Latest Insect Stories
ATLANTA, Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- As Halloween nears, kids dressed up as vampires, ghosts and goblins aren't the only creepy creatures people can expect to lurk around their homes. Atlanta-based pest control leader Orkin notes that cooler temperatures mean cockroaches, spiders, centipedes and rodents might seek refuge in your house. And, according to Orkin's recent Omnibus survey, Americans fear some of these pests the most. "Seasonal changes can drive many pests indoors for food,...
The research program AQUA Palawana has been exploring the unique freshwater biodiversity of the Philippine Island and biosphere reserve of Palawan for more than a decade. Scientists from the Senckenberg Museum of Zoology Dresden and the Bavarian State Collections of Zoology in Munich have now described larvae and a new species of the curious Spider Water Beetles (Ancyronyx) from this biodiversity hotspot. Their study was realized in cooperation with the Palawan Council for Sustainable...
[ Watch the Video ] The long-standing consensus of why insects stick together after mating has been turned on its head by scientists from the University of Exeter. Published today (6 October) in Current Biology, their study shows that, contrary to previous thinking, females benefit from this arrangement just as much as males. Instead of dominating their female partners through bullying and aggressive behavior, males were revealed to be protective, even laying their lives on the line...
A team of researchers from the Capital Normal University in Beijing (China) and the Institute of Biology and Soil Sciences in Vladivostok (Russia) has discovered a remarkable silky lacewing insect from the Mesozoic of China. The study has been published recently in the open access journal ZooKeys. The extant silky lacewings (the family Psychopsidae) may be recognized by their broad wing shape, dense venation, spectacularly patterned and hairy wings. Today, this family is very small,...
[ Watch the Video ] Research focuses on aerial feats such as hunting and mating in mid-air Next time you see a dragonfly, try to watch it catch its next meal on the go. Good luck! "Unless we film it in high speed, we can't see whether it caught the prey, but when it gets back to its perch, if we see it chewing, we know that it was successful," says Stacey Combes, a biomechanist at Harvard University. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), she and her team are...
Bats derive their ability to use echolocation, the bouncing of sound waves off objects to produce an accurate representation of the environment in total darkness, from so-called “superfast” muscles, researchers reported in latest issue of the journal Science. These superfast muscles, which are located in the bats’ larynx, are a physical trait never before seen in mammals, and allow the bate to make a rapid series of calls as they home in on their prey. They are the fastest...
Dr. Maria McNamara of Yale University has done microscopic research that shows how the colors of fossilized beetles have shifted. This new research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, gives paleontologists greater confidence in knowing what these ancient insects actually looked like. The color information revealed by the beetles further unveils the way a particular beetle lived its life. Dr. McNamara told BBC News, “These kinds of colors have lots of visual...
The creation of compounds that disrupt a worldwide pest’s winter sleep hints at the potential to develop natural and targeted controls against crop-eating insects, new research suggests. Scientists have designed agents that interfere with the protective dormancy period of the corn earworm, a species that infests more than 100 types of plants and costs American farmers an estimated $2 billion a year in losses and control costs. The compounds, composed of synthetic molecules that mimic...
The world's only bioluminescent millipedes use their glow as a warning signal to nocturnal predators, a University of Arizona-led research team has discovered [ Watch the Video ] As night falls in certain mountain regions in California, a strange breed of creepy crawlies emerges from the soil: Millipedes that glow in the dark. The reason behind the glowing secret has stumped biologists until now. Paul Marek, a research associate in the UA's Department of Entomology and Center...
Discovery in insects' skin could lead to improved pest control, new bioplastics technology Scientists may soon be able to make pest insects buzz off for good or even turn them into models for new technologies, all thanks to a tiny finding with enormous potential. Sujata Chaudhari, a Kansas State University doctoral candidate in biochemistry, Pune, India, is the senior author of a study that was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also called PNAS....
Latest Insect Reference Libraries
Image Caption: I took this picture myself on 7th March, 2007. John E. Hill 04:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC) Specimen caught by Jim Symes in Laura, Queensland. It measures over 16 cm from its' head to the end of its' body and is the largest recorded specimen of this species so far. John E. Hill 11:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC). Credit: John E. Hill/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) The giant centipede (Ethmostigmus rubripes) can be found in Australia, Indonesia, New Guinea, China, Southeast Asia, and the...
Image Caption: Scutigeromorph centipede, probably Allothereua maculata. Credit: Chris Bloke / Wikipedia (CC BY 2.0) Allothereua maculate is a species of house centipede that can be found in Australia. Its range extends from Queensland to Western Australia, an area where it is commonly found. It prefers a habitat within moist woodland areas or urban areas. It can reach an average body length of up to one inch. Its body is dark brown in body, with darker striped marking the fifteen...
The Migratory Locust (Locusta migratoria), is the most widespread species of locust. It occurs throughout Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It was once very common in Europe but has now become rare there. Because of the vast geographic area it occupies, which comprises many different ecological zones, numerous subspecies have been described. However, not all experts agree on the validity of some of these subspecies. Pigmentation and size of the migratory locust vary according to its...
Pentatomidae is a family of insects that includes some of the stink bugs and shield bugs. If disturbed, stink bugs will emit a pungent, bad-smelling liquid, whose rancid almond smell is due to cyanide compounds. Their antennae are 5-segmented, which gives the family its name. Their bodies are usually shield-shaped. Many stink bugs and shield bugs are considered agricultural pest insects, because they can create large populations; they suck plant juices and damage crop production, and...
A cicada is any of several insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Homoptera, with small eyes wide apart on the head and transparent well-veined wings. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates. Taxonomy There are many thousands of cicada species. The largest are in the genera Pomponia and Tacua. There are some 200 species in 38 genera in Australia, about 100 in the Palaearctic and exactly one species in England, the New Forest Cicada (Melampsalta montana), which is widely...
