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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

PETA’s entomological ignorance…a bit worse than I thought

The other day, I went on a rant about PETA acting overly sanctimonious by sending President Obama a flytrap because he had the audacity to swat a fly on national TV. Well…one of my readers forwarded me this article about humane cockroach control. When PETA doesn’t have to distort any facts, they actually write halfway [...]

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 [...]

Fun facts about bananas and bees.

Bananas…great for you, but not if you’re a beekeeper. Bananas and bees have something in common…and it’s really odd.

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 [...]

Perhaps I should start asking Acacia trees for relationship advice?

Acacia trees and ants have an interesting mutualistic relationship which is frequently used as a textbook example of a mutualism. The trees offer the ants hollow thorns in which to live and food to eat, and the ants protect the tree from herbivores, both insects and large mammals as well as vines which would overcrowd [...]

I’m not too happy with Graham Lawton of New Scientist right now…

see more pwn and owned pictures I’m not even going to pretend that I read everything what pops up in popular science. My exposure to pop-sci articles consists largely of stumbling into the Iowa State University bookstore and thumbing through the science magazines, usually after I look at the pretty women in fashion magazines. I’m [...]

Nature’s Version of MK-Ultra

Neat video about parasites and mind control from National Geographic.