Birds Ended The Reign Of Giant Insects

Photo: This fossil insect wing (Stephanotypus schneideri) from the period about 300 million years ago when insects reached their greatest sizes, measures 19.5 centimeters (almost eight inches) long. The largest species of that time were even bigger, with wings 30 centimeters long. For comparison, the inset shows the wing of the largest dragonfly of the past 65 million years. (Credit: Photo by Wolfgang Zessin.)

Reign Of The Giant Insects Ended With The Evolution Of Birds -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2012) — Giant insects ruled the prehistoric skies during periods when Earth's atmosphere was rich in oxygen. Then came the birds. After the evolution of birds about 150 million years ago, insects got smaller despite rising oxygen levels, according to a new study by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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My Comment: 9-10 inch long insects .... yech.

Rating Insect Stings

The 10 Most Painful Stings On The Planet, By The Self-sScrificing Man Who Tried 150 Different Varieties In The Name Of Science -- Daily Mail

Justin Schmidt's colourful descriptions include how the sting of a yellowjacket wasp is like 'W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue'

Most of us will have felt the pain of a bee sting. Luckily most of us will have avoided the dreaded pain of a tarantula hawk or a fire ant.

Justin Schmidt felt all three of these - and 147 other horrible, burning sensations - after a dedicated life-long career devoted to insects.

On numerous fieldwork trips, The University of Arizona entomologist would find himself digging up living colonies of creatures, who in turn were not happy with this destructive human scooping them into bags - and promptly sank their fangs, stingers or pincers into him.

Still, no pain, no gain, and Schmidt turned his experiences into the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, ranking 78 species in a list which, while subjective, was put together by the man who must surely know best, ranking their pain on a scale of 1 to 4.

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My Comment: Ouch

The Marvels Of Imaging Technology On Fossils Trapped In Amber

The 49 million-year-old Huntsman spider seen using X-ray computed tomography. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Manchester)

Imaging Technology Reveals Intricate Details of 49-Million-Year-Old Spider -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2011) — Scientists have used the latest computer-imaging technology to produce stunning three-dimensional pictures of a 49 million-year-old spider trapped inside an opaque piece of fossilized amber resin.

University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues in Germany, created the intricate images using X-ray computed tomography to study the remarkable spider, which can barely be seen under the microscope in the old and darkened amber.

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My Comment: 49 million years trapped in amber .... wow.

Itsy Bitsy Spider's Web 10 Times Stronger Than Kevlar

The web of the Darwin's bark spider (Caerostris darwini), can span some square feet (2.8 square meters) and is attached to each riverbank by anchor threads as long as 82 feet (25 meters). Credit: Matjaz Kuntner.

From Live Science:

Scientists have found the toughest material made by life yet — the silk of a spider whose giant webs span rivers, streams and even lakes.

Spider silks were already the toughest known biomaterials, able to absorb massive amounts of energy before breaking. However, researchers have now revealed the Darwin's bark spider (Caerostris darwini) has the toughest silk ever seen — more than twice as tough as any previously described silk, and more than 10 times stronger than Kevlar.

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How Mosquitoes Find A Tasty Host

From Live Science:

Prepare to be bugged out of your minds, citizens of Earth, because I've got a new scheme that I’m just itching to unleash: I'm going to attract a swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes to the next Nobel Prize ceremony, and watch as the dignitaries scratch themselves crazy. Aren't I repellent?

"But how," you’ll bravely ask, "how do you intend to attract so many mosquitoes to the icy-cold nation of Sweden?" An intelligent question, but the answer is elementary: I shall make use of the newest in olfactory research from Vanderbilt University, where scientists are unraveling the secrets behind mosquitoes' sense of smell. They may soon be able to explain how mosquitoes are able to track down their blood-feasts.

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They Crawl, They Bite, They Baffle Scientists

THE ICK FACTOR The lab of Stephen A. Kells, a University of Minnesota entomologist. Bedbugs are not known to transmit disease. Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Don’t be too quick to dismiss the common bedbug as merely a pestiferous six-legged blood-sucker.

Think of it, rather, as Cimex lectularius, international arthropod of mystery.

In comparison to other insects that bite man, or even only walk across man’s food, nibble man’s crops or bite man’s farm animals, very little is known about the creature whose Latin name means — go figure — “bug of the bed.” Only a handful of entomologists specialize in it, and until recently it has been low on the government’s research agenda because it does not transmit disease. Most study grants come from the pesticide industry and ask only one question: What kills it?

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Cockroach Ancestor Predates Dinosaurs

(Credit: Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum)

From Discovery News:

If it seems like cockroaches have been around forever, they nearly have. Check out this 300-million-year-old cockroach ancestor that lived several million years before the world's first dinosaurs emerged.

A new 3-D virtual model of the insect is described in the journal Biology Letters.

Imperial College London scientists created the model, which you'll view shortly, to show all of the details on Archimylacris eggintoni, which is an ancient ancestor of modern cockroaches, mantises and termites. This insect scuttled around early forests during the Carboniferous period 359 - 299 million years ago, which was a time when life had recently emerged from the oceans to live on land.

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Super Bug! World's Strongest Insect Revealed

Two males of dung beetle called Onthphagus taurus size up each other's horns.
Credit: Alex Wild.

From Live Science:

After months of grueling tests, a species of horned dung beetle takes the title for world's strongest insect.

The beetle, called Onthophagus taurus, was found to be able to pull a whopping 1,141 times its own body weight, which is the equivalent of a 150-pound (70 kilogram) person lifting six full double-decker buses. While the study researcher knows of a mite that can take on a hair more, that organism is an arachnid, not an insect.

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Monarch Butterflies Dwindle Due To Harsh Winter Weather

From ABC News:

Scientists Say to Plant Milkweed to Help Save the Butterflies.

Monarch butterflies normally find sanctuary in the mountains of Mexico, away from the cold winters of North America, but a harsh winter of torrential rain and mudslides has decimated the monarch butterfly population.

"We saw a number of things happen in Mexico this winter that shouldn't be happening but are probably due to climate change in some way," said Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.

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Where Did Insects Come From? New Study Establishes Relationships Among All Arthropods

This animal, Speleonectes tulumensis, is from a group of rare, blind, cave-dwelling crustaceans called "remipedes." The new analysis in Nature shows that the remipedes are the crustaceans most closely related to the insects. Remipedes and insects together are now shown to be a sister group to all the other crustacea including the crabs, shrimps, and lobsters. (Credit: Simon Richards)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 22, 2010) — Since the dawn of the biological sciences, humankind has struggled to comprehend the relationships among the major groups of "jointed-legged" animals -- the arthropods. Now, a team of researchers, including Dr. Joel Martin and Dr. Regina Wetzer from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), has finished a completely new analysis of the evolutionary relationships among the arthropods, answering many questions that defied previous attempts to unravel how these creatures were connected.

Their study is scheduled for publication in the journal Nature on Feb. 24.

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Pinch Away The Pain: Scorpion Venom Could Be An Alternative To Morphine

Researchers are investigating new ways for developing a novel painkiller based on natural compounds found in the venom of scorpions. (Credit: iStockphoto/John Bell)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 21, 2010) — Scorpion venom is notoriously poisonous -- but it might be used as an alternative to dangerous and addictive painkillers like morphine, a Tel Aviv University researcher claims.

Prof. Michael Gurevitz of Tel Aviv University's Department of Plant Sciences is investigating new ways for developing a novel painkiller based on natural compounds found in the venom of scorpions. These compounds have gone through millions of years of evolution and some show high efficacy and specificity for certain components of the body with no side effects, he says.

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Migrating Insects Fly In The Fast Lane

A new study sheds light on the flight behaviours that enable insects to undertake long-distance migrations, and highlights the remarkable abilities of these insect migrants. (Credit: iStockphoto/Karel Gallas)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 8, 2010) — A study published in Science, by researchers at Rothamsted Research (an institute of the BBSRC), the Met Office, the Natural Resources Institute, and the Universities of Exeter, Greenwich and York, sheds new light on the flight behaviours that enable insects to undertake long-distance migrations, and highlights the remarkable abilities of these insect migrants.

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Sweat And Blood: Why Mosquitoes Pick And Choose Between Humans

Receptors are drawn to chemical in human sweat

From Times Online:

For some people, a mosquito in the room is a threat to any little patch of exposed skin, while others seem to go unscathed. Now scientists have discovered chemicals in human sweat that make certain individuals more attractive to the insects.

Those targeted most aggressively are likely to have higher concentrations of the chemicals in their perspiration, or simply sweat more, the US researchers say.

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Monarch Butterflies Reveal a Novel Way in Which Animals Sense Earth's Magnetic Field

Monarch butterflies resting in a tree. (Credit: iStockphoto/Paul Tessier)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 27, 2010) — Building on prior investigation into the biological mechanisms through which monarch butterflies are able to migrate up to 2,000 miles from eastern North America to a particular forest in Mexico each year, neurobiologists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) have linked two related photoreceptor proteins found in butterflies to animal navigation using the Earth's magnetic field.

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Why Human Blood Drives Mosquitoes Wild

Image of the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito, an insect that is attracted to the sent of human blood. Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey, UC Davis Department of Entomology 

From Live Science:

When the time came for chemical ecologist Walter Leal to test whether humans make a natural odor that attracts mosquitoes, Leal himself was the first to volunteer.

"I measured my own levels," Leal said. "I thought I would set a good example. If you do it first, then others won't be scared."

In truth, there was little if any reason to be frightened. The scientists were looking only for the substance itself, not trying to find out whether the compound would lure the insects into a blood meal. And they found it — nonanal, a substance made by humans and birds that creates a powerful scent that Culex mosquitoes find irresistible.

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Voodoo Wasps That Could Save The World

There are more than 600,000 species of parasitic voodoo wasps and they already play a critical role as a natural regulator of insect populations. Peter Koomen and Mathijs Zwier (University of Groningen)

From The Independent:

Genetic breakthrough could enable scientists to unleash armies of insects on deadly crop pests.

They are so small that most people have never even seen them, yet "voodoo wasps" are about to be recruited big time in the war on agricultural pests as part of the wider effort to boost food production in the 21st century.

The wasps are only 1 or 2 millimetres long fully-grown but they have an ability to paralyse and destroy other insects, including many of the most destructive crop pests, by delivering a zombie-inducing venom in their sting.

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Ladybugs Taken Hostage by Wasps

Ladybug. Are ladybugs being overtaken by wasps? (Credit: iStockphoto/Klemens Wolf)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 26, 2009) — Are ladybugs being overtaken by wasps? A Université de Montréal entomologist is investigating a type of wasp (Dinocampus coccinellae) present in Quebec that forces ladybugs (Coccinella maculata) to carry their larvae. These wasps lay their eggs on the ladybug's body, a common practice in the insect world, yet they don't kill their host.

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Insects May Have Consciousness And Could Even Be Able To Count, Claim Experts

A honeybee's brain weighs one mg and contains fewer than a million nerve cells

From The Daily Mail:

Insects with minuscule brains may be as intelligent as much bigger animals and may even have consciousness, it was claimed today.

Having a brain the size of a pinhead does not necessarily make you less bright, say researchers.

Computer simulations show that consciousness could be generated in neural circuits tiny enough to fit into an insect's brain, according to the scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and Cambridge University.

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Oldest Known Spider Webs Discovered

This light micrograph shows spider web threads coated with sticky droplets (left panel) and threads with helical twists (right panel) that were preserved inside amber for about 140 million years. Credit: Martin Brasier.

From Live Science:

Silken spider webs dating back some 140 million years have been discovered preserved in amber, scientists announce today.

The viscous tree sap flowed over the spider webs before hardening and preserving the contents, which were discovered in Sussex, England. Other bits sealed up in the amber included plant matter, insect droppings and ancient microbes.

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Ladybugs Swarm Midwest

Swarming Ladies. Ladybugs are seen on cars in Chatham, Ill., Oct. 21, 2009. Around much of the country,legions of Asian lady beetles are making their seasonal appearance. AP Photo/Seth Perlman

From Discovery News:

Pest-control specialist Gene Scholes even gets bugged by them -- legions of ladybugs lately swarming his rural Missouri home and other stretches across the country, exploiting gaps in door and window seals for cozier climes inside.

Bug experts say the Asian lady beetles, considered harbingers of good luck in many cultures, are making their seasonal appearance in droves in search of warmth for the approaching winter.

The beetles are harmless to humans. That doesn't make them any less annoying for folks like Scholes.

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