that it is a surveillance trap for emerald ash borers was commenter chezjake.
It is hung on an ash tree and is colored purple based on empirical tests of what color attracts the most emerald ash borers. It also has some volatile chemical compounds in it derived from ash trees that further attract the borers inside, where they get stuck in some sticky shitte. The dude in the Park who I asked about it told me that ash borers have been collected as far east as Eastern Pennsylvania, and they want to know as soon as they reach Central Park.
Dunno about the accuracy of this, but he also said that the problem for the trees isn’t so much the damage they do directly (I presume by boring into the trees), but because they are the vector for a tree virus thatte fuckes the trees uppe bigtime.
Anyway, chezjake wins the prize, which is that he or she gets to ask me any question, and I will answer it in a blogge post. And, DUH, I’m not gonna give any details about myself that would make it substantially easier to determine who I am in real life (to the extent that there remains any doubt, anyway).
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Greg Laden
May 7, 2012 at 2:42 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yes, he is correct.
undine
May 7, 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you! I have seen these and have made spectacularly wrong guesses about what they were (tiny bat condos?) but never knew before.
Deanna Joy Lyons
May 7, 2012 at 7:18 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Undine, you have just given me the cutest little diorama in my head. The bat has a clean modern space and is lounging on a bright red chair. The coffee table is a wee chrome and glass thing. Squee!
derrickbillings
May 8, 2012 at 4:23 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It’s not actually that they’re a disease vectors. The larvae tunnel through the underbark, the layer of wood which is actually alive, and leave these crazy drunkard’s-walk squiggly scars behind them. Sooner or later they make their way all the way around the trunk, and at that point everything above that scar is dead, because the transportation system for water and nutrients is cut off. It’s like a tourniquet. Here in Illinois these things are a pestilence with a 100% fatality rate for infected trees, primarily because infection is undetectable until it starts desperately sprouting anomalous new growth below the scarred region, at which point the tree is dying already.
Isis the Scientist
May 8, 2012 at 4:54 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’d ask for a better prize.
chezjake
May 8, 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Ooh! A prize! Thanks.
I admire many of your recipes, but I have a problem with eating a lot of foods that use cooked tomatoes. How about a recipe for something piggy that doesn’t call for tomatoes?
physioprof
May 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’ve already posted some braised pork recipes that have no tomatoes and also broccoli rabe and sausage pasta or risotto. But I’ll think up something new for you anyway!
physioprof
May 8, 2012 at 3:25 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
http://freethoughtblogs.com/physioprof/2011/08/01/sausage-risotto-with-pecorino-di-moliterno/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/physioprof/2012/02/12/pork-chile-verde/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/physioprof/2011/11/20/motherfucken-braising-and-spanish-squid-rice/
There’s more, if you search for pork or sausage.