September 19, 2019
This time of year is when problems with wasps really arise. The culprit behind most late summer/autumn wasp issues are yellowjackets. These wasps build distinctive nests of paper constructed from chewed wood pulp and fibers mixed with the wasps’ saliva. Each nest is composed of several horizontal combs connected by a central paper stalk, all […]
April 22, 2019
Today is Earth Day, a day to reflect on our effects on the planet and put in some work to ensure that we leave the planet as good or better than we found it. So without further ado, I’ve written a blog post to fulfill the foreshadowing I set up in our post about gigantic […]
March 19, 2019
According to a video circulating on social media, New York City is implementing a program that hopes to use feral cats to manage the city’s rodent population. The program will involve capturing the cats, spaying or neutering them, and adopting them out to property owners to keep on their property to deter rodents. The property owners […]
February 21, 2019
The past few months, there have been abundant rumblings in the entomological research community about the state of insect conservation and risks of species extinctions (notice the not-at-all subtle foreshadowing of a future blog post). The research on insect populations is patchy and full of holes, but there are some charismatic species (such as the […]
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 […]
