Outsiders and Others is seeking visual artists from Canada and the United States who’s artwork is focused on wood boring insects, wood, and/or the relationship between wood boring insects and wood.

This exhibition being presented simultaneously with the Joint American and Canadian Entomological Society Meeting in Vancouver on November 13-16, 2022.

How to apply by email:

  1. Send up to 4 images of artwork to be considered for Images must be jpegs.
  2. Include a list that describes the images you are sending with the title, medium, and size of each
  3. Write a statement about yourself that includes your education, exhibition history, and why you were interested in applying to participate in this

E mail all your information to: outsidersandothers@gmail.com and put “Boring Art” in the subject line. Artists will be notified by email about the selection process results by October 7.

Other information:

  • Applications due Sept 30th
  • Exhibition dates are November 2-27, 2022
  • Self-taught artists will be given priority consideration for the exhibition as that is the focus of our organization.
  • The gallery retains a 25% commission on the sale of all
  • Artists are responsible for the cost of shipping the artwork to and from the gallery for the

Outsiders and Others is a non-profit arts Society with a focus on bringing non-traditional artists to the forefront. This includes outsider, folk, self-taught, visionary, intuitive, and artists with disabilities.

Our gallery is at 716 East Hastings Street in Vancouver and is open to the public Wed – Sat 11-4 and by appointment. We also have a window only gallery at #100-938 Howe Street.

Any questions? Feel free to contact Director / Curator Yuri Arajs at outsidersandothers@gmail.com or visit us online at www.outsidersandothers.com

Mating with castrated males induces females to oviposit

As I was picking up rotting fruit from the ground, a woman walked by and told me “pick the nice ones from the tree, you are going to get sick”. I was amused by her concern and explained that indeed I was looking for the rotting fruit. I was searching for the fly maggots that infest oranges and mangoes.

The Mexican fruit fly is a pest that can cause devastating effects for both small fruit farmers and exporters. Most people think of fruit flies as those pesky small flies around our ripening bananas, but those in reality are in the Family Drosophilidae, the vinegar fruit flies. The pests that I was looking for are called the true fruit flies and belong to the Family Tephritidae. The reason for this distinction is that the true fruit flies lay their eggs in fruits when they are still green on the tree, while the vinegar flies lay their eggs in ripening or rotting fruit. The eggs of the true fruit flies develop into maggots (larval flies) which eventually leave the fruit when it falls from the tree. Once on the ground, the maggots burrow into the soil and form a cocoon known as a pupa. Some species even have an unusual behaviour in which the maggots can coil and jump from the fruit into the soil. A few weeks later the adult emerges from the pupa; eats and matures sexually; mates; and then lay eggs into the fruit.

Some species from the Tephritidae are worldwide pests that cause huge losses in agriculture and commerce. Because no one wants to eat fruit with maggots inside, scientists have developed various control measures against these flies. One of the most successful and environmentally friendly means of control is called the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). This technique begins with mass-rearing of the insect in huge factories. Then the males are sterilized (so they cannot reproduce) and are released into the field where they will mate with the wild females. These mated females will not be able to lay fertile eggs in the fruit and so the number of flies in the next generation decreases. So SIT uses the pest as a type of its own “birth control” and reduces the use of harmful insecticides. By avoiding pesticide use, this method has the advantage of not targeting beneficial insects such as native bees.

For SIT to be effective, we need factory-produced males to be attractive to wild females and to successfully prevent the females from mating with other wild males that may be around. In my lab we are trying to understand how males that mate with females can cause the females to not mate with other males, and this has led us to studying the male ejaculate. It turns out that when males mate, they transfer to the female not just sperm, but a whole lot of other substances from the male accessory glands (MAGs). In many insects, these glands contain proteins that act as anti-aphrodisiacs, so that when females receive them after mating, they will not remate. The gland contents also stimulate the female of other species into laying more eggs. These are all very important behaviours when it comes to pests, as we do not want them to lay fertile eggs or mate again. The Mexican fruit fly has very complex male accessory glands, thus we are trying to find out what effect they have on the females. By injecting the contents of the MAGs into females, we observed that, contrary to what happens in other insects, they did not increase egg laying. So, the question still remains as to what the functions of Mexican fruit fly MAGs are.

Next, as the MAG contents do not increase egg laying, we wanted to find out about the whole ejaculate (MAG contents and sperm plus other components). Thus, we proceeded to cut the tip of the male penis (don´t worry they could still mate), so that they could not transfer any of their ejaculate. Surprisingly, we found that females that mated with these partially castrated males laid more eggs compared to virgin females that did not mate. This means that the internal and external aspects of the male copulatory courtship behavior that females receive during the mating is enough to stimulate them to lay eggs.

These results are important for two reasons: 1) studying MAGs can help us better develop control measures for these pests, with a better understanding on how mating affects female behaviour, and 2) we still know little about how various stimuli during mating affect female reproduction. As these are pests of economic importance to fruit growers, this knowledge will help us to further improve an environmentally friendly means of control.

–Diana Perez-Staples

 

This post is the first in a series featuring ‘cool’ and ‘cruel’ (pest) insects in Canada. If there’s an insect that you’d like to write a post about, please get in touch with us!


by John Acorn

The beautifully camouflaged under surface of a Mourning Cloak butterfly.

How long do butterflies live? For most, the answer is “not very long,” after what may have been many months as an egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis. For the Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), however, life as a butterfly can stretch over an entire year. Mourning Cloaks spend the winter in hibernation, under bark for example, and they are often the “first butterfly of spring,” along with their close relatives, the tortoiseshells and commas. Since Mourning Cloaks are widespread in North America and Eurasia, they are probably the most oft-encountered spring butterflies in the north temperate world. After feeding on various trees (elm, willow, and poplar are all acceptable fare) as caterpillars, Mourning Cloak butterflies emerge from their pupae in mid to late summer. They sometimes live as long as twelve months as adults. In springtime, they typically emerge from hibernation before the first flowers are in bloom, and they feed on everything from sap flows to dung to mud, in order to obtain the nutrients necessary for such a long life.

On an older Mourning Cloak, the bright yellow wing edges have faded to pale white, and the maroon of the wings becomes a more generic shade of brown. The wing pattern of Mourning Cloaks has been the inspiration for speculation among entomologists. Most agree that the underside of the wings is camouflaged, looking like a dried leaf, or tree bark. But the upper side has been interpreted as a depiction of a yellow, black, and blue-spotted caterpillar, walking along a brown-maroon surface. Birds might peck at the fake caterpillar, thereby missing the delicate body of the butterfly, and indeed we do find Mourning Cloaks with bird bill marks along the edges of their wings (“cloak and dagger,” one might ask?). On the other hand, Mourning Cloaks are agile fliers, and at least one other insect, the Carolina Locust grasshopper (Dissosteira carolina), appears to mimic the Mourning Cloak, perhaps to convince birds that it is difficult to capture in flight.

A freshly emerged Mourning Cloak with bird bill marks along its wing margin. Wingspan approximately 7 cm.

In any event, the wings of Mourning Cloaks are similar to a traditional style of clothing worn when in mourning, but maroon or purplish mourning dresses with dull yellow trim were a matter of “half mourning” in Victorian England, whereas full mourning clothing was all black. In the UK, this species is known as the Camberwell Beauty, in remembrance of two migrant individuals (yes, this species will sometimes undergo “irruptive” migrations, in years when they are especially common) that made their way from the European mainland to Camberwell, a part of London. In French, the name is Morio, a word that also refers to starlings, birds that share a dark ground colour with yellow accents. As for the scientific name, Nymphalis means “nymph,” and refers to the forest nymphs of Greek mythology, while Antiope was the name of one of the mythical Amazons. You will find, however, that if you Google the word “antiopa,” almost all of the hits will refer to the butterfly, which has now eclipsed its namesake.

Links:

http://www.cbif.gc.ca/eng/species-bank/butterflies-of-canada/mourning-cloak/?id=1370403265696

http://entomology.museums.ualberta.ca/searching_species_details.php?fsn=nymphalis+antiopa&sb=1&r=2&o=1&c=2&s=2652&sn=Nymphalis+antiopa

Photos supplied by John Acorn