beetle

Jeff Cremer, a nature photographer, discovered mysterious tiny glow worms (~0.5 inches long) in Peru near the Tambopata Research Center a couple of years ago. Scientists still have not identified the species of these glow "worms", but suspect they are actually click beetle larvae. Entomologists Aaron Pomerantz, Mike Bentley, and Geoff Gallice from the University of Florida decided to go to Peru to investigate the worms. Here is what they found:  
REMOTE-CONTROLLED insects may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but they have already been under development for some time now. In 2006, for example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, the Pentagon's research and development branch) launched the Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems program, whose ultimate aim is to turn insects into unmanned aerial vehicles. Such projects provide proof of principle, but have met with limited success. Until now, that is. In the open access journal Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, a team of electrical engineers led by…
tags: Tvärminne, zoological field research station, Finland, nature, image of the day Wildflowers with beetle photographed at Tvärminnen eläintieteellinen asema (Tvärminne Zoological field research station) in southwestern Finland. [read more about it: English Suomeksi På Svenska] Image: GrrlScientist, 16 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) Can you name the species?
A new study of C. maculatus seed beetles has proven the worst case scenario for most men: size and in this case the number of painful, injuring spikes on their penises do in fact matter. The C. maculatus have a series of spikes and barbs on their members that, during sex, become embedded in their mates, acting as anchors of sorts. We are so sorry, but what you are looking at is EXACTLY what you think it is. "They literally injure females internally in their copulatory duct. They're pretty mean," Goran Arnqvist, the lead author of the study, said to National Geographic. Bow-chicka-wow-…
Colliuris sp. long-necked ground beetle, Arizona   details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D beetle on plain white paper f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100 MT-24EX twin flash diffused through tracing paper levels adjusted in Photoshop