A Game of Thrones: Butterfly Larvae Pretends To Be Queen Ant To Survive

The Maculinea butterfly larvae are parasites of red ants. It is brought into the nest by the ants thinking it is one of its own. Once in, the caterpillar is fed and protected by these red ants.

The Maculinea caterpillar was found to mimic acoustic signals emitted by the queen ant to fool worker ants into being adopted, protected, and cared for by the ant colony.

A group of researchers from the University of Turin in Italy released a paper on this behavior in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Crazy Ants Displace Fire Ants As Dominant Invasive Species

According to a University of Texas study, Crazy Ants may become the dominant invasive ant species displacing Fire Ants in the near future.

The ants secrete a compound that neutralizes the venom used by Fire ants. The venom of the fire ant is very powerful and even fatal. It is two to three times as toxic as DDT on a per weight basis. But because crazy ants have a natural defense against the venom and their sheer numbers, they can overcome the species in a head to head confrontation.

Crazy ants gained attention when Texas exterminator Tom Raspberry noticed these ants in a Pasadena chemical plant in 2002. He noticed that the species seem to keep multiplying even after extermination.

The ant colonies seem to have an unexplained attraction to electrical devices. Crazy ants are known to damage devices such as televisions and laptops. The ants will stream inside the device until they form a single moving mass that completes a circuit and shorts it.

They take over an area through sheer numbers. These ants can overtake beehives and destroy the colonies. Bird chicks are smothered and struggle to hatch. In South America, where scientists now believe the ants originated, they have been known to obstruct the nasal cavities of chickens and asphyxiate the birds. They even swarm into cows’ eyes.

With their natural defense against fire ants, scientists believe that crazy ants will displace fire ants in the Southern United States.

16 New Species of Wasps Discovered in the Nearctic Region

Alloxysta texana

Researchers have found 16 new species of wasps from the Nearctic region from specimens in the United States National Museum of Natural History and in the Canadian National Collection of Insects. Of the 16 discovered, seven of these have been described and illustrated.

Wasps are insects and cataloged under order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita. Contrary to belief, they are not related to bees or ants. Wasps prey on other insects. Some parasitic wasps are used as a deterrent against other pests in agricultural environments. Since they prey on just the pests, there is minimal crop damage caused by using them.

Most wasps are solitary and do not sting or attack humans. Only a few are aggressive such as the Yellow Jacket. Wasps are distinguishable from bees by their pointed lower abdomens and the narrow "waist," called a petiole, that separates the abdomen from the thorax. There are about 30,000 sub species of wasps identified to date.

The Nearctic zone includes most of North America as well as Greenland and the highlands of Mexico.

Spider Webs Use Electrostatic Charge To Effectively Catch Insects

A study from biologists in University of California, Berkeley, shows that spider webs use the electrical charge in insects to help better capture them. The result of their findings is published in Scientific Reports.

The image on the left is that of a cross spider, Araneus diadematus, lying in wait in its web. The cross spider, just like most spiders, produces silk to create its web to capture its prey.

There are other researches done to study and analyze the structure of the spider web to discover what makes spider webs resilient and how these properties relate to the molecular structure of silk fibers. A key property of spider silk that helps make webs robust is that it can stretch and soften at first when pulled, and then stiffen again as the force of the pulling increases.

The UC Berkeley study states that the electrostatic charge generated by insects as they flap their wings help deform the silk web before capturing them; increasing the effectiveness of the spider web in capturing its prey.

UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Victor Manuel Ortega-Jimenez used electrically charged dead insects, a spider web, and high speed video cameras to test his hypothesis. Dropping the electrically dead flies into the web while filming it, showed that before the insects hit the web, the silk deforms and touches the insects; ensuring capture.

Commercial Sonic Devices Using Ultrasonic Frequencies Ineffective Against Bed Bugs

Studies initially show that ultrasonic bed bug repellers have no effect in the dispersion or eradication of these blood sucking insects.

Bed bug infestations have been in the news and have garnered much mainstream attention. From popular personalities to the common everyday person, no one is spared from these small blood sucking insects.

The bed bug (Cimex lectularius) are small wingless insects that feed on blood. They are guided to feed by the carbon dioxide exhaled by their victims. Although these bugs are associated to feed at night, they are not exclusively nocturnal.

Bed bugs does not cause any major illness. They do irritate the skin and can cause rashes or can be harmful for people with allergies. Most suffer psychological trauma more than anything when it comes to bed bugs.

Dung Beetles Use Dung As A Mobile Thermal Refuge For Thermoregulation

Dung beetles are also called scarab beetles. These are the same beetles worshiped by the ancient Egyptians. They believed that a giant dung beetle rolled the Sun across the sky and buried it at night.

They probably got the idea from observing that these beetles roll balls of manure across the plain and bury it under the ground. Dung beetles do this since they use these balls of dung for food or as a brooding ball where the female beetle will lay its eggs inside it. When the larvae hatches, they feed on the dung.

There are some dung beetles that feed on mushrooms, leaves, and fruits. Dung beetles that solely rely on dung as its food source, do not need to drink or eat anything else since all the nutrients are provided for by the dung.

Study Shows How Bumble Bees Determine The Most Optimal Route While Foraging

Unlike the honey bee that is fast and active, the bumble bee is a slow and gentle bee. It hardly attacks humans and never swarms on a victim. As for bee stings, only the queen bee and its worker bees have a sting and unlike the honey bee that dies when it uses its stings, the bumble bee does not.

The shape of the bumble bee is also distinct from other bees,it is round and furry. They have black and yellow bands although some species have orange or red bands, or may be entirely black.

Bumble bees do not live in a hive, they build a nest cavity or live in tunnels in the ground made by other animals.

Bumble bees are not as aggressive as honey bees. They usually ignore people or animals unless actively provoked. They also live on nectar from flowers and produce honey but their honey production is not enough for commercial or harvesting purposes.

How bumblebees find efficient routes without a GPS

Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London have tracked bumblebees for the first time to see how they select the optimal route to collect nectar from multiple flowers and return to their nest.

In a paper published in PLOS Biology today (18 September), the scientists, working with the Harmonic Radar Group at Rothamsted Research, were able to use radar tracking to show how bumblebees discover flowers, learn their location and use trial and error to find the most efficient route between flowers over large distances.

Professor Lars Chittka and Dr Mathieu Lihoreau from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and colleagues set up five artificial flowers in a 1km diameter field. Each flower was fitted with motion-triggered webcams and had landing platforms with drops of sucrose in the middle*.

New Spider Family Trogloraptoridae Discovered In Oregon

This is a male Trogloraptor photographed in the lab.
Credit: Griswold CE, Audisio T, Ledford JM

The spider family Trogloraptoridae is a new species of spider discovered in the old growth forests of southern Oregon. To date, it only comprises a single species; Trogloraptor Marchingtoni.

The spider is named after amateur biologist, Neil Marchington, who helped in the discovery of the arachnid. Marchington is a Deschutes County deputy sheriff and led the team of scientists to caves where the Trogloraptor spiders were found. He is also an amateur biologist and local cave explorer. Neil is a member of the the Western Cave Conservancy.

The trogloraptor has been observed to spin primitive webs that comprises only a few strands. They hang beneath those webs from the cool, damp ceilings of the caves.

Spider version of Bigfoot emerges from caves in the Pacific Northwest

The forests of the coastal regions from California to British Columbia are renowned for their unique and ancient animals and plants, such as coast redwoods, tailed frogs, mountain beavers and the legendary Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch). Whereas Bigfoot is probably just fiction, a huge, newly discovered spider is very real. Trogloraptor (or "cave robber") is named for its cave home and spectacular, elongate claws. It is a spider so evolutionarily special that it represents not only a new genus and species, but also a new family (Trogloraptoridae). Even for the species-rich insects and arachnids, to discover a new, previously unknown family is an historic moment. A study of the new family and its evolutionary and conservation significance was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

A team of citizen scientists from the Western Cave Conservancy and arachnologists from the California Academy of Sciences found these spiders living in caves in southwest Oregon. Colleagues from San Diego State University found more in old-growth redwood forests. Charles Griswold, Curator of Arachnology, Joel Ledford, postdoctoral researcher, and Tracy Audisio, graduate student, all at the California Academy of Sciences, collected, analyzed, and described the new family. Audisio's participation was supported by the Harriet Exline Frizzell Memorial Fund and by the Summer Systematics Institute at the Academy, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Credit: Joel Ledford, Calif Academy Of The Sciences / SF

Brown Widow Spiders Invade Southern California Displaces Black Widow Spiders

The Brown Widow Spider (Latrodectus Geometricus) is one of the widow spiders under the genus Latrodectus. It is related to the black widow spider (Latrodectus Mactans).

The Latrodectus genus is all under the family Theridiidae. It is a large family of spiders, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders. The diverse family includes over 2200 species in over 100 genera).

The origin of the brown widow is uncertain as specimens have been independently discovered in both Africa and the Americas. In the US, they can be found in the southern half of the country. Other countries such as Australia, Afghanistan, Japan, Tanzania, South Africa and Cyprus have reported also presence of the arachnid.

The spider is lighter in color than the black widow. It ranges from tan to dark brown to black. Like the black widow, it also has an "hourglass" marking on the underside of the abdomen that is a vivid orange or a yellowish color.

The brown widow also has a black-and-white geometric pattern on the dorsal side of its abdomen. The Latin name comes from this pattern but the pattern can become obscured when the spider's coloring darkens over time.

Are brown widows displacing black widow spiders around southern California homes?

Brown widow spiders are relatively new to North America, where they were first documented in Florida in 1935, and even newer to southern California, where they were only recently discovered in 2003. However, in the last decade they have been so successful that they may be displacing native black widow spiders. If so, the overall danger to homeowners may decrease because brown widow spider bites are less toxic than those of native western black widow spiders.

In "The Prevalence of Brown Widow and Black Widow Spiders (Araneae: Theridiidae) in Urban Southern California," an article in the July issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology, the authors describe the results of their efforts to document the presence of brown widows in southern California by performing timed searches in various habitats, such as urban properties, agricultural lands, developed parks, and undeveloped natural areas. They also included the native western black widow spider to compare the abundance and habitat selection of the two species.

Male Corn Earworm Moths, Helicoverpa Zea, Flies Too Soon During Courtship Race

By studying how female sex attractants make male moths warm up their flight muscles faster but take flight prematurely, University of Utah biologists are learning about how odor affects animal behavior.
Credit: José Crespo, University of Utah

The corn earworm can be found in temperate and tropical regions of the world. Mainly found in North America, it is a major agricultural pest. In their larvae stage, they are responsible for a large percentage of grade-out corn.

The species are identified by many different common names, depending on what the larva eats. Cotton bullworms are those that consume cotton. Corn eaters are called corn earworms. Tomato fruitworms are the larva that consumes tomatoes. The larva has also been known to consume many other crops.

Corn earworms regularly migrate into northern regions from southern regions depending on winter conditions.

Virgin male moths think they're hot when they're not

A University of Utah study found that when a virgin male moth gets a whiff of female sex attractant, he's quicker to start shivering to warm up his flight muscles, and then takes off prematurely when he's still too cool for powerful flight. So his headlong rush to reach the female first may cost him the race.

The study illustrates the tradeoff between being quick to start flying after a female versus adequately warming up the flight muscles before starting the chase. Until the next study, it remains a mystery which moths actually reach the females: the too-cool, quick-takeoff males or the males who wait until they're hot enough to take a shot. The latter may end up flying faster and more efficiently and win the race, despite a slow takeoff.

Study Show Bug Bombs And Foggers Have Minimal Effect Against Bed Bugs

Cimex Lectularius, are commonly called Bed Bugs. These are insects are about 1mm to 7mm small. They are flat and oval shaped to better squeeze into small tight spaces to avoid detection.

Bed bugs feed on sleeping people. Their bites are hardly felt and they are so small (around 1mm to 7mm) that they can hide in small crevices in the wall or bed frame. A thorough understanding of these pests is needed for proper bed bug control.

A home can suddenly be infested by bed bugs simply because it was brought there. Bed bugs can be carried from place to place by travelling thru clothing, suitcases, bags, or even in used furniture. Once settled in a home, they can travel up to 100 feet at night in search of sleeping victims.

Bug-bomb foggers are no match for bed bugs

New research shows foggers are ineffective against bed bugs

Consumer products known as "bug bombs" or "foggers" have been sold for decades for use against many common household insects. However, recent research published in the Journal of Economic Entomology (JEE) shows these products to be ineffective against bed bugs.

New Species of Trapdoor Spider Discovered: The Auburn Tiger Trapdoor Spider

Male specimen of Myrmekiaphila tigris
Credit: J. Bond

Trapdoor Spiders are cataloged under Family: Ctenizidae. In 1985, Robert Raven transferred species that are endemic to the southeastern USA to the genus Myrmekiaphila.

Trapdoor spiders do not build a web to capture prey, instead they burrow into the ground. They construct a trapdoor in the opening from which they spring from to capture their prey. These spiders usually wait for an unsuspecting prey to pass by and activate trip lines that the spider lay out around the trapdoor. These trip lines alert the spider by vibrating, sending out information as to where the prey is for the spider to jump out and grab.

The Auburn Tiger trapdoor spider: a new species discovered from a college town backyard

Researchers at Auburn University have reported the discovery a new trapdoor spider species from a well-developed housing subdivision in the heart of the city of Auburn, Alabama. Myrmekiaphila tigris, affectionately referred to as the Auburn Tiger Trapdoor spider, is named in honor of Auburn University's costumed Tiger mascot, Aubie.

The research team, directed by Biological Sciences professor Jason Bond, lead investigator and director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, and Charles Ray, a research fellow in the Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology, was excited at the prospect of such a remarkable find just underfoot. Bond and Ray actually live in the neighborhood where the new species was discovered. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys and is freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Kinds of Spiders and the Secret Behind The Strength of Their Webs

Spiders weave their own silk to build webs. It is this silk that is known to be one of the strongest materials to exists. On a pound per pound basis, spider silk is stronger than steel.

Researchers have studied and analyzed the structure of the spider web to discover what makes spider webs resilient and how these properties relate to the molecular structure of silk fibers. Research such as these may open up the possibility of synthesizing spider web for practical real world applications as well as apply the same knowledge to design principles that might apply to networked systems such as the Internet or the electric grid.

A key property of spider silk that helps make webs robust is something previously considered a weakness: the way it can stretch and soften at first when pulled, and then stiffen again as the force of the pulling increases.

This stiffening response is crucial to the way spider silk resists damage. Researchers at MIT analyzed how materials with different properties, arranged in the same web pattern, respond to localized stresses. They found that materials with other responses — those that either behave as a simple linear spring as they’re pulled, or start out stretchy and then become more “plastic” — perform much less effectively.

White-tailed spiders are vagrant hunters that live beneath bark, rocks, and in leaf litter and logs, and gardens, and are often seen in houses. Tufts of specialized scopulate hairs on the ends of their legs allow them to walk easily on smooth or sloping surfaces. They make temporary silk retreats and spin disc-shaped egg sacks, each containing up to 90 eggs.

Spider webs, it turns out, can take quite a beating without failing. Damage tends to be localized, affecting just a few threads — the place where a bug got caught in the web and flailed around, for example. This localized damage can simply be repaired, rather than replaced, or even left alone if the web continues to function as before. Markus Buehler, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) at MIT, says, "Even if it has a lot of defects, the web actually still functions mechanically virtually the same way. It’s a very flaw-tolerant system.”

New Wasp Species Discovered in Indonesia: Megalara Garuda, The King of Wasps

Wasps are insects in the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita. These insects are neither a subspecies of the bee or of the ant.

Wasps prey on other insects. Wasps contribute to the natural control and natural biocontrol of other species. Parasitic wasps are increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they prey mostly on pest insects and have little impact on crops.

Contrary to popular belief, most wasps are solitary and do not sting or attack humans. Only a few are aggressive such as the Yellow Jacket. Wasps are distinguishable from bees by their pointed lower abdomens and the narrow "waist," called a petiole, that separates the abdomen from the thorax. There are about 30,000 sub species of wasps identified to date.

A new and unusual wasp species has been discovered during an expedition to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

It was independently also found in the insect collections of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, where it was awaiting discovery since the 1930s, when it had been collected on Sulawesi. The new species is pitch-black, has an enormous body size, and its males have long, sickle-shaped jaws. The findings have now been described in the open access journal ZooKeys.