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Don't Stick Your Fingers in the Cage
Hairless Racoon
In the wild, Andrew feeds on fish, sponges, small crustaceans, nematode worms and protozoans.
Benny's diet is very specialized, consisting mainly of the interior of Ramy nuts, nectar from the Traveller's Palm tree, some fungi and insect grubs. He is also known to raid coconut plantations, and has been seen eating lychees and mangoes, which are also plantation crops.
Category: ants
Wait, you're from Darien? Do you know George Cabbott? Yeah, he went to Bucknell. He's a good guy. Hey, what about Besty Rosen?...Hahaha, yeah I wasn't going to say it, but she IS a total slut!
Posted by Benny Bleiman at 10:01 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ants
It seems like we've been covering zombie bugs a lot lately. The newest story comes from Texas, where researchers are trying out a new form of pest control on invasive fire ants: using parasitic flies to lay eggs in the ants brains, zombify them, and then explode their heads with emerging larvae. Seems reasonable.
Posted by Benny Bleiman at 1:59 PM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: toad
In the 1930s, Australian ecologists shortsightedly introduced the Cane Toad, a species indigenous to South America, to their isolated continent to eat agricultural pests. This famously proved to be a complete disaster with the toxic toads running rampant and native...
Posted by ableiman at 6:51 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ants
Subterranean...blind...predatory...smokin' hot AILF! These are all adjectives that you could use to describe a newly discovered ant from the Amazon rainforest.
Posted by Benny Bleiman at 2:21 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ants
A particularly close-up and violent ant versus termite video.
Posted by ableiman at 11:33 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ants
Just when Andrew and I decided once and for all that ants couldn't get any more delicious looking, along comes a new parasitic roundworm and turns our whole world on its head. The newly discovered nematode enters the ants when they eat bird droppings and causes their abdomen to resemble ripe, tasty berries. This in turn draws the attention to birds who love both berries and ants. The birds eat the ants, crap out the parasites, and the whole thing starts over again. Now we know what Elton John was talking about in that song in the Lion King!
Posted by Benny Bleiman at 11:24 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ants
Late last month the Genesis II Pathfinder spacecraft was delivered into orbit and along with it went a bold group of unwitting arthropods. Bigelow Aerospace was founded in 1999 with the vision of creating orbital hotels for "space tourists." In...
Posted by ableiman at 9:00 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: bird
Army-ants storm through the jungles of Panama a million strong devouring any and every living creature in their path. Some clever birds have found a way to capitalize on the mayhem: Stay close to the ants and eat the leaping,...
Posted by ableiman at 3:00 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ants
Researchers in Florida poured a liquid plaster-metal mixture into the nests of the Florida harvester ant. The resulting casts display astonishing intricacy and depth. One interesting discovery was that the top heavy nature of the chambers reflects age distribution within...
Posted by ableiman at 6:06 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
PZ Myers 11.08.2009
PZ Myers 11.08.2009
Tim Lambert 11.08.2009
Orac 11.06.2009
Orac 11.08.2009
