February 19, 2019
With the brutally cold temperatures brought by the polar vortex, it can be hard to imagine how insects could survive until spring. They have tiny bodies without thick insulating coats of fur, feathers, or blubber, so how can they survive the freezing months? And how will the extreme cold brought by this year’s polar vortex […]
October 2, 2018
If you’ve been keeping up with social media the past week, you may have noticed a fluttering of memes depicting, in various ways, moths’ strong attraction to artificial lights. The memes all stem from a photo posted to Reddit by user No_Reason27 of a large moth peering in through a window, with bright light reflecting […]
September 10, 2018
It’s head louse awareness month, a perfect time to put our heads together so these little blood suckers can have a party! But seriously, these pests can work wonders for ruining the start of the school year as they spread from child to child and deliver itch-inducing bites. Being pests that cannot survive long off […]
August 23, 2018
If you’re on Facebook, you may have noticed a new viral post that was created the day before yesterday (Aug. 21) warning people of a new spider that allegedly killed five people in the past week. The spider pictured on the post is a woodlouse spider, Dysdera crocata. It is native to the Mediterranean region, […]
August 20, 2018
Last Saturday (August 18) was National Honey Bee Day, an awareness day put together by beekeepers in the U.S. to promote and raise awareness of beekeeping. Bees, and honey bees in particular, are important but commonly misunderstood, so I thought I would use this post to highlight some fun facts about bees in general and […]
July 27, 2018
National Moth Week is upon us; a time to appreciate those mostly night-flying puff-balls of scales that can tell us about the plant community and ecosystem of a broad area, all at one bright porch light. Moths belong to the order Lepidoptera (which translates as scale-wing), and are the adult form of caterpillars. With around […]
