Forget Snakes, Beware of the Tropical Bullet Ant - Darin Penneys February 25, 2010

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/02/19/Darin_Penneys_Tropical_Plant_Collecting_Expeditions

An ant whose sting feels like a bullet wound? How about a tarantula with a leg span the size of a dinner plate? Botanist Darin Penneys flips through a slideshow of all the creepy and crawly creatures he encounters when on expedition in the tropics.

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This presentation highlights the places and plants Dr. Darin Penneys (California Academy of Sciences) encountered during several collecting expeditions throughout the Americas and China.

Dr. Penneys also discusses his research on the Princess Flower family (Melastomataceae), including their associations with ants, mites, bees, hummingbirds, and rodents. - California Academy of Sciences

Darin S. Penneys is the John J. Rose Post-Doctoral Fellow in Botany for California Academy of Sciences.

Darin Penneys collected for four weeks this past August-September and combed the mountains along the southern border of the Yunnan Province, China in search of Melastomataceae. Although there has been much deforestation in that region for the production of rice, rubber, tea, and bananas, the protected areas harbor a tremendous amount of biodiversity. He was able to collect many species, and even some genera, found only in China and all of these will be critical for his investigation into the global phylogenetic relationships within this family.