insects
clock | February 24, 2009Genetic Manipulation of Pest Species: Ecological and Social Challenges:
In the past 10 years major advances have been made in our ability to build transgenic pest strains that are conditionally sterile, harbor selfish genetic elements, and express anti-pathogen genes. Strategies are being developed that involve release into the environment of transgenic pest strains with such characteristics. These releases could provide more environmentally benign pest management and save endangered species, but steps must be taken to insure that this is the case and that there are no significant health or…
awild | February 22, 2009I've created a set of desktop wallpapers to fit the newer 1680 x 1050 widescreen monitors. To put any of the following on your desktop, click on the image. Once the large version loads to your browser, right-click and select "Set as desktop background."
awild | February 21, 2009The port at Mobile, Alabama, photographed from across the bay.
The port city of Mobile, Alabama holds special significance for students of ant science. Jo-anne and I took a weekend trip down to the gulf coast in January, and as we are both myrmecologists we felt compelled to stop and take a few photographs. Not only is Mobile the childhood home of ant guru E. O. Wilson, but the city's docks have been the point of introduction into North America for some notorious pest ants. We'd have neglected our intellectual heritage to just drive through.
Mobile's busy international commerce has…
awild | February 20, 2009Chrysina lecontei, Arizona.
Jewel scarabs emerge during Arizona's summer monsoon, and collectors from around the world descend on the region with their blacklights and mercury vapor lamps to attract the beetles. Chrysina lecontei is the smallest and rarest of the three Arizona species.
Chrysina leconte, Arizona.
photo details (both photos): Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/18, indirect strobe in white box
awild | February 19, 2009
Leptomyrmex rufipes, the red-footed spider ant. Queensland, Australia.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/11, flash diffused through tracing paper
edyong | February 19, 2009It's a scene straight out of a horror film - you look around and see dead bodies everywhere. They haven't just been killed either, they've been hollowed out from the inside-out leaving behind grotesque mummified shells. What would you do if you were confronted with such a macabre scene? Flee? Well, if you were an aphid, you'd probably just feel relieved and go about your business. Aphids, it seems, find security among the corpses of their peers.
Aphids, like almost all insects, are the targets of parasitic wasps that implant eggs inside their bodies. On hatching, the wasp grubs use the aphid…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2009tags: Saturnia albofasciata, emerging moth, insect metamorphosis, nature, streaming video
A male Saturnia albofasciata moth emerges from its cocoon in this time lapse video. The cocoon was partially cut away to observe development and movement and doesn't seem to bother the moth. After the moth emerges, he expands his wings by pumping his body fluid into them. The music is "The Voice" by Technician. [1:11]
awild | February 17, 2009
The Taliban Beetle, a specimen at the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Switzerland.
Meet the Taliban Beetle.
I took this picture in 2004 while visiting the collections at the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland. For reasons I was unable to discern, a coleopterist working in the collection in the late 1990's had intended to name this new Afghani ground beetle after the country's ruling party at the time. Whether he came to regret this decision in the post 9/11 world, I do not know.
No formal description of the Taliban beetle was ever printed. So despite the official looking…
awild | February 15, 2009Lasius (Acanthomyops) arizonicus with mealybug, Huachuca Mountains, Arizona.
Students of the North American myrmecofauna will undoubtedly recognize this ant. Pudgy, pleasingly orange in color, and smelling sweetly of citrus, the Citronella ant is an endearing creature.  This Nearctic endemic is among our most common ants, living in underground empires farming root aphids and mealybugs for sustenance.
Yet few people ever encounter these shy insects. They emerge above ground for only a few hours each year, in late summer to see off the colony's winged reproductives.
The dozen or so…
awild | February 13, 2009
Colliuris pensylvanica, long-necked ground beetle. Arizona.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | February 12, 2009
Here's a sharper version:
Parasitic Cotesia wasp attacks a Manduca larva
The story itself is amazing. It's been known for some time that Ichneumonid and Braconid wasps inject circular strands of DNA- called polydnaviruses- into their host insects along with their eggs. This DNA is encoded by the wasp genome but acts like a virus in their hosts, dismantling the immune system to protect the developing wasp larvae. In a study out this week in Science, a team headed by Jean-Michel Drezen pinpointed the origin of the polydnavirus as being a type of nudivirus. It seems that some ancient…
edyong | February 12, 2009This is the seventh of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial. It combines many of my favourite topics - symbiosis, horizontal gene transfer, parasitic wasps and viruses.
Parasitic wasps make a living by snatching the bodies of other insects and using them as living incubators for their grubs. Some species target caterpillars, and subdue them with a biological weapon. They inject the victim with "virus-like particles" called polydnaviruses (PDVs), which weaken its immune system and leave the wasp grub to develop unopposed. Without the infection, the wasp egg…
awild | February 12, 2009In honor of the old man's 200th, Myrmecos Blog is proud to feature Charles Darwin writing prophetically about the problems posed by social insects for his theory of natural selection.  The passage below is from the first edition of On the Origin of Species, and in it Darwin anticipates the same answers- kin and group selection- that later generations of biologists converged on to solve the riddle. Not bad for a barnacle taxonomist...
No doubt many instincts of very difficult explanation could be opposed to the theory of natural selection,âcases, in which we cannot see how an instinct could…
awild | February 10, 2009Tenodera aridifolia, Arizona.
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/14, indirect strobe in a white box
edyong | February 10, 2009This is the fourth of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial.
Charles Darwin was a visionary in more ways than one. In 1862, Darwin was studying a Malagasy orchid called Angraecum sesquipedale, whose nectar stores lie inaccessibly at the bottom of a 30cm long spur (tube). Darwin predicted that the flower was pollinated by a moth with tongue long enough to raid the spur.
Few people believed him, but in 1903, zoologists discovered Darwin's predicted moth, Xanthopan morgani praedicta, and it did indeed have a very long tongue. Darwin accurately predicted the…
edyong | February 9, 2009This is the third of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial.
In our world, there is (roughly) one man for every woman. Despite various social differences, our gender ratio remains steadfastly equal, so much so that we tend to take it for granted. Elsewhere in the nature, things are not quite so balanced.
Take the blue moon butterfly (Hypolimnas bolina). In 2001, Emily Dyson and Greg Hurst were studying this stunningly beautiful insect on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu when they noticed something strange - almost all the butterflies were females. In…
edyong | February 9, 2009This is the second of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial.
What do you get when one species splits into separate lineages? Two species? Think bigger...
When new species arise, they can set off evolutionary chain reactions that cause even more new species to spring forth - fresh buds on the tree of life create conditions that encourage more budding on different branches.
Biologists have long suspected that these "cascades of speciation" exist but have struggled to test them. Enter Andrew Forbes from the University of Notre Dame - his team of has found a…
awild | February 8, 2009From David Attenborough's brilliant Life in the Undergrowth:
Incidentally, Ed Yong's interview with Sir David is worth reading.