Spider on spider violence.
June 1, 2008
…which in an of itself is nothing unusual, but this is a pretty spectacular example.
Archive for the ‘bugs’ Category
The ugly truth about “…the rats among pollinators.”
May 23, 2008Museth Myrmecos:
In truth, honey bees are the rats among pollinators. Cute and fuzzy though the bees may be, our heavy subsidy of a single-species bee monoculture is undoubtedly a factor in the spread of invasive weed plants and the decline and extinction of scores of other bee species. Our native bees, fine pollinators in their own right, are having to compete against syrup-boosted truckloads of industrial honey bees at the same time as we bulldoze their habitat for new housing, and they aren’t faring well.
For this reason I just can’t get worked up over “colony collapse disorder“ [click through, this is hyperlinked at the original post-sl]. Yes, I know farmers need the pollinators, and that colony collapse disorder is adding to the already high cost of food. But this problem is not some unforseen tragedy of nature. It’s not even about nature. It’s about a predictable byproduct of industrial agriculture.
Plus, he takes really good pictures of them (and lotsa other stuff too).
This just in- dragonflies eat midgets!
April 9, 2008
According to this Wikipedia article, at around 5 pm on Wednesday, April 9, 2008:
“Dragonflies typically eat mosquitoes, little peoples, and other small insects…”
“Little peoples” linking here.
Bugs in opaque amber.
April 1, 2008
Hooray, another one!
February 11, 2008 
Large assassin bug - a mimic of tarantula hawk wasps, Pepsis spp, Peru
Originally uploaded by artour_a
Old school paleocritter trading cards.
February 1, 2008 
Apparently manufactured by Waddingtons in the eighties.
News to me: Parasitoids use polyembryony…
January 16, 2008Parasitoids use polyembryony to protect the reproductive larvae with soldier larvae, sometimes producing over 2,000 individuals from a single egg.
Link to Nature paper from which image comes.
