Better beetle sought for salt cedar control
...Uzbekistan are more prolific salt cedar eatersthan beetles from Greece. At least that's what Texas Agricultur...Station researchers hope. Uzbekistan salt cedar beetles being released by the ExperimentStation's entomology department are the same species as those releas...Velvet worm brains reveal secret sisterhood with spiders
... types of insects had distinctly different brains: beetles had beetle brains, bees had bee brains, flies had fly brains. Other arthropods, too, had brains that were uniquely their own: spiders, scorpions, centipedes and crabs could all be told apart by their brains. Onychophoran brains were initially a puz...Compound eyes, evolutionary ties
...isual acuity and angular sensitivity. In contrast, beetles (shown surrounding the fruit fly), bees and many mosquito species have the light-gathering units fused together into a "closed system." In a paper published in this week's early online edition of the journal Nature, the scientists report that one of...Giant insects might reign if only there was more oxygen in the air
...racheal dimensions increase proportionately as the beetles get larger whether there is a limit to the size ... The study found that the tracheae of the larger beetles take up a greater proportion of their bodies, about 20% more, than the increase in their body size w...Research discovers oldest bee, evolutionary link
...anism to spread their pollen, only a few flies and beetles that didn't go very far." The amber specimen Poinar studied, which came from a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar, has certain features that resemble wasps, such as a double spine on the middle tibia and narrow hind legs. But it also has...New genetic analysis forces re-draw of insect family tree
...d that flies and moths are most closely related to beetles and more distantly related to bees and wasps, cont... were most closely related to bees and wasps, with beetles more distantly related to these groups. This new family arrangement also brings the different spec...Vanishing beetle horns have surprise function
...orns: during their development, Onthophagus horned beetles use their young horns as a sort of can opener, hel...ed into the adult." Because all the Onthophagus beetles the scientists examined form horns during development, Moczek and colleagues also argue the evolutio...Why do males and females of some species look so different?
... by both males and females. Studying a group of beetles famous for their dramatic diversity in the develop...econd developmental period during which the female beetles reabsorb massive amounts of horn tissue that they had grown just a few days earlier. The males retai...Firewood unintentionally transports emerald ash borer
...e trunk of the car, destined for a new area. Adult beetles would emerge from the wood during May and June and...material from China. Shortly after arriving, adult beetles emerged from the wood and flew to local ash trees infesting them." Although Appleby says that wo...Why are there so many more species of insects? Because insects have been here longer
...McPeek and Brown show that many insect groups like beetles and butterflies have fantastic numbers of species because these groups are so old. In contrast, less diverse groups, like mammals and birds, are evolutionarily younger. This is a surprisingly simple answer to a fundamental biological puzzle. They acc...Do we need a paradigm change? Disputing coevolution in herbivorous insects
...lanet! It is commonly accepted that phytophagous beetles and their host plants (mainly the likewise specios...s view. This study shows that at least in the leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae; 40,000 species) this association is apparently out of sync. A time-calibrated phylog...Breathing easy: When it comes to oxygen, a bug's life is full of it
...go will discuss "Control of internal convection in beetles using active tracheal compression." Socha, a biophysicist, is best known to the public for his work on "flying" snakes. He has used synchrotron x-rays to view working tracheal tubes and air sacs in living insects that give further clues to how the sy...Hives ferment a yeasty brew, attract beetle pest
...onal team of researchers has found that small hive beetles can detect some alarm pheromones at levels below that detected by honeybees. The beetles associate the alarm chemicals with a good food source and head for the hive. In Africa, where the sm...Researchers find 24 species believed new to science in Suriname rainforest
...actylus frog species, six species of fish, 12 dung beetles and an ant species. The scientists also found 27 species endemic to the Guayana Shield region comprising Suriname and neighboring Guyana, French Guiana and northern Brazil, including a rare armored catfish, Harttiella crassicauda, feared extinct beca...Rove beetles act as warning signs for clear-cutting consequences
...the effects of harvesting on forests species. Rove beetles can be used as indicators of clear-cut harvesting ...ngly being used in conservation studies. We felt beetles were excellent candidates for this study because they are abundant and diverse, easily sampled, inha...Book makes case for using evolution in everyday life
... principles to explain phenomena as diverse as why beetles commit infanticide, why dogs have curly tails, and why people laugh and make art. Wilson, a distinguished professor of biological sciences with a joint appointment in anthropology at Binghamton University, is convinced that evolution can become mor...... The team suggests that diversification of carabid beetles could be caused by a force and fit trade-off. Ther...gate, small-headed and stout, large-headed carabid beetles that feed upon land snails. Large-headed beetles can readily crush snail shells with their powerful ...Elevated CO2 in atmosphere weakens defenses of soybeans to herbivores
...ants became more susceptible to attack by Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica). Furthermore, as these beetles consumed the weakened soybeans, the insects invasive abilities were intensified. Dr. Jorge Zavala,...Chickadee, nutchatch presence in conifers increases tree growth, says CU-Boulder study
...ons for infestations by damaging insects like bark beetles that have ravaged pine forests in the West. Chemicals in trees known as terpenes, which give vegetation distinctive odors, have been implicated in the resistance of trees to parasites and plant-eating insects, he said. By removing insects, the bi...Smithsonian scientists show differing patterns of rainforest biodiversity
...representing 500 species of caterpillars, ambrosia beetles and fruit flies in the undisturbed lowland rainforest of the Sepik and Ramu river basins in Papua New Guinea. The team collected insects and plants from eight study sites across 75,000 square kilometers of contiguous forestan area the size of South C...