ugly animals

I’ve stumbled across several caches of praying mantis macros. I must now share some of them, so enjoy.

Imagine yourself working your fields, doing back breaking work day after day in the hot sun, trying to coax your beets to grow. Just as the sun reaches its zenith, you stand upright to stretch your aching back. You cock your head at the sound of approaching rain.

Whaa..?

You look to the horizon and see what looks to be a fast approaching, swirling cloud of blackness that blots out the sky. But what you’re looking at is a locust swarm–and the utter ruination of your beets.

A locust swarm can be comprised of billions of individuals and can eat tens of thousands of tons of vegetation each day. But why in the world do these normally herbivorous locusts seem to spontaneously swarm? It’s because of their miscreant youths.

A new study posits that when times get tough, the tough become cannibals. This phenomenon seems to be isolated to the flightless youth, who turn on each other in a bid for locust flesh (oh, if only locusts could make zombie movies…). This cannibalism triggers fear and flight reflexes in the other youths, who then continue this pattern of fear-driven flight quite literally when they gain their wings (they earn their wings by doing a good deed). Thus is a swarm born. Thus we have the genesis of the swarm. Thus is the root of the swarm discovered. Thus…sorry.

It’s comforting to know that most species of animalia have trouble with their teenagers. Except for bugs that go through a pupal phase–that’s the way to do it.

Thanks for the link, Ida.

Photo source: AP via BBC News

Booge sent me this photo of a dust mite. These creatures are microscopic (this shot was taken with a scanning electron microscope), allergenic (10% of Americans are allergic to them) and omnipresent (you probably have countless on you right now and millions on your pillow, you filthy, filthy animal).

What’s particularly interesting about this image is the gear train in front of the creature. To give you a sense of proportion: each gear tooth is smaller than a human red blood cell. The gears are attached to a microscopic motor and function like a transmission. You’re looking at nanotechnology.

It’s obvious, isn’t it? We need to train dust mites to be nanotechnicians and nanomechanics. They work for cheap–we have an abundance of excess human skin cells and hairs for them to feast upon–and we won’t have to outsource the work the third world nations. Though, perhaps third world dust mites are easier to exploit…

Thanks, Booge.

Photo source: KQED via Flickr

Igor Siwanowicz is back with some of his amazing macros.

He recently attended a reptiles and insects expo and was able to procure a pair of these diminutive monsters. The armored Madiga liberiana may be only about 7 cm in length, but they’re still capable of eating your soul.

Thanks for the photos, Igor.

It’s a beautiful summer day in Anytown, New Hampshire. You’re walking through the town fair, enjoying the smell of corndog friers, the cheers from the ferris wheel, and the anticipation of the fireworks to come. You’re holding your sweetheart’s hand, and in the other you’ve got a fistfull of pink cotton candy.

Just as you lean in for a kiss, a Dobsonfly comes at you. It’s a good four inches long, with massive pinchers. Its ungainly four wings carry it along, belly forward, on a collision course with your face. You screech and fall back, cotton candy and sweetheart forgotten in this onslaught of evil.

Dobsonfly: 1
Romance and humanity: 0

There are several varieties of this nefarious bug. The one featured here is the Eastern Dobsonfly (Corydalus cornutus). Those mandibles on the male are harmless to humans (won’t break the skin), as they are used solely for grasping the lady dobsonfly during mating.

Well, maybe romance didn’t lose out entirely.

Thanks for the dobsonfly, Rae.

Dr. Thomas Eisner has traveled the world over taking photographs of nature, many of which had never been caught on film before. One of my favorite is the photo below.

This is a bombardier beetle doing what bombardier beetles do best: bombarding. These bugs have two glands on their posterior, one filled with hydroquinone and one with hydrogen peroxide. When threatened, they point their posterior towards their targets and squirt. The two sprays intermingle en route to the target, are mixed with a small amount of catalytic enzymes, and undergo a “violent exothermic reaction. The boiling, foul-smelling liquid partially becomes a gas and is expelled with a loud popping sound.” Each such attack results in 70 individual shots.

This spray is fatal to attacking insects and small animals. It is painful to human skin.

Built-in, boiling pepper spray. That would be very useful. My own posterior glands produce nothing but sweat, which, though it eventually makes for a foul odor, does not have the defensive capacity of the bombardier beetle.

Thanks for the article, Ida.

Photo source: Thomas Eisner and Daniel Aneshansley via The New York Times via National Geographic

Nick had a conversation with his paramour recently that caused him to research dragonfly nymphs (feel free to contact him for all the sordid details).

The result of his investigations included the photo below. You’ll notice the empty nymph shell hanging off the newly emerged dragonfly.

You’ll also notice the little spider in the lower left-hand corner (by the dragonfly’s tail), who had to observe the whole thing from the comfort of his little web. That would be like me lounging in my favorite recliner and watching a semi truck roll onto my front lawn, convulse, crack in half, and give birth to a fighter jet. The spider probably had some cool water cooler conversations the next day at work.

Thanks for the photo, Nick.

As a flawed human being, I take a bit of pleasure in seeing the flaws in others, even in insects.

Ants, who are so often praised for their social cooperation, may not be as perfect as we think. Researchers have recently uncovered evidence that individual ants can be as corrupt and selfish as me (and the rest of humanity). It seems that some ants are able to cheat the ant system and ensure that their own offspring become reproductive queens as opposed to sterile works (queen and worker seen below).

I’m reminded of the pageant mother who parades her daughter about in adult clothing and makeup for her own aggrandizement, the football coach who always keeps his own son in the starting lineup, and the boss who promotes his son over more qualified individuals.

Thanks for the photo, Ida.

Photo source: DR Nash/PA via Guardian.co.uk

Competition is fierce in the animal world. This is no less true among wasps. The problem, however, is that if every wasp had to fight every other wasp for dominance, then all you would end up with is an injured population of champions and opportunists.

Photo source: LiveScience.com
But Mother Nature has found a way to cut back on all the fighting. Elizabeth Tibbetts, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has discovered that paper wasps (Polistes dominulus) have facial markings that are used as signals to other wasps. The larger and better fed a wasp is, the more black markings the wasp has on its face. These markings function as warning signals to other wasps, telling them that they might not want to tangle with the black-faced insect facing them.

I recommend reading the whole LiveScience article. Prepared to be marveled by the complexity of nature.

This discovery has led me to consider my own facial markings during my teenage years. I now understand why my acne warded off females for all those lonely years.

Thanks for the link, Ida.