Insect Archive

Parasites use clever ploys to stay alive while destroying their victims.

 

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2) Head-bursting fungus

 

In a bizarre death sentence, the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis turns carpenter ants into the walking dead. The fungus prefers the undersides of leaves of plants growing on the forest floor. That's where temperature, humidity and sunlight are ideal for the fungus to grow and reproduce and infect more victims. The parasite gets the insects to die hanging upside down, and then erupts a long stalk from their heads with which it sprinkle its spores to other ants. Fossil evidence recently suggested this fungus has zombified ants for millions of years.

 

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5) Ant-deceiving butterfly

 

Just like cuckoo birds, the Japanese lycaenid butterfly Niphanda fusca lays its eggs in the nests of other species, in this case the carpenter ant Camponotus japonicus. The caterpillars that hatch from these eggs then dupe the ants into adopting them by mimicking the odor of the high-ranking male ant caste. Such a chemical disguise explains why these "social parasite" moochers are enthusiastically fed by their hapless hosts in preference to the ants' own brood.

 

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6) Male-killing bacteria (photo)

 

The genus of bacteria known as Wolbachia infests a whopping 70 percent of the world's invertebrates, and has evolved devious strategies to keep spreading. In female hosts, the germ can hitch a ride to the next generation aboard the mother's eggs, and since males are essentially useless for the bacteria's survival, the parasite often eliminates them to increase the rate of females born, by either killing male embryos outright or turning them into females. Incredibly, the bacteria have even found a way to sneak their entire genomes into the cells of fruit fly hosts.

 

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7) Web-manipulating wasps

 

Although parasites harm their hosts, they don't usually kill them, if only to keep themselves alive. Not so with parasitoids, which ultimately destroy and often consume their hosts. Parasitoid wasps, which inspired the monster in the movie “Alien,” lay their eggs inside their victims, with the offspring eventually devouring their way out. A number of the species control their host's minds in extraordinary ways — the larvae of the wasp Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga, which infests the spider Plesiometa argyra, makes their victims spin unusual webs especially well-suited for supporting their cocoons.

 

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Via David Hughes

The butterfly flapped its colorful wings while the spider sat waiting to jump its prey and inject venom into the butterfly’s head.The spider aimed at the head, jumped and hit the butterfly’s wing — fooled again.

 

For three months, Andrei Sourakov watched such interactions between jumping spiders and butterflies, recording them with a camera. His findings were published online March 8 in the Journal of Natural History.

 

Sourakov, a collection coordinator at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, began the experiment because research has focused on how the colors and pattern of a butterfly’s wings are thought to deceive birds, but not on how they fool other predators, such as spiders.

 

He wanted to see if a specific color pattern — the “false head” pattern found on many hairstreak butterflies that mimics a butterfly’s own head — could fool spiders too.

 

He used 15 individual butterflies and moths belonging to 12 different species. The spider successfully captured 13 that did not have the “false head.” But the Red-banded Hairstreak butterfly, whose spots imitate a false butterfly head, escaped all 16 attacks from the jumping spider.

Via Matti Virtala

It's been known for decades that animals such as chimpanzees seek out medicinal herbs to treat their diseases.

Via François Verheggen

PLOS ONE: an inclusive, peer-reviewed, open-access resource from the PUBLIC LIBRARY OF SCIENCE. Reports of well-performed scientific studies from all disciplines freely available to the whole world.

Via François Verheggen

In Bug Grad School I learned about a crazy group of flies called Hippoboscidae, or louse flies.  These flies have adopted an ectoparasitic lifestyle, which means they live on other animals much lik...

noelbadgespugh: “ Bombus Heads . . illustrations for a book, Bees of California, with Gretchen LeBuhn of the Great Sunflower Project (www.greatsunflower.org) . . being published by UC Press as part of...

Tearroir interviews Bug Girl, PhD in Entomology, who shares her thoughts on the topic of the world's most expensive tea: insect feces tea. (I had a special guest interview over at the Tea Blog!

6 April 2013 When people tell me they've just seen a Common Blue, or a Small Copper, the one thing they always say in a surprised tone of voice is "it was really small" - which is true for these sp...

Via Laurent Deprost

Increases in ground-level ozone, especially in rural areas, may interfere not only with predator insects finding host plants, but also with pollinators finding flowers, according to new research.

Via François Verheggen