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...

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...

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...

The Chikungunya Virus May Be The Next Insect-Borne Disease To Fear In America For the past two years American health officials have been focusing on the spread of the Zika virus within North America. Fortunately, it looks like health officials have Zika under control within the US, as infection rates have dropped to nearly zero. However, Zika is only one...

Researchers Have Recently Discovered How Some Bee Eggs Hatch Have you ever wondered how tiny insect larvae are able to hatch from their eggs? This would seem like a difficult task for a powerless newborn insect. Afterall, insect shells are designed to withstand a certain degree of pressure that favors its preservation. In order to crack insect shells, a certain...

Are You Dreaming About Insects? Have you ever had a dream featuring creepy crawlies? Did you wonder what the heck your brain was trying to tell you by stuffing insects into your head, a place they clearly should not be? Well, lucky for you, I happen to have researched why we sometimes have dreams about insects, and what different insects...

Researchers May Have Found A Way To Monitor And Trap An Sneaky Insect Pest Imagine how damaging insect pests used to be back when science had not furnished mankind with pest control methods. Thankfully, in these modern times, insects can be trapped, killed and even monitored in order to keep crops insect-free. The world is full of insect pests that...

Chagas Disease Is Being Compared To HIV West Nile virus, Zika and lyme disease are certainly not the only insect-borne diseases that are commonly spread throughout the United States. Chagas disease, which is not as well known as the above three diseases, but still just as common, comes with symptoms that experts say are similar to the symptoms associated with...

Winston Churchill Tried To Resurrect An Extinct Butterfly Species We have all heard of the legendary British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He presided over a nation while it was immersed in the most unimaginable horrors of war. However, Churchill was a peculiar man, as he was not always immersed in the business of international politics; instead Churchill was concerned with...

Velvet Worms Kill Their Insect Prey In An Interesting Way There are many creatures within the animal kingdom that kill their prey in brutally creative ways. Velvet worms offer up a great example of such a predator. These worms live among leaf litter, underneath stones and logs. Sometimes velvet worms can even be found dwelling within termite nests. Velvet worms...

Are Termites Attracted To Wooden Garden Mulch? Nobody wants to make their home a haven for termites, but many gardeners are attracted to the idea of using decorative wooden mulch in order to spruce up their gardens. Of course, wooden mulch is not used solely for gardens. Mulch can also be used to obscure unsightly concrete that borders the bottoms...

Are Horse Flies Dangerous To Humans? Horseflies are insects that belong to the order known as Tabanidae, and the genus referred to as Tabanus. These flies are also referred to by many other names including gad fly, greenheaded monster, breeze fly, and ear fly. These flies exist in most regions around the world, excepting arctic regions. Although horseflies are most...

You May Have Seen Garden Centipedes In Your House Before Centipedes are awful looking creatures. I cannot imagine anybody wanting to hold a centipede. Some people like to handle insects, like grasshoppers and dragonflies. Some people have pet spiders, but centipedes are universally hated. You have certainly encountered a centipede skittering across the floor in your home at some point....

How Spiders And Insects Cause Vehicle Accidents Have you ever freaked out over the presence of a spider or insect while driving your car? If you have, then hopefully your fear did not result in a crash. It may not be hard to believe that spiders and insects can cause drivers to lose control of their vehicles as the result...

Which Occupations Carry The Highest Risks Of Insect And Spider Related Death? Some occupations come with serious health-hazards, or an increased risk of on-the-job death. The obvious examples include miners, pilots and law enforcement officers, and you could think of more examples with no problem. However, which occupations put individuals at the highest risk of being killed by insects? Some...

Spiders Hiding in Your Fruit A lot of the fruit we buy at our local grocery stores actually travel a long way to get to us. Sometimes a few stowaways get included in the shipments of fruit we get from places like South America and the United Kingdom. While these hitchhikers might scare the daylights out of us when one...

What Are Those Small Green Creatures In My Pantry? The thought of finding live organisms rooting around in your pantry is not a pleasant thought, but for many people, the presence of bug-like creatures dwelling within kitchens is a day-to-day reality. These creatures are unofficially referred to as grain beetles. These beetles look like reddish brown alfalfa seeds. In addition...

The Ants That Make The Lives Of All Other Insects Miserable There is an ant in existence that can force all other ants to vacate an entire ecosystem. This menacing ant is known as the Asian needle ant. As you may be able to guess already, this needle ant is not native to the United States. Nobody knows exactly how...

The Spider That Looks Like a Disco Ball I certainly never expected to come across a spider that could double for a disco ball, but it seems Australia is home to a lot of insects that seem like they could only exist in fantasy novels. The mirror spider, also known as the sequined spider, is one of these strange fantastical...

The Forensic Entomologists That Investigate Insect Contaminated Food There have always been televised programs that portray the nature of police work, and this has been the case even when the popularity of television was in its infancy several decades ago. During recent years, however, television programs shifted to portraying the nature of forensic police work. There exists too many TV...