New Research Reveals How Flesh Flies Hear
By Ed Ricciuti Scientists have clocked many hours studying how females of various parasitoid flies home in on the calls of cicadas, grasshoppers, and other insects that are their hosts. […]
Researchers Raise Maggots on Chicken Blood to Save Darwin’s Finches
By Meredith Swett Walker In 1676, the great scientist Isaac Newton (of gravity fame) wrote a letter to another scientific titan, Robert Hooke (who had coined the biological term “cell”), […]
How Do Honey Bees Curl Their Abdomens?
By Erin Weeks Watch a honey bee wiggle its abdomen on a flower or do the waggle dance in a hive, and you’ll have some idea of the variety of […]
Infrared Photography Shows Tsetse Fly Development from Pupa to Adult
By Ed Ricciuti Researchers employing near infrared still photographs and time-lapse video have peered into the pupa of the living tsetse fly and for the first time have watched its […]
Two Artificial Sweeteners Kill Fruit Flies
Continuing their research into potential ingredients for human-safe pesticides, Drexel University researchers recently found an artificial sweetener that, while harmless for male fruit flies, proved particularly lethal for females. Their […]
Parasitoid Flies Are Attracted to the Sounds of Their Cicada Hosts
By Ed Ricciuti Scientists have pondered why males of certain parasitoid fly species have ears that apparently function well enough but, as the Bible says, seemingly “do not hear,” while […]
Entomopathogenic Fungi Can Help to Control Filth Flies
By Josh Lancette Researchers at the University of Florida found that a commercial formulation of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum was effective at reducing house fly and stable fly egg-laying […]
Nanopillars on Rat-tailed Maggots Reduce Bacterial Colonization
By Leslie Mertz If an insect ever needed a little love, it would be the immature stage of the drone fly (Eristalis tenax), which is known as a “rat-tailed maggot.” […]
A Cheaper, Lighter Moth Trap May Make Citizen Science Projects More Affordable
By Josh Lancette Researchers from Michigan State University believe they have invented a better — or at least a cheaper — version of the proverbial mouse trap. Except instead of […]
How a Journal Article on Mosquito Repellents Went Viral
By Josh Lancette Stacy Rodriguez, a researcher in Dr. Immo Hansen’s lab at New Mexico State University, became somewhat famous in November 2015, at least for a few days. Stacy […]
Good News for the Western Bumble Bee, Bombus occidentalis
By Harvey Black Bombus occidentalis used to be the most common bumble bee species in the Pacific Northwest, but in the mid 1990s it became one of the rarest. The […]
This Artificial Diet May Make Insect Rearing Easier
By Richard Levine If you want to do lab research on insects, you need to be able to keep them alive, sometimes for many generations. That means you need to […]
Study Compares “Natural” Mosquito Repellents to DEET
By Josh Lancette Every summer while preparing for long weekends at our family cabin in the north woods of Minnesota, we’d face the same dilemmas. What food should we bring? […]
Korean Rhinoceros Beetle Industry Threatened by Virus
By Josh Lancette In Korea, a rhinoceros beetle called Allomyrina dichotoma has traditionally been raised for medicinal uses. Some Koreans believe it to be effective against liver disease and diabetes, […]
Two New Fruit Fly Species Discovered in Brazil
Brazilian scientists have discovered two new fruit fly species in the genus Rhinoleucophenga. Using fermenting fruits and vegetables to sample flies in the Brazilian Cerrado, the scientists found two specimens […]
Newly Discovered Fly Species Parasitizes Moths in Brazil
A newly discovered fly species in the Tachinidae family has been discovered and described in the open-access Journal of Insect Science. The new fly, Lespesia melloi, is a parasitoid of […]