Notes on insect vivipary

Many years ago I captured flesh-flies (Sarcophagidae) for close observation. Slightly smaller ones - males had a conspicuous reddish bulbous structure at the end of their abdomen, lacking in the female. Once gently holding a female between my fingers, I have noticed that she was pushing out a dozen or more of crawling larvae. That has remained in my consciousness for many years without any explanation, in exception of the thought that female feeling that she might be destroyed tried to leave offspring in an immediate manner. I just have looked up at Wikipedia and found out that vivipary (in animals - ability to give birth to live offspring instead of laying eggs) is a characteristic of the family Sarcophagidae.
The question came up if there are other insects that have vivipary. I immediately recalled that aphids do. In late summer when the food source for aphids goes in dormancy males are reported to appear, and those females, which have been copulated by the male with lay a hard-shelled egg that will winter over. During the rest of their life cycle aphids are viviparous and parthenogenetic.

Back to school

When I was young I didn't enjoy going to school, because the material that was taught seemed insignificant to me. My education was out in the field, in nature with real things: plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, even little animals involved into the decomposing of carcass. I thought of the concentration of energy in the decaying flesh as being redistributed over the environment by flies, beetles and coyotes. A pointing case that sorrowed me most, when they had to have a teacher to teach biology they couldn't find one, and the closest one turned to be a football coach. The gym teacher was qualified to teach biology, because his resume included that he has taken a course in human body.
At my advanced years I have developed a strong fascination for the subjects of chemistry and physics that I did poorly with in the lower grades. To fill in with these gaps I found a series of high quality educational materials made available by The Teaching Company (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/). At this time we have acquired 3 of their numerous courses: Understanding the Human Body (by professor Anthony A. Goodman), The Joy of Science (by professor Robert M. Hazen), and How to Listen to and Understand Great Music (by professor Robert Greenberg). I hold all of them in awe, since they are the greatest bunch of teachers that I have ever encountered. I look forward to evenings when I can fit one or two lectures. They are so full of information that more than 2 would be more that I can assimilate. I would like to assign 5 starts to all these three courses that I am familiar with.

The remarkable breeding activities of white throated swifts

A friend of mine who is a rock climber was here yesterday and shared with me his observations at the tip of the arrow in this picture.
Echo cliffs Malibu - Santa Monica mountains (found on Google images)

While climbing the rock he could hear a din of many birds voices emanating from inside the crack. Looking away from the rock, he saw pairs descending, not tumbling, but rotating as if they were a seed of a maple. The rotation retards the rate of descent. I watched this many times and the pairing of the two swifts occurs high in the air, the timing of them being in copula would be about 0.5 min, and the pair would break up just few feet above the ground. Before the copulation was observed one to several dozen of birds were milling around in a fairly compact group and then suddenly you will see a pair come together and start the descent. The nest is built on vertical surfaces and glued to the wall with adhesive saliva. The well-known edible bird's nests in China are produced by another species of swift.
The order Apodiformes (a - without, podo - foot - without well-formed feet) includes 3 families: swifts, tree swifts, and humming birds. Their feet are designed for clinging to the vertical rock surfaces. Their feeding is confined to catching insects in the air. Unlike most birds their humerus is very short and proportionally very long radius and ulna. this group of birds can be separated easily in flight from swallows, in which the ulna and the forewing are almost of the equal length, providing what you might call a "graceful flight pattern" with wings folding and opening, contrasted with the rigid beating-like motion of the swifts that is similar to the movement of humming bird wings.