A study from Sydney’s Macquarie University has examined the predatory behaviour of the assassin bug (Stenolemus bituberus), describing for the first time the two distinct attack methods used by this araneophagic (spider-eating) insect. Putting the bugs in contact with five species of web-building spiders, Anne Wignall observed the assassin bugs to use either “stalking” or [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Insects’
February 12, 2010
Harden the Fuck Up, Dying Temnothorax Unifasciatus
For a recent study published in Current Biology, Jurgen Heinze and Bartosz Walter from the University of Regensburg monitored the behaviour of over a hundred terminally ill ants. By observing 28 Temnothorax unifasciatus colonies containing individuals infected with Metarhizium anisopliae, a contageous, parasitic fungus, they found that these ants instinctively removed themselves from the nest [...]
December 20, 2009
Wandering Ponies #2
While my brain eases itself out of the haze of Christmas madness, here are some things that have amused me of late:
It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of Alex Wild’s photography, so I thought I should mention it here. What makes it so special is that the galleries are organised according to taxonomy, [...]
December 8, 2009
That’s No Way To Get A Girl, Brawny Dawson’s Bee.
Topping my list of things that stick in my craw about Australian TV right now is that we don’t get BBC’s new documentary series, Life. If we did, we’d know all about the unusual courtship behaviour of one of the largest species of bees in the world, the Australian Dawson’s bee (Amegilla dawsoni). Native to [...]
October 25, 2009
Way To Be A Vegetarian For All The Wrong Reasons, Bagheera Kiplingi
As published in the latest issue of Current Biology, researchers have identified the first-known mostly vegetarian spider out of the 40,000 discovered species in the world. The curious behaviour of this wide-eyed jumping spider, Bagheera kiplingi, discovered in the late 1800’s and named after Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book panther, has until recently remained a mystery. [...]
September 21, 2009
Beware Those Yellow Crazy Ants, Christmas Island White-Eye…
An online report published in last week’s Biology Letters has revealed the damaging effect an invasion of ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) is having on some of Christmas Island’s native bird and plant species. In this study, led by ecologist, Dennis O’Dowd of Monash University in Melbourne, experiments were carried out to see if the ants’ behaviour [...]
