Bed Bugs in Their Natural Habitat

So…last night, I had an opportunity to look for bed bugs in their natural habitat. I was called to a friend’s house to collect some specimens for the ISU entomology department. I rooted around on a couch for an hour, and helped them clean the place up before leaving. It’s kind of an interesting thing, [...]

Aphids have mutualistic viruses!

Aphids can be a pain in the ass to gardeners and farmers. Although they look pretty harmless, they’re to plants what mosquitoes are to people and more. They transmit some pretty serious diseases which cause millions of dollars in damage per year. They’re also famous for their fecundity-they’re parthenogenic and their daughters are actually born [...]

Homeopathy is Bullshit: Headlouse Edition!

One of the not-so-great things about being a parent is that your kid occasionally gets headlice. They seem to particularly like my kid for some reason because this is the second time I’ve had to deal with this. Either way, it’s getting really, really annoying. So I go to Walgreens to get a louse shampoo [...]

Cheshire’s Top 5 Entomology Videos

I post a lot of videos here on this blog because I find them a very useful and interesting teaching tool. Why explain the life cycle of a parasitoid wasp in two or three boring paragraphs when I can simply hop over to youtube and find a video explaining the same thing narrated by David [...]

Preventing release of alarm pheromones increases homosexual pairing in bed bugs.

I really don’t think it’s possible to write a boring post on bed bugs. The way in which they reproduce is simply one of the most bizzarre…and brutal…methods of insemination in the animal kingdom. One of my favorite webcomics, Dinosaur Comics described their reproduction quite well: I also like writing about the biological basis behind [...]

Insects use tools, but do they self-medicate?

This is my first researchblogging post in awhile…so I figured I’d make it worthwhile by writing a really, really long post and actually deconstructing a scientific paper. I’ve seen the video of the tool using octopus…and it is neat. Here’s a science daily article, and here’s the video below: Using tools is something which is [...]

A very short intro to beekeeping

Bug girl has a post about all the different crops that are brought to you by insects. I figured I’d give you an inside scoop as to how crop pollination works, since I’ve dealt with bees before. One of the most common misconceptions about beekeeping is that they mostly produce honey. A lot of beekeepers [...]

I’ve had a weird month.

Being an entomology student can be exciting a way that’s both intellectual and in a way that’s more like ‘WTF’. People are a lot more curious about insects than they let on, and I get a lot of questions about bugs in my everyday life as a student when I tell people what I’m studying. [...]

Quite possibly the most incredible video I’ve ever seen.

Courtesy of Beetles in the Bush, I bring you a video of parasitic was development from inside a caterpillar. I also bring you a great opportunity to discuss wasp biology. A lot of people think parasites are just these idle, simple degenerate creatures. Hell…there’s an entire talkorigins page chastising creationists for touting them as ‘degenerate [...]

Don’t try to drown ticks. It just doesn’t work.

Water is important to disease vector arthropods in many different ways. For some, this is obvious. Mosquitoes and blackflies need water to breed. A large amount of the effort that goes into controlling mosquitoes in malaria-ridden areas goes into researching where they breed after floods. For others, it’s more subtle but still very important. Usually, [...]