Litinsects

Litinsects #54: Tarantula Hawk Get ready for a fascinating yet possibly terrifying post... You are looking at a tarantula hawk, a wasp that hunts (you guessed it) tarantulas. There are a number of wasp species that hunt various kinds of spiders or other insects. These wasps engage in a PARASITOID lifestyle. ©  Joao Paulo Burini Parasitoids are a type of parasite but there are subtle differences between the two terms. While both benefit at the expense of a host animal, parasites live on or inside a host for an extended period of time and, since they have it pretty good, they want to keep their host alive while they continue exploiting it. Parasitoids on the other hand always kill their hosts eventually and it is often (in insects, at least) only the larvae that parasitize while the adults are free-living. So what’s this wasp’s deal? Here’s where it gets slightly disturbing... once adult female wasps are ready to lay eggs they go on the hunt for tarantulas. The wasp stings her vi...

Litinsects #53: Waggle Dance Communication in the animal kingdom comes in many forms... even dance! And honey bees are quite the dancers. As you know, worker bees spend much of their time visiting flowers to forage (see Post #36 for a recap on honey). When a scout finds a particularly good patch of flowers (or even another resource like potential nesting site), she returns to the hive to recruit more workers to fly to the resource. In the case of a food source, she first regurgitates and distributes some of the nectar she has collected in order to grab the attention of her hive-mates. And then she tells them exactly where they can find more. Enter the WAGGLE DANCE. This fascinating form of communication tells other bees in which direction and exactly how far to fly to find a resource. The waggle refers to the motion of the performer’s abdomen, which wiggles very quickly side to side. Here’s a play by play: While waggling, the bee moves forward in a straight line, called the wagg...

Litinsects #52: Bed bugs I now present every traveler’s worst nightmare... Bed bugs are true bugs from the order HEMIPTERA. They undergo incomplete metamorphosis through multiple nymphal stages and have piercing/sucking mouthparts.  ©   Piotr Naskrecki Bed bugs are OBLIGATORY HEMATOPHAGOUS, coming from the Greek „haima“ for “blood” and „phagein“ for “to eat”, meaning they eat blood and in fact can’t survive on anything else! Their saliva contains anticoagulants and painkillers, which is why you are not likely to be woken up by bed bug while they bite you While the “bug” part of the name is accurate (they are true bugs), the “bed” part is not necessarily true, as they may live in furniture as well Each immature stage requires a blood meal within a few days of molting in order to develop into the next stage, or else it starves. But adults can go up to six months without feeding! Bed bugs use carbon dioxide in exhaled breath to find their hosts. They are also attracted to bod...

Litinsects #51: Mayflies Mayflies are aquatic freshwater insects and belong to one of the most primitive winged insect lineages! First off, what’s in a name? Mayflies’ common name comes from the fact that some species start “hatching” from the water in May. But their scientific name is much more interesting and accurate; this order is named EPHEMEROPTERA from the Greek “ephemera” for “lasting one day / temporary” and “pteron” for “wing”. A more fitting name would be dayfly, considering their adult lifespan... Most live less than 24 hours after emerging, the shortest adult lifespan of any insect! -Mayflies have triangular-shaped wings that are held upright over their bodies when at rest (sort of like a butterfly) and have three long tail-like filaments. These characteristics, both of which make them easily recognizable, are probably traits that were present in the most primitive flying insects -They are HEMIMETABOLOUS insects, meaning they go through incomplete metamorphosis, with multi...