insects
clock | July 28, 2006As always, animal porn is under the fold:
You have probably heard that a female praying mantis eats her mate's head during the mating process. You may imagine the process to go something like this:
Actually, there are many species of praying mantises and in most of them sexual cannibalism is quite rare. It occurs much more often in the laboratory than out in the field. Apparently, the lights and sounds of a laboratory are stressful to the female so she acts aggressively in response.
The praying mantises are very aggressive predators and they can eat quite a lot of food, preferring soft-…
grrlscientist | June 29, 2006
Wild specimen of the butterfly species, Heliconius heurippa.
Researchers recently demonstrated that this species is a naturally-occurring
hybrid between H. cydno and H. melpomene.
Image: Christian Salcedo / University of Florida, Gainesville.
Speciation typically occurs after one lineage splits into two separate and isolated breeding populations. But it is has been hypothesized that two "parental" species with overlapping ranges could hybridize, thereby giving rise to one new but reproductively isolated "daughter species" in the same area. However, this phenomenon has rarely been observed…
grrlscientist | June 5, 2006
Female thorn bug or thorn treehopper, Umbonia crassicornis (Insecta: Hemiptera: Membracidae).
Have you ever seen an insect evolved to look like a thorn? This not-quite-sharp photo is one I took during the 2004 NABA biennial meeting in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
Image (resized): by frequent reader, Biosparite.
This is a group-living herbivorous insect that lives in the southern USA. They communicate with each other using vibrations and females provide parental care (predator defense) for their nymphs.
If you are interested to learn more about communication in this, and other,…