Earth and Space News: Mopane Worm Natural History Illustrations and Elementary's Invisible Hand

Summary: Mopane worm natural history illustrations and photographs tell how snacks look when alive, not past-due on Elementary's The Invisible Hand May 1, 2016.

(center) mopane moth (Gonimbrasia belina) under synonym Saturnia belina; J.O. Westwood's description, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1849), Plate VIII, figure 2, opposite page 42: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Mopane worm natural history illustrations and photographs answer questions that arise about high-protein, low-fat snacks that camera angles avoid in the Columbia Broadcasting System's procedural drama series Elementary episode May 1, 2016.

Director Guy Ferland and writers Robert Doherty and Jason Tracey brandish mopane worms as one of Joan Watson's (Lucy Liu) refrigerated snacks in The Invisible Hand. The fourth season's 23rd episode, as the 95th overall, calls for Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) to clean the brownstone refrigerator and clear away all inedibles. Sherlock's dedication to doing some "cleaning up" after himself and her disconcerts Joan, who declares that "At least tell me the mopane warms are still okay."

Mopane worm natural history illustrations and photographs explain the behavioral patterns, distribution ranges, life cycles and physical appearances of the mopane worms that Sherlock enigmatically ejects.

November through December and March through April fit into mopane moth life cycles as breeding, egg-depositing, egg-hatching and maturing months for adults, eggs, larvae and pupae.

The 4.72-inch- (120-millimeter-) long wingspans gradate from brown to green to red, with big, black-and-white-ringed orange eyespots on hind wings and small eyespots on front wings. Mopane moth females with bigger abdomens and thoraxes and males with feathery antennae have no mouthparts during three- to four-day mature stages for breeding and egg-laying. Mopane moths, investigated in 1849 by John Obadiah Westwood (Dec. 22, 1805-Jan. 2, 1893), insert 50 to 200 white eggs onto mopane tree leaves and twigs.

Mopane moth natural history illustrations and photographs juggle four stages of eggs hatching within 10 days, larvae molting four times and pupae metamorphosing within seven months.

Life cycles keep mopane moths, known scientifically as Gonimbrasia belina, in lepidopteran larval stages as first through fourth caterpillar instars molting into second through fifth instars.

Mopane caterpillars, commonly listed as mopane worms, look like black and red short-spiked, black-bodied, fine white-haired, 0.39-inch- (10-millimeter-) thick, 3.94-inch- (10-millimeter-) long, red-banded, white-lined, yellow-striped larvae. Mopane worms munch on Carissa grandiflora, Colophospermum mopane, Diospyros, Ficus, Ozoroa crassinervia, Ozoroa longipes, Rhus lancia, Rhus longifolia, Sclerocarya birrea, Terminalia sericea and Trema bracteolata leaves. Clusterleaf, fig, marula, mopane, Natal plum, oriental trema, persimmon, red beech, resin-tree, round-leaved resin and sumac nourish first- through third-instar groups and fourth- through fifth-instar individuals.

Mopane worm natural history illustrations and photographs observe fifth-instar mopane caterpillars oozing brown liquids from their intestinal tracts onto the ground around hostplants before pupating underground.

Fifth-instar mopane caterpillars either perish from birds, parsites, people or viruses or pupate for six to seven months within dark silk-spun cocoons that they produce underground.

Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe qualify as mopane worm homelands. Mopane caterpillars range in bushveld (lowland), grassland and semi-desert habitat niches where their amino acids, fatty acids and minerals recommend them for African and world cuisines. Mopane worm natural history illustrations and photographs show fifth-instar members of the Saturniidae night-active peacock spinner family member as silk-spinners and in side dishes and soups.

Sherlock thinks that temporarily trivializing his time by tossing Joan's mopane worms takes his thoughts about an assassin and a forged Vermeer painting along case-closing tacks.

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) has concerns about Jamie Moriarty's (Natalie Dormer) possible string-pulling and about her mopane worm snack not surviving Sherlock Holmes' (Jonny Lee Miller) unexpected freshness date cleanup in CBS Elementary tv series' The Invisible Hand (season 4 episode 23): Afinso @_Afinso_, via Twitter May 2, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Afinso ‏@_Afinso_ 2 May 2016. "I watched #Elementary S04E23 - The Invisible Hand @Elementary_CBS." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/_Afinso_/status/727162512161038336

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Available @ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08d5240f0b649740017c2/R7822_-_Q2_-_Synthesis_of_mopane_worm_biology.pdf

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Earth and Space News

Friday, May 13, 2016

Mopane Worm Natural History Illustrations and Elementary's Invisible Hand

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