How mosquitoes dodge the rain.
Nature opens a window on a thing that has always puzzled me, and probably anyone who’s been in mosquito country in the rainy season. How […]
entomology
Pesticides make bees… picky.
PhysOrg finds something weird about the nicotine-based pesticides that seem to be making trouble for bees. Neonicotinoids make them picky eaters: The UC San Diego […]
You are a hive mind.
Scientific American is seething with the swarm of possibilities that bring every human decision down to the level of bees: To Dr. Thomas Seeley, a […]
Six-legged giant not extinct, found hiding on remote island.
NPR describes the joy of explorers finding “extinct” tree lobsters – the world’s largest known stick insects, once native only to Australia’s Lord Howe Island […]
Man bites dog; bug eats frog.
Science Daily dwells on a bizarre reversal of the usual order of things: …[I]n an unprecedented predator-prey role reversal, a certain group of ground beetle […]
Leaping cockroaches!
Because sometimes scuttling just isn’t enough. Wired gets up close and personal with the cockroach that, like its cricket cousins, jumps where it needs to […]
Science Art: Rust Mite, Aceria anthocoptes, by Erbe, Pooley: USDA, ARS, EMU.
Click to embiggen This is a bug that, like Eeyore, eats thistles. Some call them “free living.” Others call them vagrants. Technically, I mean. [via]
Science Art: Locusta Indica (from Insecten-Belustigang by A.J. Rösel von Rosenhof)
Click to embiggen. As far as I can tell, the name of the volume from which this illustration came means “The Joy of Insects.” I’m […]
The birds and, uhhh….
Scientific American reveals the emotional life of bees. Yes, insects do have emotional lives: Recently, studies by Geraldine Wright and her colleagues at Newcastle University […]
Science Art: Batocera Wallacei, from Archives entomologiques ou Recueil contenant des illustrations d’insectes nouveaux our rares by James Thomson, 1857
Mmm. Borer beetles. Or, more precisely, Wallace’s long-horn beetle. Beetle-obsessed millionaire James Thomson’s book is on archive.org, but I found it via [Scientific Illustration].
Science Art: CASENT0010677 (Cephalotes atratus), Antweb.
Click to embiggen Ants don’t actually spin webs. This striking image is one of what will ultimately be more than 11,700 photographs – no, wait, […]
The Soul of the Zombie Ant.
National Geographic has some creepy new insights into one of nature’s creepiest reproductive strategies. The zombie ants – insects whose brains have been hijacked by […]
Truck stop life.
Scientific American has a great guest post about a driven entomologist who discovered a new order of life… one that had eluded discovery by hanging […]
Helicoma spp + rhinoceros beetle, from Insecten-Belustigung, by AJ Rösel von Rosenhof, 1700s.
Click to embiggen From Insecten-Belustigung (Insect Amusements), a three-volume encyclopedia by 18th century German illustrator AJ Rösel von Rosenhof. [via Bibliodyssey, via Keep Your Pebbles.]
Precious beetles.
It shouldn’t be surprising that The Optical Society likes getting a little flashy… but their beetle test subjects take things a little too far: Costa […]