Chinese Man Stumbles Across One of the Rarest Spiders on Earth! Have you ever thought about what you would do if you came across an endangered and almost mythical spider in your backyard? Would you send it to researchers to preserve and help us understand more about it, or would you decide to try and sell it on Ebay after finding out how much money it is worth? One man in China was faced with this dilemma when he came across a rare spider crawling about on his orange field. When he discovered just how rare this spider is he decided that science and the bugs can just go to hell. He was going to sell it to the highest bidder. When Li Wenhua found a spider on his orange field in Chengdu, southwest China that had a strange disc shape on its belly, he originally thought he had discovered an antique before it started moving and he realized it was actually a living creature. He decided to snap a picture of the bizarre looking creature and do a little searching on the Internet to find out exactly what he had found. It turns out that the spider is an extremely rare spider known as the "Chinese hourglass spider," which has only been spied a total of six different times since it was re-discovered in 2000

If Singing Insects Don't Sing, Then The Environment May Suffer | Pest Control Waco, Temple, Kileen, Belton

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Researchers Change An Ants Social Behaviors After Altering Its DNA Ants are well known eusocial insects. Their colonies operate with an efficiency that makes humans look lazy by comparison. So how do ants communicate in order to assign particular tasks to particular ants? Does ant communication operate beyond human perception? Sure, there are workers, soldiers, and queens, but colony cooperation, and many group efforts that ants aim to achieve depend on some ants doing very specific things. Can ants get sick of their jobs and just quit? What would happen if an individual ant went out on its own to explore the world, leaving the colony behind? Well, if you know much about ants, then you should know that they cannot survive well on their own. In fact, an ant without its colony, is a dead ant. Recently, a study aimed to show what would happen if one particular ant could not behave properly within their colonies. What they found would likely not surprise you, as insects are cruel creatures. A group of morbidly curious researchers from Rockefeller University altered an ants genetic makeup in order to ultimately change its behavior

We all know that termites go after wood, and the wood in your home is certainly no exception. But are there many other commonly used materials within homes that are susceptible to termite damage? Unfortunately, there are many home construction materials that termites will attack, and this goes for construction materials that do not contain wood. For example, pest control professionals and handymen alike have both taken note of termite damage to laminate flooring

Butterflies And Bees Can Be Brave Creatures Have you ever heard the term "crocodile tears" and wondered if crocodiles really shed tears. Well, apparently this is not just another nonsense saying, as it turns out that crocodiles really to shed tears. But who knows why? Maybe when a crocodile's brother dies, or when a crocodile stubs its toe really badly. Speculation aside, there have been very few, yet reliable, reports of butterflies and bees landing on crocodiles' noses. These particularly brave bees and butterflies don't just land on the noses of crocodiles either. In fact, the two flying insects sit their for a while relaxing as if they owned the noses of all crocodiles. Of course, there is one more surprising observation related to this bizarre behavior, and it has to do with the insects feeding

Termites Are The Oldest And Most Fierce Of All Eusocial Insects There are many modern similarities between termites and ants. People often have a difficult time telling the two insects apart. This is no small wonder to entomologists since ants and termites likely interacted during the course of evolution. Termites are one hundred million years old, whereas ants are ninety nine million years old. It turns out that a one million year difference in evolutionary development makes a big difference when it comes to predator-prey relations. By the time ants arrived on the scene, termites were ready to battle

Termite Colonies Can Be Found In The Unlikeliest Of Places Termites are tough little creatures, as they can survive in harsh areas that do not offer much in the way of sustenance. We all know that most types of termites build colonies in dirt, and survive on the cellulose that is located within available plant matter. But what happens when termites find themselves in areas where no wood, or plant matter of any kind, is located? Will they end up surviving these situations? Entomologists and pest control professionals are commonly asked questions relating to termite survival. Many people have spotted large groups of termites residing on small areas of soil that had been surrounded by concrete. Most of the time people will notice this seemingly odd situation while walking through parking lots. One individual reported seeing what looked like "millions" of termites swarming from one small dirt island located within a concrete parking lot. No matter how dire a situation may seem for a termite colony stranded within a concrete parking lot, there is no way termites could swarm unless they had access to plenty of cellulose

An Unlikely Origin For An American Insect Pest Insect pests are not at all uncommon in America, and many of them are not native. There are a variety of different ways in which insects arrive in America from other countries. Invasive insects often arrive in America by hitching rides on shipping vessels. Some invasive insects have even managed to populate America by becoming attached to single individuals flying by plane from overseas territories. We often hear of exotic insect pests coming to the US from Japan, China, Africa and even Europe. It seems that many of America's insect pests came from tropical and warmer regions of the world where the climate favors most forms of insect life. But what about regions of the world that are less mild? For example, has anyone ever heard of an invasive insect from a Scandinavian country? Or how about Russia? Russia is the largest country in the world, so it seems likely that America would have at least a few insect pests that are natural Russians. Then again, since Russia and America are not typically trading partners, native Russian insects could not have arrived in America via shipping vessel. However, there are, indeed, insect pests in America that call Russia home. The most well known Russian insect pest in America is, arguably, the wheat aphid