texascavers Digest 27 Oct 2011 04:34:55 -0000 Issue 1424 Topics (messages 18966 through 18978):
Re: BOG weekend
18966 by: tbsamsel.verizon.net
[Toyotas]
18967 by: Don Arburn
18968 by: tom rogers
why I posted that
18969 by: David
Bats have superfast vocal muscles
18970 by: Mark Minton
TSA election results
18971 by: Ron Ralph
18972 by: Mark.Alman.L-3com.com
18973 by: Lyndon Tiu
18974 by: Don Arburn
Results of the TCMA Diretors Election
18975 by: Allan B. Cobb
Study "confirms" Geomyces destructans responsible for WNS
18976 by: Justin Leigh Shaw
18978 by: JerryAtkin.aol.com
New species of cave insect
18977 by: Sam Young
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--- Begin Message --- PC? There was no PC in 1966-67 as we know it nowadays. Get a grip.
Oct 25, 2011 01:47:13 PM, [email protected] wrote:This method of the static drinker is just another example of PC taking the fun out of the game.
The blood alcohol content of the riders directly affected the outcome of the race.
THAT WAS THE POINT.
Ed
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 1:42 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: RE: [Texascavers] BOG weekend
One of my high school's National Merit Scholars was a math whiz and a HUGE guy. He was the passive "drinker" for his team and they won every year.
T
Oct 25, 2011 01:39:01 PM, [email protected] wrote:The idea of the "Beer/Bike Race" was to chug a beer and bike around the course as fast as possible. Part of the winning strategy was being able to chug a beer faster than the other racers. Each college had a team and each team had a strategy for chugging. The most popular one involved sticking a large funnel into the mouth of the racer and then poking a hole in the bottom of the open beer can so that it all came out in one big gulp. Later, because of some really gory accidents, the teams had drinkers and riders. The riders couldn't leave the starting gate until the empty beer can had been discarded. The drinkers "practiced" all year long so that they could open up their throats and the beer would go right through without drowining them.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:23:09 -0400
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] BOG weekend
Yes, but it is just called "Beer/Bike" in my memory. And then there is "Club 13," a very early example of a flash mob, perhaps, in which students of both sexes streak the campus on Friday the 13th (any month) covered (when they begin) with shaving cream. This foamy coating is used to make body prints on campus walls and windows.
Roger
-----Original Message-----
From: tbsamsel
To: caverarch
Cc: texascavers
Sent: Tue, Oct 25, 2011 2:23 am
Subject: Re: Re: [Texascavers] BOG weekendRice may yet still practice The Elephant Bladder Contest. It involves beer & bicycles. I saw it once in the 1960s when I was visiting a friend there.
T
Oct 24, 2011 04:25:02 PM, [email protected] wrote:Bill, the place to buy beer around Rice is on the campus, at the entirely volunteer-operated Valhalla, the non-profit Graduate Student Association pub under the stairs to the old Chemistry Building. Beer was $0.35 when I was in grad school there. That was a long time ago, admittedly, but I think it has only risen to $0.75 per cup now.
Just look for the red lights by the stairs. The cavern-like atmosphere alone is worth it.
Roger Moore
-----Original Message-----
From: Mixon Bill
To: Cavers Texas
Sent: Mon, Oct 24, 2011 9:41 am
Subject: [Texascavers] BOG weekendI'd like to agree that the arrangements for the NSS BOG meeting andassociated parties were very good. Thanks especially for Louise andPaul for the party site and serving breakfast on Sunday to some of uswho crashed at their house. Cavers (and the mosquitoes of theHoustopolis area) were well fed during the party. Rice campus verynice. I'd never been there. They evidently got started with enoughland, and didn't get hemmed in like the UT Austin campus. Lots ofgreen lawns, huge parking lots around the stadium, etc. Glad, though,that the Posse doesn't charge as much for beer as the Ginger Man, asimilar near-campus pub, does.I've attended very few BOG meetings since I was actually on the board,but I imagine this one was one of the most successful in years interms of getting to meet local cavers. There were hardly any Texascavers in the audience at the meeting itself. I don't especially blamethem, but they missed Bill Liebman accidentally voting against one ofhis own motions. And another of his motions going down 1 for and 15opposed.--Mixon----------------------------------------I believe there are15,747,724,136,275,002,577,605,653,961,181,555,468,044,717,914,527,116,709,366,231,425,076,185,631,031,296 protons in the universe and the same number of electrons.—Sir Arthur Eddington----------------------------------------You may "reply" to the address this messagecame from, but for long-term use, save:Personal: [email protected]AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected]---------------------------------------------------------------------Visit our website: http://texascavers.comTo unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]--------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---A while back I asked for photos of caver Toyotas. And I received some good ones. Thanks! However, I'm still working on it. Cavers if you would, please send me any action pictures of your Toyota(s), or another caver's Toyota(s) 4x4 doing it's thing, getting you to and from caves. I'm also looking for short tales of adventure. Tales of heroism, plundering, rescue, successes, etc. that your Toyota was involved in.
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--- Begin Message ---What if I have a chevy? Tom > From: [email protected] > Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:09:39 -0500 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Texascavers] [Toyotas] > > A while back I asked for photos of caver Toyotas. And I received some good > ones. Thanks! However, I'm still working on it. Cavers if you would, please > send me any action pictures of your Toyota(s), or another caver's Toyota(s) > 4x4 doing it's thing, getting you to and from caves. > > I'm also looking for short tales of adventure. Tales of heroism, plundering, > rescue, successes, etc. that your Toyota was involved in. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >
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--- Begin Message ---I feel someone needs to be the Red Forman of the caving world. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Red_Forman.jpg He is one of the greatest philosophers in recorded human history. Also, I strongly felt that the only way to get all the other attendees to post THE DETAILS about how good of a time they had at BOG ( on CaveTex ) was to beat them to the punch and post something negative about the event. I purposely chose the childish Facebook thing, so that it would not sound hostile. I knew when I hit the send button, that nobody would have the cojones to criticize BOG or the staff that put it on. And I succeeded at that, at the cost of my own reputation. Now others will know "the details" of BOG and that many attendees felt they got the bang for their buck. I hope this helps future BOGs. I hope the next BOG is better, and the future staff will learn something from previous BOG's. Also factored in were that, I see a lot of people enjoy criticizing me about my things like hosting the East Texas Caver's Cookout, but when I criticize them, they get their panties in a wad. Not in any way to toot my own horn, but I have put on the last several East Texas Caver's Cookouts all by myself against a huge opposition of critics, and paid for it all myself. While the BOG was put on by over 50 workers who had a huge budget to work with, and was supported with a well established agenda. But even with all that support, I still had to spend a $ 100 on food for the BOG party, money that I did not have, and was borrowed one way or another. My rants about GHG are far more complicated. Obviously, I was disappointed that a club that I have devoted 22 years to "assisting", would ban me from their listserve. But I was planning on quiting anyways after BOG so, I didn't really care. By then, it was the relief you get from the end of something. The GHG web-site needs lots of improvement, but that is just one of dozens of issues that I have with GHG. Others are, I feel they ridicule my suggestions and have for 22 years. This has led to my frustration with GHG. It didn't start last week, but has been brewing for 16 years, and just boiled over a few days before the BOG, partly because I felt like Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer trying to "help" the other 8 reindeer pull the sleigh, and that my only skill was my red-nose, and none of them wanted a red-nose on the team, especially, Dasher and Dancer. The rest of the rant was not directed at GHG but with my displeasure with cavers in general in and around Harris County and the surrounding adjacent counties, who for the past 20 + years, do not work together or even make any attempt to unite behind a common caving cause. And that is why I have spent great energy and lots of money in Brenham trying to put an event together. I have never once seen the 3 grottos here even try to have a taco together. In hindsight, I had too many problems to attend BOG and knew going into it that I needed to skip it. But I really wanted to help, and I really wanted to be there, and I really wanted to see my friends and make new ones. And somewhere deep down inside, buried in all this frustration, is someone who wants to see the NSS succeed. And I was slightly, concerned that it would taint my fine reputation if I skipped a major caving event right in my own back-yard, when I am willing to drive to and from Vermont just for an NSS Howdy Party. But, the corn tortillas really sucked beyond words, and that was the final rock holding the volcano lava from spewing. The next morning, I was the only local caver still at the party. A BOG member mentioned that he needed a ride to the airport. Although, I would have taken him, I was furious beyond words that someone had dropped the ball on this after all the headaches I went thru jumping thru hurdles to offer help to GHG, and my Blackberry was giving me a big headache trying to let others know that he needed a ride. And then I had to listen to GHG pat themselves on the back for all the hard work they had to do, when nearly everything was outsourced and done by cavers not from southeast Texas or even members of their spelunking club. I do know for a fact that several cavers would not have attended BOG had I not twisted their arms. That was why there were cavers there that had come out of the woodwork. While much of my effort, like making a live pitch at the UT Grotto meeting, was a waste of time, I had no way of predicting what the end result of all those efforts were, most of which was tracking down missing GHG'ers and trying to get them to come. I would like to also point out that while the party had a good attendance, at least a dozen of those attendees wouldn't go in a cave or support the NSS, if you paid them to. They were either spouses or friends of a caver, and many of those cavers were arm-chair cavers. Later, when I spoke to non-cavers about the tortillas, they all said that I need to find a new set of friends. David Locklear The Red Forman of southeast Texas caving [ Disclaimer: I do not have time to proof-read this to make sure it is politically correct. I have someone standing behind me yelling at me very loudly right in my ear about something I can't fix even if I wanted to, and they have been yelling the entire time I wrote this, and an hour before. ]
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--- Begin Message --- Bats have exceptionally fast vocal muscles that control echolocation in the final moments before they capture prey as shown in a recent study in the journal Science: <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6051/1885.abstract>.Mark Minton Please reply to [email protected]Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---Texas Speleological Association Report of the Election Committee for 2012 officers Ron Ralph, Ann Scott, Jim Kennedy, and Matt Turner This year's election was held at the Texas Cavers Reunion on Sunday morning, October 16. Twenty-one ballots were cast and another ten ballots were returned via USPS after a request to the Election Committee to vote. The returns are: President - Don Arburn 17 votes President - Mark Alman 12 votes Vice-President - Ellie Watson 25 votes Secretary - Denise Prendergast 26 votes Treasurer - Michael Cicherski 25 votes Congratulations to the new officers. Votes were tabulated on a spreadsheet which will be sent to anyone who writes and asks for it. The cast ballots will be housed in the TSA room at the Texas Speleological Survey office in Austin for anyone who would like to see them. Sincerely, Ron Ralph, vote counter Ann Scott, verifier Matt Turner, verifier Jim Kennedy, verifier
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--- Begin Message ---Congratulations, Don! My campaigning for you paid off! Good luck to all of y'all in 2012! Mark From: Ron Ralph [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 10:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Texascavers] TSA election results Texas Speleological Association Report of the Election Committee for 2012 officers Ron Ralph, Ann Scott, Jim Kennedy, and Matt Turner This year's election was held at the Texas Cavers Reunion on Sunday morning, October 16. Twenty-one ballots were cast and another ten ballots were returned via USPS after a request to the Election Committee to vote. The returns are: President - Don Arburn 17 votes President - Mark Alman 12 votes Vice-President - Ellie Watson 25 votes Secretary - Denise Prendergast 26 votes Treasurer - Michael Cicherski 25 votes Congratulations to the new officers. Votes were tabulated on a spreadsheet which will be sent to anyone who writes and asks for it. The cast ballots will be housed in the TSA room at the Texas Speleological Survey office in Austin for anyone who would like to see them. Sincerely, Ron Ralph, vote counter Ann Scott, verifier Matt Turner, verifier Jim Kennedy, verifier
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--- Begin Message ---Mark, Thank you for your many years of service. May you enjoy your retirement. On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 6:31 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Congratulations, Don! > > > > My campaigning for you paid off! > > > > > > Good luck to all of y’all in 2012! > > > > > > Mark > > > > > > > > From: Ron Ralph [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 10:29 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Texascavers] TSA election results > > > > Texas Speleological Association > > Report of the Election Committee for 2012 officers > > Ron Ralph, Ann Scott, Jim Kennedy, and Matt Turner > > > > > > This year’s election was held at the Texas Cavers Reunion on Sunday morning, > October 16. Twenty-one ballots were cast and another ten ballots were > returned via USPS after a request to the Election Committee to vote. The > returns are: > > > > President – Don Arburn 17 votes > > President – Mark Alman 12 votes > > Vice-President – Ellie Watson 25 votes > > Secretary – Denise Prendergast 26 votes > > Treasurer – Michael Cicherski 25 votes > > > > Congratulations to the new officers. > > > > Votes were tabulated on a spreadsheet which will be sent to anyone who > writes and asks for it. The cast ballots will be housed in the TSA room at > the Texas Speleological Survey office in Austin for anyone who would like to > see them. > > > > > > Sincerely, > > Ron Ralph, vote counter > > Ann Scott, verifier > > Matt Turner, verifier > > Jim Kennedy, verifier > > -- Lyndon Tiu
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--- Begin Message ---Is Dick Cheney in my cabinet? Sent cellularly. -Don On Oct 25, 2011, at 10:28 PM, Ron Ralph <[email protected]> wrote: > Texas Speleological Association > Report of the Election Committee for 2012 officers > Ron Ralph, Ann Scott, Jim Kennedy, and Matt Turner > > > This year’s election was held at the Texas Cavers Reunion on Sunday morning, > October 16. Twenty-one ballots were cast and another ten ballots were > returned via USPS after a request to the Election Committee to vote. The > returns are: > > President – Don Arburn 17 votes > President – Mark Alman 12 votes > Vice-President – Ellie Watson 25 votes > Secretary – Denise Prendergast 26 votes > Treasurer – Michael Cicherski 25 votes > > Congratulations to the new officers. > > Votes were tabulated on a spreadsheet which will be sent to anyone who writes > and asks for it. The cast ballots will be housed in the TSA room at the Texas > Speleological Survey office in Austin for anyone who would like to see them. > > > Sincerely, > Ron Ralph, vote counter > Ann Scott, verifier > Matt Turner, verifier > Jim Kennedy, verifier >
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--- Begin Message ---Greetings all, On behalf of the Secretary of the Texas Cave Management Association, I would like to announce the results of the TCMA Directors Elections. Beginning in January 2012, TCMA will have four new directors joining the board. The new directors are Michael Cicherski (Corpus Christi), Mallory Mayeux (Houston), Wesley Schumacher (Austin), and Ann Scott (Austin). The TCMA Board welcomes its new directors and looks forward to working with them all. Allan Cobb President, TCMA
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--- Begin Message ---http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111026/full/news.2011.613.html Culprit behind bat scourge confirmed A cold-loving fungus is behind an epidemic decimating bat populations in North America. By: Susan Young Researchers have confirmed that a recently identified fungus is responsible for white-nose syndrome, a deadly disease that is sweeping through bat colonies in eastern North America. The fungus, Geomyces destructans, infects the skin of hibernating bats, causing lesions on the animals' wings and a fluffy white outgrowth on the muzzle. When white-nose syndrome takes hold of a hibernating colony, more than 90% of the bats can die (see Disease epidemic killing only US bats). The disease was first documented in February 2006 in a cave in New York, and has spread to at least 16 other US states and four Canadian provinces. The culpability of G. destructans for this sudden outbreak was thrown into question when the fungus was found on healthy bats in Europe, where it is not associated with the grim mortality levels seen in North America1. Some proposed that the fungus was not the primary cause of the catastrophic die offs, and that another factor — such as an undetected virus — must be to blame. But a study published today in Nature2 reveals that G. destructans is indeed guilty. "The fungus alone is sufficient to recreate all the pathology diagnostic for the disease," says David Blehert, a microbiologist at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, and senior author on the report. Bat-to-bat spread Blehert and his colleagues collected healthy little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) from Wisconsin, which is well beyond the known range of white-nose syndrome. They infected the bats by direct administration of G. destructans spores to the skin or by contact with infected bats from New York. By the end of the 102-day experiment, the tell-tale white fungus was growing on the muzzles and wings of all of the directly infected Wisconsin bats and 16 of the 18 exposed to sick bats. This is the first experimental evidence that white-nose syndrome can be passed from bat to bat, and is very worrying from a conservation point of view because bats huddle together in large numbers in caves and mate in large swarms, says Emma Teeling, a bat biologist at University College Dublin in Ireland. "If a bat has this fungus on them, it's going to spread quickly throughout the population," says Teeling, who was not involved with the study. "It's like a perfect storm." The infected Wisconsin bats did not die during the experiment, which may be due to the limited timeline of infection, the authors suggest. Although the study does not directly show that a healthy bat will die from infection with G. destructans, the results did show that the fungus alone was sufficient to cause lesions diagnostic of white-nose syndrome to form on previously healthy bats, indicating that the fungus is the cause of the deaths so often associated with white-nose syndrome in the wild. To stop a scourge Since it first appeared, white-nose syndrome has behaved like a novel pathogen spreading from a single origin through a naive population, says Jonathan Sleeman, director of the National Wildlife Health Center, who was not involved in the study. Proof that G. destructans is the primary cause of white-nose syndrome will "help us focus our actions or management efforts into the future", he says. Although little can be done to control the spread of the disease through bat-to-bat transmission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has asked people to stay out of caves in and near affected areas, and has closed some caves on agency-managed land. On 21 October, the FWS announced that up to $1 million in funding will be made available for research on white-nose syndrome. Projects covering topics such as how the fungus proliferates within caves and mines, and the potential for biological means or environmental manipulations to improve bat survival, are among the service's top priorities. * References 1. Puechmaille, S. J. et al. Trends Ecol. Evol. 26, 570-576 (2011). 2. Lorch, J. M. et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature10590 (2011).
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--- Begin Message ---While it is good news to finally know the cause behind WNS, I have to wonder why it took 5 years and several million dollars for someone to finally conduct such a simple and obvious experiment to definitively prove G. destructans as the culprit. Jerry. In a message dated 10/26/2011 8:36:42 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111026/full/news.2011.613.html Culprit behind bat scourge confirmed A cold-loving fungus is behind an epidemic decimating bat populations in North America. By: Susan Young Researchers have confirmed that a recently identified fungus is responsible for white-nose syndrome, a deadly disease that is sweeping through bat colonies in eastern North America. The fungus, Geomyces destructans, infects the skin of hibernating bats, causing lesions on the animals' wings and a fluffy white outgrowth on the muzzle. When white-nose syndrome takes hold of a hibernating colony, more than 90% of the bats can die (see Disease epidemic killing only US bats). The disease was first documented in February 2006 in a cave in New York, and has spread to at least 16 other US states and four Canadian provinces. The culpability of G. destructans for this sudden outbreak was thrown into question when the fungus was found on healthy bats in Europe, where it is not associated with the grim mortality levels seen in North America1. Some proposed that the fungus was not the primary cause of the catastrophic die offs, and that another factor — such as an undetected virus — must be to blame. But a study published today in Nature2 reveals that G. destructans is indeed guilty. "The fungus alone is sufficient to recreate all the pathology diagnostic for the disease," says David Blehert, a microbiologist at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, and senior author on the report. Bat-to-bat spread Blehert and his colleagues collected healthy little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) from Wisconsin, which is well beyond the known range of white-nose syndrome. They infected the bats by direct administration of G. destructans spores to the skin or by contact with infected bats from New York. By the end of the 102-day experiment, the tell-tale white fungus was growing on the muzzles and wings of all of the directly infected Wisconsin bats and 16 of the 18 exposed to sick bats. This is the first experimental evidence that white-nose syndrome can be passed from bat to bat, and is very worrying from a conservation point of view because bats huddle together in large numbers in caves and mate in large swarms, says Emma Teeling, a bat biologist at University College Dublin in Ireland. "If a bat has this fungus on them, it's going to spread quickly throughout the population," says Teeling, who was not involved with the study. "It's like a perfect storm." The infected Wisconsin bats did not die during the experiment, which may be due to the limited timeline of infection, the authors suggest. Although the study does not directly show that a healthy bat will die from infection with G. destructans, the results did show that the fungus alone was sufficient to cause lesions diagnostic of white-nose syndrome to form on previously healthy bats, indicating that the fungus is the cause of the deaths so often associated with white-nose syndrome in the wild. To stop a scourge Since it first appeared, white-nose syndrome has behaved like a novel pathogen spreading from a single origin through a naive population, says Jonathan Sleeman, director of the National Wildlife Health Center, who was not involved in the study. Proof that G. destructans is the primary cause of white-nose syndrome will "help us focus our actions or management efforts into the future", he says. Although little can be done to control the spread of the disease through bat-to-bat transmission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has asked people to stay out of caves in and near affected areas, and has closed some caves on agency-managed land. On 21 October, the FWS announced that up to $1 million in funding will be made available for research on white-nose syndrome. Projects covering topics such as how the fungus proliferates within caves and mines, and the potential for biological means or environmental manipulations to improve bat survival, are among the service's top priorities. * References 1. Puechmaille, S. J. et al. Trends Ecol. Evol. 26, 570-576 (2011). 2. Lorch, J. M. et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature10590 (2011). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---A new species of psocid from Texas caves has recently been described based on specimens in the Texas Memorial Invertebrate Zoological Collection. It is Psyllipsocus subterraneus Mockford. The holotype male was collected at Up the Creek Cave (Bexar Co.) by K. McDermid on 10/22/2008; the allotype female was collected at Strange Little Cave (Bexar Co.) by P. Sprouse and K. McDermid on 10/13/2008. Specimens of Psyllipsocus maculatus Garcia Aldrete from Niche Cave (Bexar Co.) collected by G. Veni (7/31/1983) and from New Comanche Trail Cave (Travis Co.) collected by James Reddell and M. Reyes (1/26/1989) extends the range of this species north by about 700 km. Reference: Mockford, Edward L., “New Species of Psyllipsocus (Psocoptera: Psyllipsocidae) from North and Middle America with a Key to Species of the Region” , Transactions of the American Entomological Society 137(1-2):15-47, 2011. For more information contact Diane Young: [email protected] .......... Sam
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