Tag archives for insects
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The greater wax moth evolved to hear better than any animal on Earth—all to avoid their nemesis, the bat, a new study says.
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A team of researchers recently announced the discovery of Cyanogaster noctivaga, a brand new species of transparent fish that lives deep in the Amazon. Indeed, with its transparent skin and dazzling blue belly, the discovery constitutes an entirely new genus and, despite being very hard to see, has been given an eye-catching name that means…
Scientists Create “Nano-Suits” That Allow Bugs to Survive in A Vacuum
Posted by Alyson Foster on April 18, 2013 
Scientists at the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan have come up with a special kind of spacesuit that can help keep insects alive in a vacuum. Unlike the gear astronauts wear, the nano-suit — as scientists are calling it — is more than 1,000 times thinner than a human hair and it’s made using electrons.
Posted by Female Ulidiid flies expel and eat ejaculate as a way to control who will father their offspring, a new study says.
Like People, Bees Learn From Watching One Another
Posted by Alyson Foster on April 8, 2013 
Bumblebees may not have the large, highly-developed brains that certain other animals possess – us highly intelligent primates, for example – but they can perform surprisingly sophisticated tasks, like using logic and picking up cues from their fellow bees.
Fairy circles—circular patches of bare soil surrounded by a ring of grass—have long mystified scientists. Now there’s an answer.
Carnivorous plants have a newly discovered trick in their arsenal—they glow blue to attract insects, a new study says.
Posted by When it comes to generating buzz, it’s hard to beat the Insect Fear Film Festival, which celebrates its 30th anniversary on Saturday, February 23. The lights will dim in the Foellinger Auditorium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The screen will light up. Skin will crawl— as will a cinematic parade of members of…
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A 24-hour BioBlitz by some 150 scientists and 2,000 students this weekend identified 489 species alive and well in Rocky Mountain National Park. Or did a last-minute flyover by a bald eagle make the final count 490? Presenting the tally confirmed by scientists this afternoon, BioBlitz coordinators said there were 89 species of birds, 12…
Rich Bray has volunteered 17,500 hours to the Rocky Mountain Butterfly Project. His work has won him an award from the National Park Service. Rich was at the Rocky Mountain National Park BioBlitz today with some of the 141 butterflies the project has collected. Here he talks about the butterflies and his passion for studying…
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A few weeks ago, I went kayaking in the placid waters of the Potomac River off Washington D.C. After putting in at Jack’s Boathouse in historic Georgetown, a few dips of the paddle took us to a leafy section of the city that was nearly silent, except for the distant whir of traffic and…
Mad About Moths – National Moth Week!
Posted by Dino Martins on July 22, 2012 
My name is Dino J. Martins, I am a Kenyan entomologist and I love insects. The Kiswahili word for insect is dudu and if you didn’t know already, insects rule the world! Thanks to the amazing efforts of the ‘little things that run the world’ I was humbled to be selected as a National Geographic…
They are little known by the general public, but caddisflies are an ancient group of aquatic insects that are important indicators of ecological health. For this week’s Freshwater Species of the Week, we interviewed caddisfly expert Kjell Arne Johanson, a professor and head of the entomology department at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.…
We share this planet with billions of insects, which serve as critical food sources for other species and perform countless ecosystem services, from breaking down dead matter to aerating the soil. A number of insects feed on on other living animals, and human beings are not immune to this cycle of life. One of the…
Scientists Study the Mystery of the Dung Beetle “Dance”
Posted by Alyson Foster on January 23, 2012 
The dung beetle is an intriguing insect for more than one reason, but scientists have been particularly mystified by the “dance” the beetles perform while atop their balls of dung. In a recent study, a group of researchers set out to figure out what causes this unusual behavior.
My name is Dino J. Martins, I am a Kenyan entomologist and I love insects. The Kiswahili word for insect is dudu and if you didn’t know already, insects rule the world! Thanks to the amazing efforts of the ‘little things that run the world’ I was humbled to be selected as a National Geographic…
A two-week sampling of flies in the Saguaro National Park yielded hundreds of specimens, many of them yet to be described scientifically. John Francis, National Geographic’s Vice President for Research, Conservation, and Exploration, talked to Mike Irwin at the recent BioBlitz in the park.
By Bob Hirshon, American Association for the Advancement of Science Saguaro National Park, Arizona–One of the coolest things about the BioBlitz, held this year in Saguaro National Park, is that it brings kids and scientists together. In this third BioBlitz “BobCast,” I go on a nighttime insect inventory, out in the desert, with entomologists and…
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Dr. Stephen B. Malcolm, professor at Western Michigan University, has been studying monarch butterflies in the field for 28 years, recently with support from National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration. He can tell you all about the monarchs passing through your garden this spring — and some of their mysterious cousins in South America.
By Jesús Gómez-Zurita New Caledonia, an island archipelago east of Australia, has long been recognized as a hotspot for biodiversity, maintaining a rich and mostly endemic flora and fauna, including some emblematic examples of island oddities and living fossils. As is typically the case in the tropics, despite the obvious appeal of New Caledonia for biodiversity studies,…
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When it comes to animal mating, males usually call the shots. Not so for the extinct mite species Glaesacarus rhombeus, whose females may have had total say over sex, a new study says.
The war against the No. 1 human killer disease, malaria, may be facing complications from evolution. Researchers funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found that the major malaria-transmitting mosquito species, Anopheles gambiae, is evolving into two separate species with different traits, “a development that could both complicate malaria control efforts and…
Honey is honey, right? Not so, according to Grace Pundyk, author of The Honey Trail: In Pursuit of Liquid Gold and Vanishing Bees (St. Martin’s Press; August 2010). Honey can mean different things to different cultures–and it is not always what you think you’re buying. Pundyk’s book is about her journey around the world in search…
Biscayne National Park, Florida–After 24 straight hours of exploration and documentation, the Biscayne bioblitz provided a snapshot of the many land and water species that live in Biscayne National Park, the National Geographic Society said today. “Led by more than 200 scientists from around the country, thousands of amateur explorers, families and schoolchildren from south…
