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VAL Awarded SciSTARTer Boost Prize
Last week, Kent McFarland, director of VAL, was recognized on behalf of the team’s work with a 2022 SciSTARter Boost Award. Ten individuals received this inaugural award for their outstanding work with community science.
After 25 years, Two-spotted Lady Beetle is Rediscovered in Vermont
The Two-spotted lady Beetle was feared to be extinct in Vermont, until the Vermont Atlas of Life rallied biologists and community scientists to help find them. Against all odds, several Two-spotted Lady Beetles were found and photographed after a 25 year hiatus.
VAL Recognizes the Crucial Support of Community Scientists during National Volunteer Week
National Volunteer Week is April 17-23 and the Vermont Atlas of Life honors the work of all the volunteers that have helped us monitor biodiversity. Thank you so much for joining our efforts and celebrating biodiversity!
Darner Flight Watch
The Common Green Darner (Anax junius) is a charismatic, migratory dragonfly species that is known for traveling long distances (over 650 km) during its short time as an adult (approximately 7 weeks). Read more about this dazzling dragonfly and our upcoming Darner Flight Watch project, with the goal of better understanding how climate change may influence Common Green Darner phenology and migration patterns.
Vermont Lady Beetle BioBlitz
Last week over 60 volunteers searched from backyards to mountaintops as part of the weeklong Vermont Lady Beetle BioBlitz to help find and photograph as many of these charming beetles as possible.
Big Biodiversity Data Now at Your Fingertips
The Vermont Center for Ecostudies launched an ambitious online project that allows anyone at a computer to explore vast amounts of data on biodiversity across the Green Mountain State. Now released as a beta version, the Vermont Atlas of Life Data Explorer is the newest implementation of the Living Atlas platform, powerful software first developed in Australia and now being implemented by countries around the globe.
Tall Beech Fern (Phegopteris excelsior): Newly discovered fern species in Vermont
Tall Beech Fern (Phegopteris excelsior) was recently described as a new species. Tall Beech Fern was originally thought to be a hybrid of Long Beech Fern (P. connectilis) and Broad Beech Fern (P. hexagonoptera). Further analysis proved that Tall Beech Fern is of hybrid descent, but not from a hybridization event between Long and Broad Beech Ferns. Given the number of differences between Tall Beech Fern and the species it is most closely related to—Long Beech Fern—Tall Beech Fern was described as a new species.
Lunchtime Learning
Join Community Science Outreach Naturalist Julia Pupko every Wednesday at noon for an hour of iNaturalist, Vermont eBird, and eButterfly help, with some Vermont natural history topics on the side!
A Lifetime of Beetles
A lifetime of work on the ground beetles of Vermont and New Hampshire, Carabidae of Vermont and New Hampshire by Ross T. Bell, Professor Emeritus of the University of Vermont with species maps produced by the Vermont Atlas of Life at VCE, is now available as a PDF.
