entomology

Welcome to the world of bees. This fuzzy yellow and black striped fellow is a bumblebee in the genus Bombus sp., family Apidae. We know him from our gardens where we see them busily lapping up nectar and pollen from flowers with their ...

Two elusive groups of millipedes, Siphoniulida and Siphonocryptida, were the last missing pieces in the evolutionary history of Earth’s oldest land animals, according to a team of entomologists led by Virginia Tech. The post Entomologists Reconstruct Evolutionary History of Millipedes appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News .

Wolsingham, Weardale: These stunning butterflies are here in incredible numbers this year, yet what’s most remarkable is their multigenerational migration There’s a painted lady basking on the footpath. Her orange, black-tipped, white-spotted wings, a little worn after her long journey, blend with shadows and sun-flecks on heatwave-baked mud, so she’s almost under our feet before she takes flight…

(Wired) – Releasing sterilized flies can crash a local population of flesh-eating screwworms. But the US currently has limited capacity to produce them. Eliminated in the US in 1966 and as far south as Panama by 2006, its recent reemergence … Read More

Releasing sterilized flies can crash a local population of flesh-eating screwworms. But the US currently has limited capacity to produce them.

Migrant insects have been seen in large numbers along east coast thanks to heatwave and benign southerly winds If you’ve spotted a pale orange butterfly dashing at frenetic pace through streets, fields or gardens, you’ve noticed the new migrants that will add colour to the summer in record-breaking numbers. What is expected to be the largest arrival of painted lady butterflies in Britain for 17 y…

Queen-cell wax helps shape honeybee queen development, challenging the idea that royal jelly alone makes a queen, a new study suggests.

Google Mosquitoes Debugging Florida I was excited to learn recently that Google has plans to debug Florida and California by releasing millions of “good bugs”—male mosquitos (which can’t bite or spread disease) that “have a naturally-occurring bacteria called Wolbachia which makes them unable to have offspring with wild female mosquitoes.” It’s an intervention with demonstrable efficacy from past…

The insect may learn to associate the chemical Deet with a ‘blood meal’, researchers say It is a spray used worldwide to protect humans from mosquito bites, but now research suggests Deet can become attractive to the insects if they associate it with feeding. Deet – which has the chemical name N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide – is widely used in insect repellants, with the UK Health Security Agency rec…

Pavlov’s dog, meet Pavlov’s mosquito The post Wearing DEET Might Be Like Ringing the Mosquito Dinner Bell appeared first on Nautilus .

Lab experiments suggest mosquitoes can smell DEET and learn to associate it with food, but it’s unclear whether that happens in the wild.

Check out this new paper published as an output of the Group on Insect Nutrition To Open Nutritional Innovative Challenges (GIN-TONIC) Cost Action! Jordan contributed to this alongside an incredible team of researchers spanning 15 institutions and 12 countries, and it’s now published in Journal of Insects as Food and Feed! Knowledge gaps in feeding Continue reading "NEW PAPER: Knowledge gaps in f…

Cambridgeshire: It was nearly ready to fly but it was partly out of its chrysalis and partly still in it On Sunday morning, I was pottering in the garden wondering what to do. I saw a flapping coming from my wildflower patch, so I went to my clump of clover. I pushed it away, only to reveal a large white butterfly fresh out of its chrysalis. It had been drying its damp wings in the sun. Then I re…

A seven-year study has resulted in a new understanding of the life history of a parasitic insect that infects the paper wasp.

Its name is short — like its size — but bees are one of Earth's most important and busy creatures.