What is eating the cowpea?
After seeing the leaves with holes and then leaves missing, I finally spotted the culprit.
Looks like some sort of armyworm, genus Spodoptera.
Almost looks like this aphid is curious about it, too.
Category: Bug of the Week (Page 153 of 218)
The big news was announced today at Arizona State University: the Top 10 New Species for 2011.
Sometimes it is hard to remember that scientists discover new species all the time. Some of these newly discovered creatures are pretty large, which makes you wonder how they got overlooked. Take, for example, the huge monitor lizard!
Of course, we are most interested in the spiders and insects on the list.
Right on time for the Spiders in Space project, one of the top 10 is an orb weaving spider with a giant web. Sometimes the webs go across entire streams! How does the spider even do that?
In this video, you can watch one that has caught a dragonfly.
When botanists wanted to know what kind of creature pollinated a rare orchid, they set up a camera to watch. Imagine their surprise when a cricket showed up! Not only was this the first example of a cricket pollinating a plant, the cricket was a new species.
Check out the cricket pollinating the orchid in this video.
The final insect is a jumping cockroach, with back legs enlarged like a cricket’s.
Go ahead and investigate the rest of the list on your own. When you are done exploring, come on back and let us know which organism you think is the coolest!
“Bugs” are in the news this month.
First of all, Gregory Vogt stopped by to let us know how the Spiders in Space were doing:
“The spiders made it to orbit Monday morning. The Space Shuttle Endeavour will rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station Wednesday morning. The spiders will be unstowed from Endeavour and transferred to the station Thursday morning. We should have the first pictures available for viewing by the weekend. Check out http://www.bioedonline.org.”
Should be interesting to see how the spiders do in space.
Periodical cicadas are also in the news. There is a large emergence of thirteen year cicadas, Magicicada tredecim, across the southeastern United States right now. They are called thirteen year cicadas because they stay underground as nymphs for thirteen years.
Have you ever seen an adult cicada emerge? Here is a time lapse video that shows the process.
Edit: At the request of readers, I have removed the video because of the noise. You can watch it at Mark Dolies’ link.
Video by Mark Dolejs (click the link to see how he made the video).
BugGuide has some good still photographs and more information.
Related posts:
Summer Sounds
Every Seventeen Years at Stop the Ride
Have you ever seen/heard periodical cicadas?
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.