Latest Pollinators Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from Dr. Simon van Noort, from Natural History Department, Iziko South African Museum, and Dr. Matthew L. Buffington from the Systematic Entomology Lab, USDA describes nine new species of extremely rare Mayrellinid wasps. Mayrellinids are under-represented in museum collections with most species being known from only a single specimen. There are two genera in the Mayrellinae subfamily, Kiefferiella and Paramblynotus. Only...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers wrote in the Journal of Theoretical Biology about how bumblebees are actually more unstable when they hover rather than when they fly fast. Na Xu and Mao Sun from Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics in China analyzed the way bumblebees fly at different speeds by using a mathematical model. Their model showed that the bumblebee is unstable when it hovers and flies slowly, and becomes neutral or weakly stable...
Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Every year, hoards of Monarch butterflies begin their epic journey from Mexico through the hills of Texas to all points north, sometimes as far as Canada. Unfortunately, there will be fewer butterflies to take this journey during the coming months. It’s a trend that has been ongoing for about seven years or more and, according to Omar Vidal with the Mexican branch of the World Wildlife Fund, high temperatures and expanding...
FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology Scientists already knew that some social bee species warn their conspecifics when detecting the presence of a predator near their hive, which in turn causes an attack response to the possible predator. Researchers at the University of Tours (France) in collaboration with the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (Spain) have now demonstrated that they also use chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Butterflies are vibrant and colorful insects, with colorations designed to deflect predators. A new study from the University of Florida reveals that some of these predator driven defenses may be caused by enemies one-tenth the size of the butterfly. Since Darwin sailed on the Beagle over 150 years ago, scientists have theorized that the main influence on the evolution of coloration in butterflies came from large predators such as...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Forest fires are responsible for laying waste to entire ecosystems. As the flames rush through, animals attempt to make their escape, seeking shelter in less incendiary locales. Charred remains of trees and ground cover are completely unsuitable for sustaining the life of the animals that once called the area home. However, a new study led by bat ecologist Winifred Frick of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) reports the...
New research delivers a sting in the tail for queen wasps. Scientists have sequenced the active parts of the genome – or transcriptome – of primitively eusocial wasps to identify the part of the genome that makes you a queen or a worker. Their work, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, shows that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that in these simple societies, workers may be the 'jack-of-all-trades' in the colony -...
[ Watch the Video: Hummingbird Hovering ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The wings of the hummingbird move so fast – about 80 beats per second – these amazing creatures can actually fly right, left, up, down, backwards and even upside down. Until now, scientists believed the bird's remarkable flight generated a single trail of vortices in its wake that helps the bird hover. A research team, led by the University of California, Riverside, conducted...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Previous research has shown that bees build up an electrical charge as they buzz through the air, but a new study from the University of Bristol in the U.K. has shown that the bees are able to use this charge to interact with nectar-bearing flowers. According to a summary of the study recently published in the journal Science, the British scientists showed that flowers actually modify their own electrical fields to attract the flying...
Emory University When fruit flies sense parasitic wasps in their environment, they lay their eggs in an alcohol-soaked environment, essentially forcing their larvae to consume booze as a drug to combat the deadly wasps. The discovery by biologists at Emory University is being published in the journal Science on Friday, February 22. “The adult flies actually anticipate an infection risk to their children, and then they medicate them by depositing them in alcohol,” says Todd...
Latest Pollinators Reference Libraries
Apiology is the scientific study of honey bees, a subdiscipline of melittology (the study of all bees), which is a subdiscipline of entomology. Melittology comprises of more than 17,000 species other than the honey bee. Apiology includes apicology, which is the study of honey bee ecology. Honey bees are often chosen as a study group to answer questions on the evolution of social systems. People who study honey bees are called apiologists. There have been a number of notable apiologists...
California Leaf-nosed Bat, Macrotus californicus The California leaf-nosed bat (Macrotus californicus) is common to the United States and Mexico. The range of this leafed nose bat includes New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and in the scrub habitats located in the Mohave and Sonoran deserts in California. They can also be found in western Mexico. The California leaf-nosed bat is brown in color. It can weigh up to .7 ounces and has a wing span of over eleven inches. The long ears can be up to...
The Mexican long-tongued bat can be found in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the United States. The range of this bat extends as far south as Venezuela and in the United States, they can be found in New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. Baby Mexican long-tongued bats are born with dense fur to keep them warm in their natural habitats located in chilly mountain canyons. With a tongue that can extend up to a third of the entire body length, the long-tongued bat can easily...
Three species in the Acherontia genus make up the group commonly referred to as the Death's-head Hawkmoth. One species is native to Europe, while the other two are found in Asia. These moths are named for their unique skull shaped markings on their thorax and vividly colored abdomens. They are also capable to making loud noises if frightened. These moths will invade beehives for honey and will come and go unharmed because they imitated the scent of the bees. Females will lay green or...
The Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is a species of hummingbird, and the smallest of all birds, being only 2 inches long and weighing 1.8 grams (0.06 oz). It is found in Cuba where it is called the Zunzuncito. It is also found on the Isle of Youth. The male has a fiery green throat, iridescent gorget with elongated lateral plumes, bluish upper-parts, and the rest of the underparts mostly grayish white. The female is green above, whitish below with white tips to the outer tail...
