Troutnut has put up a beautiful page of Aquatic Insects of American Trout Streams. It’s all about using insects to catch fish, but it’s still an excellent example of how outdoor sportsmen (and in this case, soon-to-be grad student) can put together scientifically interesting information, too. If you don’t know a mayfly from a caddisfly, it’s full of photographs of the different organisms that might flit out of your nearby stream and park on your screen doors to weird you out.
You’re “fishing” to see if anyone gets the musical reference, aren’t you?
(Saw them a couple years back at the Ottawa Folk Festival, together with the Arrogant Worms — the set was, of course, called “Fishing With Worms”)
Fishing indeed! “Big Trouble” would have to be my favorite album and “Proper Cup of Coffee,” my favorite tune. Good taste abounds at Pharyngula. — MDT
I thought Trout Fishing in America was a strange book that had nothing to do with fishing but instead was filled with short stories.
As to the link, yay insects!
“Trout Fishing in America” is definitely a strange book, but I wouldn’t say it has NOTHING to do with fishing–especially in chapters like “The Cleveland Wrecking Yard,” where you can buy used trout stream by the foot….
In other insect news…ohmygodmohmygodohmygod.
Well, it’s been about ten years since I’ve read it, and memory does tend to be faulty. So there may have been some things about fishing in it, but they were far from the focus of the book.
I think it is a gross overstatement to accuse Trout Fishing in America, or anything by Brautigan (sp?) of having a “focus.”
I love his corixid picture…so cute :)
Hellgrammites are fucking awesome.
I dig the adults, too.
Heh. So that’s where Focus on the Family came from. That explains a lot, actually.
There’s a crawdad on them there webpages. And the good book says it’s an abomination. More proof all biology exists solely to feed the obscene appetites of Evilutionists.
Of course it’s an abomination – look at the little beady eyes. You can tell they’re all up to no good.
If the name “Trout Fishing In America” brings a musical duo to mind, and not Richard Brautigan, then you are a very very bad person.
That is all.
Thank you very much for the cool link! I spent three years studying some form or another of freshwater biology, and if I never see another chironomid larva again I can die happy…but I’ve never seen great photos of the adults before.
Haha!
Glad you all like the site.