As I was driving across Ohio today something splated against my windshield and left a large yellow smudge. The remaineder of the object flashed over the top of my vehicle before I got a good look at it but I think it was a bug of some kind. I have driven on the Ohio Pike many times and I have never encountered bug juice this color before.
Are there large flying insects in Ohio that contain a bright yellow ichor or did someone throw a packet of mustard out the window or something?
Nominating this name for Band of the 00's :
Bright Yellow Ichor :D
Cartooniverse
Some insect parts are yellow: the Malpighian tubules in roaches, for example, and I’m sure many others are. But I’m not sure that would account for the majority of the juice you see in a splat. What you saw may have varied by species and the …er… distribution of fluids in the remains. Maybe it was a female bloated with eggs? I don’t know of any insects that have yellow eggs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything; there are so many species and I’ve never been to Ohio.
Bright Yellow Ichor really would make a good band name. I can practically see all the hideous concert T-shirts already…
Grasshopper! There are several species, and it has been a while (think ‘decades’ here), but I think the black-with-yellow-trim ones squash quite yellow anytime, and I seem to remember that as wevets suggests, the eggs are yellow. The bigger grey hoppers, IIRC, squash to a sort of greenish colour.
[grampa voice]
Of course the hoppers in Saskatchewan get a lot bigger than in Ohio. When I was about 20, a friend of mine was driving his pickup down the grid road at about 60 or so when a grasshopper came up in front of his windshield. BAM! Punched right through, flopping around on the seat, good thing he had a tire iron handy to club it to death. That one was as big as I’ve ever seen … four and a half pounds! He had us over for a barbecue that night. Mmmmm! Better than lobster!
[/grampa voice]
Maybe it was a rod…
::ducks and runs::
Well If I recall my high school biology correctly, insects (specifically bugs) do not have hemoglobin or myoglobin. Their blood is not iron based. It is based on some other transition metal wedged in a porpheryn complex (I think it’s copper) that gives it a yellow color. The oxygen doesn’t bind very tightly and is easily removed. Basicall it binds long enough to be transported to the various tissues and organs, there is no storage capability. Because of this insects have developed an enormous trachia to increase the air intake to oxygenate the blood. It’s also for this reason that insects can’t get very large.
As far as the bright yellow icor you describe… I, too, have seen this and I suspect that it is some sort of glyceride in the blood acting as a sort of biological antifreeze.
So it probably was a grasshopper then. I tell ya, it surprised the hell out of me at the time.
Thanks.