Rare Hermaphrodite Butterfly Hatches in London Museum

Visitors to the London Natural History Museum can currently see a butterfly that is both male and female.

The gynandromorph Papilio Memnon butterfly hatched in the puparium at this year’s Sensational Butterflies exhibition. It is one of just 200 gynandromorph butterflies among the 4.5 million butterfly specimens in the museum.

The term gynandromorph comes from the Greek “Gyn” to mean female, and “Andro” to mean male. The butterfly has distinctly different male and female markings — darker colorings on the male side and paler coloring, with flecks of blue, red and tortoiseshell on the female side.

As the coloring denotes, the butterfly is literally half female, half male — its sexual organs are half and half, and even its antennae are different lengths.

The Museum explains: “Insects can become gynandromorphs if the sex chromosomes do not properly separate during the first division of a fertilized egg, resulting in an insect with both male and female cells. They can also occur when an egg with two sex chromosomes, instead of a single one, gets fertilized by two sperm.”

Gynandromorph lobsters, spiders and crabs have also been observed.

Read more in the original article here.

The World's Ants Captured in 3D

Scientists have taken on a project to create detailed images of all approximately 12,000 known species of ants.  Below are several examples:

Click here to learn more about the ants depicted in these images.

Smelly kudzu-eating bug invades Alabama

An invasive kudzu-eating bug that swept across Georgia last year has now been detected in Alabama.

Though you might be tempted to celebrate the arrival of a bug that eats kudzu, this bug stinks. Both literally and figuratively.

When temperatures drop, the pea-sized bugs -- also known as the lablab bug or the globular stink bug -- invades homes in hordes. When threatened or crushed, they emit a foul odor.

The bugs have been found as high as 30 stories up, coating the window sills of Atlanta condo high rises.

More seriously, the bug likes to munch on plants other than kudzu, including soybeans. It also could be a threat to other legume crops such as peanuts.

Auburn University researchers collected two individual specimens in east Alabama border counties, Cleburne and Cherokee. They now expect them to spread quickly across kudzu-rich Alabama.

Known scientifically as Megacopta cribraria, the bulbous, pea-sized bug is native to India and China.  Researchers have not figured out how it got to Georgia. It might have caught a plane to Atlanta.

Kudzu itself is an Asian import. It was widely planted in the 1930s as an erosion prevention measure. When it found itself in a warmer and wetter world with none of its natural predators, kudzu quickly became a menace, spreading as much as a foot a day and eventually smothering anything that stood in its way.

Read more in the original article here.

Amazing World of Insect-Wing Color Discovered

A closer look at seemingly drab, transparent insect wings has revealed realms of previously unappreciated color, visible to the naked eye yet overlooked for centuries.

Until now, the wing colors of many flies and wasps were dismissed as random iridescence. But they may be as distinctive and marvelous as the much-studied, much-celebrated wings of butterflies and beetles.

Wasp and fly wings are made from two compressed layers of transparent chitin, with light bouncing off both layers and mixing to produce color. The same is true of oil slicks and soap bubbles, and scientists considered transparent wing coloration “a soap bubble iridescence effect, with randomly changing colors flashing over the wing surface,” according to scientists.

Instead, the researchers found that surface variations in chitin filtered out the iridescence. Remaining colors proved to be stable, and were visible from almost any angle. They differed consistently between species and sex.

Generations of biologists seem to have missed this partly because they didn’t look for it, and partly because the colors are most evident against a dark background. Against a white background, they’re invisible — which is exactly how most entomologists study transparent wings.

Researchers think the coloration has specific functions, particularly for mating, just as it does in butterflies and beetles and other insects with better-appreciated markings.

The patterns will also help scientists distinguish between species difficult to differentiate in other ways. Already the researchers used transparent wing colors to identify three new species of wasp.

Read more in the original article here.

50-Million-Year-Old Insect Trove Found in Indian Amber

A collection of amber deposits unearthed in northwest India has opened a spectacular window into insect life some 50 million years ago.  Amber is the geological name for fossilized tree resin, which often preserves insects that get stuck in it.

Although the new amber didn’t yield bizarre new species, it’s still loaded with fossil treasures. More than 700 insect species representing 55 families of insects have been identified inside. Among them are ancient bees, termites and ants — highly social insects that form some of the world’s most complex societies.

In the years to come, scientists will compare these ancient specimens to modern forms and develop a deeper understanding of how these creatures have evolved.

Original article here.

200 New Species of Frogs, Spiders, Mammals and More Discovered

In just two months of searching through a remote, mountainous rainforest in Papua New Guinea, scientists discovered 200 new species of animals and plants, including spiders, frogs, insects and mammals.

The surveys were done in 2009 in the Nakanai Mountains on the island of New Britain, which the country has nominated for World Heritage status. The new species could offer a boost to that effort.

For more information, and pictures of additional discoveries, read more in the original article here.

The Hidden World of Insect Flight

Using high-speed video cameras that capture more than a thousand frames per second, Andrew Mountcastle's videos reveal an insect ballet hidden to plain sight.  He and another scientist filmed garden-variety insects in flight, their everyday glory unmasked in slow motion.  See more videos here.

Native Toad Fights Back Against Yellow Crazy-Ant Invasion

After so many tales of invasive species overwhelming hapless natives, scientists have found a native toad in Indonesia that’s fighting back.

The common Sulawesi toad turns out to be a prodigious eater of ants, even aggressive invading ones.  On the island of Sulawesi, the Ingerophrynus celebensis toads readily feast on yellow crazy ants, which are colonizing the island as well as other tropical locations.

Yellow crazy ants get their name from their color and their zigzag scurrying, and they have crowded out native ants and disrupted ecosystems elsewhere. The invaders meet any foe aggressively, releasing noxious chemicals during battle. The Sulawesi toads eat them nonetheless.

During a week of toad abundance on Sulawesi farms, test plots hopping with toads had as little as one-third of the invasive-ant populations found on plots where fencing kept toads out.  The study could be a first in suggesting that a native toad might control populations of invasive ants.

Read more in the original article here.

Tiger Moths Scare Bats With Ultrasonic Clicks

It’s kinda tough being a moth. Not only do you have to go through the icky process of pupating, but you’re also the favorite food of bats, which use ultrasonic echolocation to swoop down and pounce on you when you’re just trying to have some fun, flapping around a lightbulb.

But one species, Cycnia tenera, which is known to its friends as the Toxic Dogbane Tiger Moth, has evolved special bat-detecting ears that contain neurons sensitive to the frequencies used by the bats for their echolocation clicks. Not only that, but the moth has even worked out how to generate ultrasonic pulses itself, confusing the bat into aborting the attack.

In a recent study, the group put moths in a dark chamber covered with sound insulation, played them the sounds of a bat’s echolocation calls, and recorded their responses with a microphone. The recordings were then analyzed to find out how the moths react to the bats.

Bats issue different types of ultrasonic call when they’re searching for potential prey and when they’ve identified a target and are swooping in for the kill. Both types were played to the moths, which were observed as being able to distinguish between the two. Although initially alarmed by both types of call, the moths habituated to the first relatively quickly compared to the second one.

The moths also emitted their own defensive ultrasonic clicks. These were also produced on hearing both types of bat call, but when the more aggressive calls were played, the clicks increased in intensity and duration.

Original article here.

Bug Eye Closeups

From this gallery:

Nature's 'treasure' unearthed in Borneo

Color-changing frogs, the world's longest stick insect and a slug that shoots "love darts" are among the biological "treasure" discovered by scientists in the lush green heart of Borneo.

The number of new plant species discovered in Borneo in the last three years outnumbers all the other categories combined. Sixty-seven new plants have been found, along with 29 invertebrates, 17 new species of fish, one bird, five amphibians and five reptiles.

Below are pictures of several newly discovered creatures:

Original article here.

High-Speed Video Shows How Flies Change Direction So Quickly

Fruit flies turn in midair with a shrug of their shoulders. A new analysis shows that the flies’ aerial gymnastics are driven by wing joints that act like wind-up toys, letting the bugs whirl around almost automatically. The insights could someday help build better flying robots.

Fruit flies beat their wings about once every 4 milliseconds — much faster than their neurons can fire — and can turn 120 degrees in 18 wing beats.

The researchers set up three high-speed cameras trained at the center of a box holding about 10 flies (see video below). A fly crossing the center of the box triggered the cameras to start rolling at 8,000 frames per second. At the same time, a disk of LED lights projected a rotating striped pattern on the inside of the box to trick the flies into making a U-turn.

The team found that when the fly turns, one wing tilts more than the other, similar to the way a rower pulls one oar harder than the other to make a boat turn. Thanks to aerodynamics, a wing-tilt difference of just 9 degrees is enough to send a fly off in another direction.

Further analysis using computer models of the fly and aerodynamic simulations showed that the fly’s wing joint acts like a torsional spring, the kind found in wind-up toys or old clocks. To change its wing tilt and set up a turn, all the fly has to do is twitch the muscle that controls the spring.



Original article here.

95 Million-Year-Old Bugs Found in African Amber Surprise Scientists

Newly discovered pieces of amber have given scientists a peek into the Africa of 95 million years ago, when flowering plants blossomed across Earth and the animal world scrambled to adapt.

Suspended in the stream of time were ancestors of modern spiders, wasps and ferns, but the prize is a wingless ant (above) that challenges current notions about the origins of that globe-spanning insect family.



The amber, which is formed when plant resin fossilizes, preserving flora and fauna trapped within, was found in what is now northwest Ethiopia. Ninety-five million years ago, it was part of a disintegrating Gondwana, one of two vast land masses that spawned the seven modern continents.

The amber in the latest study dates to the middle of the Cretaceous era, which followed the dinosaur-dominated Jurassic and witnessed the rise of mammals, birds and flowering plants. Mammals get most of the attention, but changes to flora were just as profound.

Before the Cretaceous, flowering plants — which are now the most diverse type of terrestrial plant — didn’t exist. By the mid-Cretaceous, they dominated the land. Existing plants and animals had to adapt, filling the flowery new niches. The new study is a snapshot of that process.

Inside the Ethiopian amber is an ant that looks nothing like ants found in Cretaceous amber from France and Burma. Those deposits had placed the origin of ants in Laurasia. That’s no longer certain.





In order, the pictures are of the following: 1) Wingless ant; 2) False fairy wasp; 3) Tree fern; 4) Springtail.

Original article here.

Butterflies Use Antenna GPS to Guide Migration

Scientists have finally located the 24-hour clock that guides the migration of monarch butterflies. Instead of being in the brain where most people expected, it turns out the circadian clock is located in the butterflies’ antennae.

Every fall, monarchs make an impressive 2,000-mile trek south, using the sun to guide them to the exact same wintering spot in central Mexico. But because the sun is a moving target, changing position throughout the day, biologists have long speculated that in addition to having a “sun compass” in their brains, butterflies must use some kind of 24-hour clock to guide their migration. Now, researchers have located this special GPS system.

The scientists had been studying the ability of butterfly antenna to sense odors when they uncovered something surprising: When they clipped off the insects’ antennae and tethered them in a flight simulator, the butterflies no longer flew in a uniform direction. Without their feelers, the butterflies lost the ability to navigate using the sun, as if they could no longer adjust their direction based on the time of day. This raised the prospect that the timing mechanism may actually be in the antennae.

The researchers tested their hypothesis by painting the antennae of half their butterflies with black enamel, which blocked all input from the sun, and the other half with clear paint that allowed the sun’s rays through. While the monarchs covered with clear paint kept flying south, the butterflies with blacked-out antennae started to drift consistently north, suggesting that their molecular clock was running about an hour off schedule.

The new finding not only changes how scientists think about butterfly antennae, but may also suggest a similar role for an antennal clock in other types of insects, such as bees and ants, that also operate elaborate navigation systems. Like butterflies, honeybees use a sun compass to find flowers and communicate their specific position to the rest of the hive, and they could be using a circadian clock in their antenna to adjust the sun’s position to the time of day.

Original article here.

Insects Emit Universal Death Stench

Scientists have discovered that insects from cockroaches to caterpillars all emit the same stinky blend of fatty acids when they die, and this sinister stench sends bugs of all kinds running for their lives.

A biologist made this morbid discovery while studying the social behavior of cockroaches. When a roach locates a great new abode (like your kitchen cupboard), it gives off a chemical signal to attract its cockroach friends. To determine the chemical composition of these pheromones, the scientists and his team started crushing dead cockroaches and spreading around their body juice. Cockroaches avoided places treated with these extracts "like the plague."

The team found that their concoction repelled not just cockroaches, but ants, caterpillars, woodlice and pill bugs. And even though they’re technically crustaceans rather than insects, dead woodlice and pill bugs produced the same set of fatty acids as the other animals.

Insects and crustaceans diverged from each other 400 million years ago, so the researchers think their death mix represents a universal, ancient warning signal. Recognizing and avoiding the dead could reduce the chances of catching the disease.

The scientists hope the right concoction of death smells might protect crops against pesky invaders. For instance, a log treated with the fatty acids repelled wood beetles in a forest for a full month.

Original article here.

High-Speed Video of Locusts Could Help Make Better Flying Robots

A new study may inspire aeronautical engineers to be more "flexible" with their designs. The study shows that the bends and twists in locusts’ flexible, flapping wings power the insects’ extraordinary long-distance flights.

Even though researchers have been studying how insects and other creatures fly for a long time, the aerodynamics and architectures of wings is still not fully understood. The new work uncovers the flight signatures of flapping, flexible wings.

The research focuses on the flight of the pestilent locust, an insect renowned for its efficient flying style. The four-winged insects are built to fly hundreds of miles at a time.

Researchers used high-speed cameras to capture the details of how wings of the locust Schistocerca gregaria deform as they flap by bending and twisting.

Data from the high-resolution flight images allowed the researchers to create a near-perfect mathematical model of how the flexible, twisting wings propel the insect through the air. With the model in hand, they could predict the shapes of the air currents around the flying locusts. Tiny packets of smoke released near a flying locust showed air swirls similar to swirls predicted by the model. Tweaks to to the model indicated that stiffening and/or straightening the wings caused flight performance to suffer.

The study provides sound experimental evidence that flexible wings add to flight performance. Figuring out the details of how locusts and other insects fly may help researchers design tiny robotic fliers (or "micro air vehicles").

The picture below shows patterns of air movement caused by a flying locust (middle and right columns) are similar to air patterns predicted by a computer simulation (left column). Air swirls beneath the locust’s wings as the wings move downward from the beginning of a stroke (top panels) to the end (bottom panels).



Original article here.

Cell Phone Cricket Census in NYC

If you are in New York on September 11 and you have a cell phone and a good pair of ears, you can help with the first-ever comprehensive cricket census of New York City.

Biologists from the US Geological Survey are asking citizen scientists from the Big Apple to help them track the city’s cricket and katydid population. Participants in the NYC Cricket Crawl will go out between dusk and midnight to record cricket calls for one minute, and then immediately send their results and location to the scientists by cell phone.

The researchers are hoping to find evidence that the Common True Katydid, once plentiful in New York City but now rare, is still thriving in some regions of the city.

Scientists came up with the idea after reading a brief report on the mysterious disappearance of the common katydid on Staten Island, written in 1920. Although nearly 90 years have passed since the report, no one has solved the mystery of the missing katydid.

You don’t need any special equipment to become a Cricket Crawler, and there are two options for submitting your data: Either ID your own cricket songs and call or text in the results, or if you have access to a phone or digital camera with video, you can record what you hear and send the file directly to the scientists. Real-time cricket census data and interactive maps will be available as the night continues.

Original article here.

Ant mega-colony takes over world

Scientists have discovered that a single mega-colony of ants has colonized much of the world.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same interrelated colony, and will refuse to fight one another. The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

Argentine ants were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.

While ants are usually highly territorial, those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of miles.

Original article here.

Zoom in on an Ant

Click the picture below to be taken to a page on Gigapan, a site that features incredibly detailed gigapixel photos that you can zoom in on. This ant is composed of 400 pictures in total, and it's magnified 400x using a scanning electron microscope:

Synchronized Fireflies

Look closely in the below video and you will see fireflies blinking in unison in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The fireflies can sense when their neighbor fireflies are flashing and attempt to flash before them.

Long thought to be an exclusively Southeast Asian phenomenon, the behavior was only discovered in an American firefly species (P. Carolinus) in 1992. Scientists have subsequently discovered other populations in the Congaree Swamp in South Carolina and other high altitude locations in the Appalachian mountains.

Original article here.