Trilobites tend to be well-preserved in the fossil record, but some of the fossil trilobites in the Museum Collection look like pieces of their head are missing. Why is this and what does it have to do with trilobite growth spurts?
Find out in this video with Curator of Palaeontology & Geology Dr. Joe Moysiuk!
The many natural history specimens in our exhibitions are familiar to Museum-goers. The dioramas and displays introduce Manitoba’s incredible diversity of life, impressing the need for conservation of our wild spaces to maintain a healthy planet. What is less familiar is that, behind-the-scenes, the Museum holds important research collections that scientists use to examine how and where organisms live. These discoveries influence public policy and help preserve our natural heritage.
Museum collections in the Boreal Forest Gallery might offer the first chance to see insects close up and develop a fascination with Manitoba’s incredible biodiversity. © Manitoba Museum/Ian McCausland
The Manitoba Museum bird collection is a resource for exhibits and teaching, and for research by Museum scientists and others around the world. © Manitoba Museum
For many visitors, the Museum collections on exhibit provide the first close look at an insect wing or cougar skull, the first chance to explore life underground, or to experience the wonder of just how many animal species live in Manitoba. Becoming fascinated with the natural world is a necessary first step in caring for it. A gallery exhibit influences attitudes towards our environment and can inspire the next generation of conservation advocates.
The Museum’s research collections – spanning millennia – are like a time machine that tells us about organisms and their environment in the past compared to today. This can determine if species are affected by climate change, habitat loss, pollution, or other factors. Collections are permanent archives of the distribution of organisms and an essential resource for scientific research at the Museum and for scientists around the world. They help assess a species biology, rarity, and any environmental threats, all critical to devise strategies and policies for responsible ecological stewardship.
Museum collections play a significant educational role in exhibits and programs encouraging champions for wildlife. From the scientific evidence they provide, we can better understand changes in our environment and plan conservation action. The Museum research collections of animals, plants, and their representative fossils furnish important data to interpret the past, understand the present, and consider the future of Manitoba’s natural world.
Analysis of feather samples discovered that some prairie songbirds overwinter along the Gulf
of Mexico. Protection of breeding and migration sites can now be planned. © Manitoba Museum
This orca tooth (MM 406) was chemically sampled to study food preferences in Arctic Ocean populations. © Manitoba Museum
Birds of different decades can be used to measure environmental contaminants over time. This ivory gull (MM 1-2-941) from 1926 was analyzed to examine changes in mercury levels to inform management plans. © Manitoba Museum/Ian McCausland
Spring Break is back at the Manitoba Museum! March 23 through March 31, the Manitoba Museum is the place to be, with a week full of family-friendly activities, a brand-new planetarium show, a fun and interactive toddler zone, and more!
March hosts the “first day of spring”, although someone forgot to tell that to the weather. Astronomically, spring begins when the Earth reaches a specific point in its orbit around the Sun – it’s an easily-measurable instant in time when the Sun rises due east, sets due west, and is in the sky for 12 hours a day. Usually, the weather takes several weeks to catch up to that, but so far Manitoba has had three “winters”, two “autumns” and a “spring” since January 1, so the equinox is becoming less useful as an indicator.
March is also when we “spring ahead”, moving our clocks forward one hour to the poorly-named “Daylight Savings Time”. (Spoiler: no daylight is saved, we just alter our schedule so that people who work 9-5 see a bit more of it after their work day is done.) The official change happens in the morning of March 10th: 1:59 a.m. Central Standard Time is followed by 3:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time. We lose an hour of sleep that night, so expect inattentive drivers, cranky coworkers, and other symptoms of poor sleep to crop up in your life for the following week or so.
The planets are described in the order they are most visible in this month’s Manitoba skies.
Solar System Highlights
There is a penumbral lunar eclipse on March 24-25 which is visible across Canada. See the Calendar entry below.
Mercury is at its best evening visibility of the year for Canadians, peeking up above the western horizon in evening twilight about the 12th and rising higher each night until greatest elongation from the Sun with occurs on the 19th. It will probably easiest to see on the few days around March 16 when it is as its brightest and near its highest above the horizon.
Jupiter is visible in the west-southwest after sunset, and sets before midnight local time. Telescopic observers will want to catch it early before it sinks into the turbulent air near the horizon.
Uranus sits above Jupiter in the evening sky, in the direction of the Pleaides star cluster. Only easily spotted in binoculars or a telescope, Uranus looks just like a faint dot of light indistinguishable from any other star.
Mars is higher than Venus in the pre-dawn sky but much fainter, making it difficult to observe until near the end of the month. Mars will return to prominence in the second half of 2024 but until then it remains a less-than-impressive object.
Venus remains very low in the south-southeast just before sunrise, only visible because of its great brilliance. It passes very close to Saturn on the mornings of March 21 and 22, but the low altitude above the horizon makes this event probably unobservable for Manitobans.
Saturn is invisible for most of the month after its February 28 conjunction with the Sun. It reappears in the morning sky towards the end of the month, very low in the southeast before sunrise.
Neptune reaches solar conjunction on the 17th, and is unobservable for the month.
Sun Mar. 3 (evening): A celestial event on Earth – Bill Nye “the Science Guy” will be speaking live at the Manitoba Centennial Concert Hall on his “The End is Nye” tour. Planetarium Astronomer Scott Young will introduce Bill and moderate the Q&A session. Showtime is 7:30 pm.
Fri Mar. 8 (morning): The razor-thin waning crescent Moon is very low below Venus and Mars just before sunset, but all three are very low in the sky and likely invisible unless you have a very clear atmosphere and flat horizon to the southeast.
Fri Mar. 8 (evening): The monthly meeting of the RASC Winnipeg Centre, the Manitoba chapter of Canada’s largest astronomy club. Meetings are open to the public, and details can be found here.
Sat Mar. 9 to Sun Mar 10: Daylight Savings Time begins: Remember to set your non-internet clocks forward 1 hour late on Saturday March 9 or after midnight on Sunday, March 10, to ensure your circadian rhythms are as messed up as everyone else’s.
Wed Mar. 13 (evening): The waxing crescent Moon is to the right of Jupiter in the evening.
Wed Mar. 14 (evening): The waxing crescent Moon is close to the Pleiades star cluster, with those farther west seeing a closer approach.
Sat Mar.23: Spring Break begins at the Manitoba Museum! 10 days of programming, exhibits, and hands-on science, plus the premiere of a new planetarium show!
Sun Mar. 24 to Mon Mar. 25 (morning): A minor lunar eclipse occurs in the wee hours of the 25th. Not the “blood moon” of a total lunar eclipse, the moon only passes through the outer part of Earth’s shadow. These penumbral lunar eclipses are easy to miss if you aren’t watching for them, since the bright Moon doesn’t look too different minute to minute and there are no major colour changes. Still, they are interesting to watch, and the Planetarium’s Dome@Home astronomy show will host a live-stream of the event beginning at 11:30 pm on the 24th.
Thu Mar. 28 (evening): Dome@Home, the Manitoba Museum’s award-winning online astronomy show, runs at 7 pm. Central time on the last Thursday of every month on the Museum’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. This episode will feature the April 8 solar eclipse, including how you can safely watch the event as it unfolds from anywhere in Manitoba.
To learn when the International Space Station and other satellites are visible from your location, visit Heavens-Above.com and select the closest city or town to you.
For information on Manitoba’s largest astronomy club, visit the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Winnipeg Centre.
NOTE: The Museum is SOLD OUT of eclipse glasses, and no more can be obtained from suppliers. They are sold out all over North America. Instead, use one of the indirect methods linked below to observe the eclipse safely.
WARNING – COUNTERFEIT ECLIPSE GLASSES: There are unsafe eclipse glasses being marketed online through various online retail outlets. These counterfeit glasses are unsafe and can cause permanent eye damage or blindness. The Manitoba Museum recommends you only buy eclipse glasses from an established telescope dealer, and not from an international distributor that doesn’t specialize in astronomical equipment.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, viewers across North America will have an amazing opportunity to experience the motions of the solar system in real time. On that afternoon a solar eclipse will be visible across the province and across the continent. For viewers in a narrow path from Mexico through the central United States and across eastern Canada, the Moon will appear to completely cover the sun, producing one of nature’s most beautiful sights: a total solar eclipse.
For most of the rest of the continent (including all of Manitoba), the eclipse is not total. The Moon will cover only a part of the Sun, resulting in a partial eclipse. This article will describe how to allow your students to view the eclipse safely and demonstrate how to turn this rare celestial event into an amazing experience for student learning. Experiencing an eclipse first-hand helps students make direct links between science as learned in class and science as it shapes the world around us.
Manitoba Association of Optometrists eclipse safety page
Observing the sun safely requires some preparation.
It is true that looking at the Sun directly with unprotected eyes can cause permanent eye damage – but this is true all the time and not just during an eclipse. The sun is no more dangerous to look at during an eclipse than it is at any other time. However, people don’t usually look at the sun repeatedly over the course of several hours on a normal day, so student safety must be considered when an eclipse occurs during school hours.
The safest way to observe the eclipse is by using special solar eclipse glasses from a certified dealer. The Manitoba Museum Shop is now SOLD OUT of eclipse glasses. Do not order them from unknown sources on the internet at this point, as unfortunately there are more fake eclipse glasses than real ones available this close to the event. Saving a dollar while risking your eyesight for the rest of your life is not worth it. If you were unable to secure glasses in time for the eclipse, check out the indirect viewing options further down on this page (instruction links are at the bottom of the page).
This is the best way for a group to observe the eclipse safely but requires a little preparation. In all cases, sunlight passes through an aperture and projects an image onto the ground or a white projection screen. People do not look at the sun, but at the magnified image cast on the screen. This results in a safe view that many people can see at once.
One method or projection often suggested is to make a pinhole camera out of a cardboard box. In our experience, this does not provide a very satisfying view unless it is made with an exceptionally long box. A cardboard tube from wrapping paper with a length of about a meter is a good choice for this.
Build a pinhole camera (bilingual instructions):https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/youth-educators/activities/fun-experiments/eclipse-projector.asp
One of the best overall viewing methods for a class is to construct a binocular eclipse projector. This will show a large image of the Sun that can be viewed by several people at the same time and is completely safe for the viewer. (However, it may not be completely safe for the binoculars, depending on their design… do not use expensive binoculars for this!)
Binocular Eclipse Projector (PDF file): Binocular-Solar-Projector
For direct viewing, the special solar filter is placed between the eye and the Sun, and the observer looks at the Sun through the filter.
There are only two types of safe filters for direct solar viewing. First are certified eclipse glasses, as mentioned above. The other safe filter is a piece of #14 welder’s glass (and ONLY #14). Both of these materials filter not only the visible light, but also the harmful and invisible infrared and ultraviolet rays that can cause permanent eye damage.
NOT SAFE FOR DIRECT SOLAR VIEWING: most eclipse glasses bought off the internet (there are MANY scammers selling fake eclipse glasses); sunglasses; CDs or DVDs; Mylar (silver) balloons or wrapping paper; any kind of photographic film; smoked glass; any other filter material you read about online that isn’t #14 welder’s glass or a pair of certified eclipse glasses.
ARE CLOUDS A SAFE FILTER? If the sky is cloudy, sometimes it is possible to see the Sun through the clouds without it feeling overly bright. While this dims the visible light from the Sun, it may not block the harmful infrared and ultraviolet light and is not a safe method to observe. Of course, if the clouds are too thick, we will not be able to see the Sun at all except via live stream.
WHAT ABOUT TELESCOPES AND BINOCULARS? If you have access to a telescope or binoculars, you cannot use eclipse glasses or welder’s glass with them. You need a special solar filter that fits over the front of the telescope lense, filtering the light before it enters the telescope. It is probably too late to try and get one of these now, as they have been selling out for months. If you already have one of these, you can use it to view the eclipse safely, but it is essential to make sure the filter cannot be removed from the front of the telescope by wind or curious hands. (Duct tape is your friend.) If you are unsure about the safety of the gear you have, email us at space@manitobamuseum.ca and we can advise you. If in doubt, do not risk it and find another way to observe the eclipse.
MANITOBA ECLIPSE LIVESTREAM LINKS: https://Youtube.com/ManitobaMuseum https://facebook.com/ManitobaMuseum
Eclipse times and circumstances for every town in Manitoba: https://eclipse2024.org/eclipse_cities/states.php?type=partial&state=Manitoba&country=Canada
NASA’s 2024 eclipse page: https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/
Build a pinhole camera (bilingual instructions):https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/youth-educators/activities/fun-experiments/eclipse-projector.asp
Binocular Eclipse Projector (PDF file): Binocular-Solar-Projector
In Manitoba there are many different types of fungus, some of which are even parasitic! In this video, Curator of Botany Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson introduces us to a few of the species that can be found here in the province.
Winter in Manitoba is not generally a time for animals to breed. Resources are scarce – many species have migrated and those that remain are often struggling to survive or have slowed their metabolism, perhaps to hibernate or essentially freeze solid.
But two Manitoba bird species are unusual finches known to breed through the winter months! Learn about these birds’ special adaptions in this video with Curator of Zoology Dr. Randy Mooi.
Animals today are mindbogglingly diverse, encompassing flies and flamingoes, elephants and earthworms, sharks and snails, and of course, ourselves. It’s hard to even imagine a world before animals, or how such staggering diversity came to be.
My name is Dr. Joe Moysiuk and I am the new Curator of Palaeontology and Geology at the Manitoba Museum. It’s my job to reconstruct ancient worlds through scientific study of the evidence that remains – fossils and rocks – and bring them “back to life” for museum visitors. I’m particularly fascinated by the evolution of major groups of animals and have devoted the past several years to researching fossils from the Burgess Shale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world’s most significant palaeontological discoveries.
The Burgess Shale is located high in the mountains of Yoho and Kootenay National Parks in British Columbia. Fossils were discovered by workers during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. Although a few sites were explored by earlier researchers, it wasn’t until 1909 that Charles D. Walcott of the Smithsonian Institution made the famed discovery of a particularly diverse excavation site and provided the name Burgess Shale after the nearby Mount Burgess. Subsequent expeditions by Harvard, the Geological Survey of Canada, and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have yielded large research collections that have been scrutinized by countless scientists and popularized in books like Wonderful Life by legendary palaeontologist Stephen J. Gould. Collection and research continues, notably at ROM, my previous institutional home.
The Burgess Shale fossils date back roughly 506 million years, to the Cambrian Period – long before the dinosaurs or even the earliest evidence of large lifeforms on land. At first glance, they are not particularly charismatic; most appear as small, dark stains on dark rocks and are difficult to see without special lighting conditions. Contrary to their modest appearance, these fossils have had an outsized impact on our understanding of the origin and evolution of animals.
Walcott’s quarry today, showing the marks of 100 years of excavation.
When I mention the word fossil, dinosaur bones may come to mind. Alternatively, you might recall seeing the shells of molluscs and corals in the Tyndall stone walls of buildings that dot the streets of Winnipeg or other Canadian cities. These sorts of hard, mineralized remains of organisms are resistant to decay, scavenging, and breakage, so they have a decent chance of persisting long enough to become fossilized. The softer parts of organisms, like eyes, digestive tracts, or brains tend to be lost long before they can be buried and preserved from further degradation.
However, there are some fossil deposits that defy these rules, preserving traces of the soft tissues of organisms alongside their mineralized bits. In technical parlance, we call these sites Konservat-Lagerstätten, deriving from an old German mining term for “conservation motherlode.” The Burgess Shale is one such Lagerstätte, and the exceptional quality and quantity of fossil material has made it among the most renowned.
A specimen of Stanleycaris, a smaller relative of the more famous Anomalocaris. This fossil is exceptional even by the standards of the Burgess Shale – the dark matter in the head and extending into the bulbous eyes is the remains of the brain and associated nervous tissues. Photo by Jean-Bernard Caron, © Royal Ontario Museum, used with permission.
A pair of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis, the oldest jellyfish known from the fossil record. These fossils were collected in the 1980s, but the species was only formally described last year. Photo by Jean-Bernard Caron, © Royal Ontario Museum, used with permission.
As you can imagine, soft tissue preservation provides unique insights about past life. For example, we recently uncovered fossilized elements of the nervous system of Stanleycaris hirpex, a distant relative of modern insects, spiders, and crabs, giving us extraordinary direct evidence of the form of the brain in the common ancestor of these disparate animals. We also find representatives of entirely soft bodied groups of organisms, which would never be found in a typical fossil deposit. For example, my colleagues and I recently described the oldest definitive swimming jellyfish.
The reasons behind the exceptional quality of preservation at the Burgess Shale, and other similar sites around the world, remain the subject of research. It’s generally thought that a combination of factors played a role: rapid burial of the organisms in undersea mud flows, low oxygen near the sea floor, and unusual sea water chemistry during this time in Earth’s history. Subsequently, chemical reactions during rock formation reduced the organic remains to carbon-rich traces which were resistant enough to survive for over half a billion years.
Aside from the quality of preservation, the age of the Burgess Shale makes it particularly significant. The Cambrian Period witnessed a spectacular diversification of animals. Essentially all major groups that are with us today can trace their roots back to this time. The Burgess Shale provides a window into life on Earth shortly after this pulse of animal diversification.
I started my museum career at a particularly exciting time. Field work at the Burgess Shale had just resulted in the discovery of a brand new Burgess Shale site in the vicinity of Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park. This site lies a mere 40 km south of Walcott’s quarry, but differs substantially in terms of the fossil species present. For several summers between 2014 and 2022, I joined international crews in exploring the region and excavating several dig sites systematically. Access to the sites is challenging and mostly by helicopter. We would camp in these remote settings for 2-6 weeks at a time, hiking long distances to reach fossil-rich outcrops. The work was hard and physical, but the rewards were truly spectacular. In the early days of exploration, new fossil species tumbled out of broken shale on a near daily basis. Some of these finds have now been formally published, but many still await attention and will be the basis of years of research to come.
Campsite from 2018. Finding a flat area to pitch multiple tents can be challenging in the mountains.
One of several excavation sites developed over the past decade in the vicinity of Marble Canyon, Kootenay National Park.
Using a rock saw to extract fossils from a block of shale.
A fossil of Marrella splendens, showing curving spines on the head, antennae, and numerous feather-like limbs. This animal is extremely common at the Burgess Shale and is a distant relative of insects and spiders.
The feeding claw of Anomalocaris, one of the largest predators from the Burgess Shale. This animal belongs to an early branch in the arthropod group, close to the common ancestor of insects, spiders, and crabs.
Getting fossils out of the mountains is no easy task! Here we employ a net suspended on a longline below a helicopter.
Given its protected status, collecting fossils at the Burgess Shale is by permit only. However, guided hikes are available to the intrepid fossil enthusiast through Parks Canada and the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation. For those unable to make the somewhat arduous journey to the site, a selection of Burgess Shale fossils are on permanent display in the Earth History Gallery of the Manitoba Museum.
As I begin my tenure here at the Manitoba Museum, I feel equally excited about the potential for fantastic scientific discoveries. A legacy of field work has yielded important collections from three Konservat-Lagerstätten here in Manitoba. At roughly 445 million year old, these deposits are slightly younger than the Burgess Shale. They therefore provide complementary snapshots of early animal diversification. I look forward to “digging into” these collections and sharing new insights in the coming years.
The Burgess Shale display in the Manitoba Museum, Earth History Gallery, featuring a selection of different organisms.
The city of Winnipeg turns 150 this year! Join Curator of History Dr. Roland Sawatzky in the Winnipeg Gallery to learn about some of the history of Winnipeg as an Indigenous homeland.
This series will continue throughout 2024, so keep an eye out for more #Wpg150 videos!
Do you know the history of valentine’s cards? Learn more about Valentine’s Day and check out some unique valentines cards from the Manitoba Museum Collection in this video with Cortney!
As you trek across the snowy landscape in a (typical) Manitoba winter, one of the last creatures you might expect to be sharing the trail with is an insect. One of the reasons you are in the woods during this season might be to avoid insects! But as the temperatures hover around the freezing mark, keep your eyes open and you might be lucky enough to see a snow fly walking alongside you. Snow flies (genus Chionea) are harmless and flightless species of crane fly (family Tipulidae) (Fig. 1). Crane flies are more likely recognized as the long-legged, skinny flies that are often mistaken to be giant mosquitoes (but don’t feed as adults or only sip nectar) (Fig. 2).
Figure 1: A female snow fly (Chionea valga), a wingless member of the crane fly family (Tipulidae), walking on snow in January 2010 (© P. Taylor, used with permission).
Figure 2: A more typical warm-weather crane fly with wings and very long, thin legs from the Museum collection with a pencil for scale.
Snow flies are highly specialized, as you might expect given they are active in winter rather than in summer as other crane flies. Their odd habits have made them difficult to study; much less is known about the lives of snow flies compared to their relatives. They are usually found under the snow in what is called the subnivean zone, the space between the snow pack and the ground (Fig. 3). Here, there is an insulated layer with stable temperatures just below or near the freezing mark that harbours an entire community of lichens, mosses and other plants, mice, voles, shrews, and many invertebrates. Snow flies live in the decaying, woody debris of the forest floor under this snowy blanket. Eggs are laid in winter and the larvae are thought to feed on plant debris or, perhaps, are coprophagous – that is, they might eat mouse or vole poop (yum!). They pupate in late summer or fall and emerge as adults in winter, under the snow. The adults, like most other crane flies, are not known to feed, although they do sip water and readily drink maple syrup when offered in lab conditions.
Figure 3: A cutaway view of a layer of snow and the forest floor to show the subnivean zone, the space between the snow and the ground that provides a stable and relatively warm environment for small mammals, invertebrates, and plants to survive the winter. This is a mini-diorama in the Arctic/Sub-Arctic Gallery of the Manitoba Museum.
Warm-weather crane flies live for only a few days, just long enough to find a mate and have females lay eggs. Snow flies are known to live for as long as two months, perhaps tied to a slower metabolism in a colder environment, but also perhaps a specialization that provides time to wait for favourable conditions to permit emergence from beneath the snow. When daytime highs go above -2°C, they go walkabout for tens of metres, perhaps farther, to find a mate (Fig. 4).
Figure 4: A female (left) and male (right) snow fly (Chionea valga) walking over snow one January, searching for each other along a trail in Pinawa, Manitoba (© P. Taylor, used with permission).
But why come to the surface in winter at all? The reason remains obscure, but it has been suggested that winter activity might help avoid predation; there are far more hungry organisms about in the warmer months. Another suggestion is that snow provides a uniform substrate on which to walk; it is easier for a flightless fly to cover more walking-distance and find a mate on a smooth flat surface than the rough, uneven, and complex terrain of the boreal forest floor (Fig. 5).
Figure 5: A trail near Pinawa, Manitoba showing typical habitat where snow flies can be found on warm winter days. © P. Taylor, used with permission.
And, indeed, these flies can’t fly. They have lost their wings and flight muscles. Their subnivean (under-the-snow) habitat does seem to make wings redundant and, even when above the snow, temperatures are likely too low to permit extended flight. But how loss of wings evolved along with this winter life-style is not understood. The females of at least some species take advantage of the loss of flight muscles by using that space to store more eggs (Fig. 6).
Figure 6: The head and thorax of a female snow fly. The thorax is shown in cross-section. Like all snow flies, the wings are absent, as are the flight muscles that would be located in the thorax. In this species, the area where the wing muscles would normally be is used to store additional eggs. From Byers (1983).
Many insects avoid freezing over winter by producing sugars and proteins in their body fluids to create an ‘anti-freeze’; they can lower their internal freezing temperature by keeping ice crystals from forming as early as they would ordinarily. Many freeze-tolerant insects can survive temperatures well below -25°C. Surprisingly, snow flies aren’t particularly good at producing antifreeze nor are they very freeze tolerant; they freeze (and die) at body temperatures below about -6°C. This means that they are restricted to the (relatively) warm subnivean world most of the winter, and explains why their mate-searching activities are limited to warmer days (as noted, about -2°C or higher). One of the snow fly’s more important adaptations is that they appear to have modified nerve and muscle function to operate at low temperatures. They can remain active to the point of freezing! This means, that on a sunny day when the dark body can absorb solar heat and remain above air temperature, a snow fly can be actively walking at -10°C (Fig. 7).
Figure 7: A female snow fly (Chionea valga) actively walking on the snow near Pinawa, Manitoba on January 27, 2015. © P. Taylor, used with permission.
A more astounding adaptation: it has recently been discovered that a snow fly can self-amputate its legs to keep a freezing limb from transferring killing ice crystals into its body and destroying critical internal organs. Many insects, and especially summer crane flies, lose their long, spindly legs quite easily if held; mechanical amputation of a leg can help to escape a predator. But the larger, more substantial legs of snow flies do not come off by pulling; rather, they are triggered to amputate by temperature-regulated nerves so that when a freezing leg is detected, amputation occurs. When air temperatures drop quickly, this can buy a little more time for a snow fly out on the surface, allowing it to seek shelter under the snow and avoid a frosty death.
You can learn more about amazing snow flies in the articles listed below; both provide excellent summaries on these surprising winter insects. You can explore the life of insects throughout the year and discover their incredible diversity in the Museum’s Boreal Gallery and Prairies Gallery, where you can get up-close and personal with hundreds of species, beautiful and bizarre.
Taylor, Peter. 2016. Snow flies and other winter invertebrates near Pinawa, Manitoba. Blue Jay 74(2): 18-22. https://bluejayjournal.ca/index.php/bluejay/article/view/6112/6101
Golding, D., Rupp, K., Sustar, N., Pratt, B. and Tuthill, J. 2023. Snow flies self-amputate freezing to sustain behavior at sub-zero temperatures. Current Biology 33: 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.002
