Boing Boing » bugs

Shell's racist pesticide ad, 1957

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:02:09 +0000

From 1957, a disturbing, patronizing, racist Shell ad for pesticides, selling the superiority of big agribusiness.

It's time to eat insects

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:45:48 +0000

Not only are insects a more resource-efficient food source than meat (and more nutritious, to boot), you're also already eating them, writes Mary Hall at Mind the Science Gap. Insect parts are considered unavoidable, natural "defects" in foods and the FDA makes allowances for them, including up to 30 insect parts per average chocolate bar, up to 10 whole aphids for 2.5 cups of spinach, and up to 10 fly eggs (or, if you prefer, 5 eggs and one maggot) per serving of tomatoes. It all sounds gross, but when you consider all the benefits of bug eating (and the fact that many, many reviews proclaim them to taste delicious) it might be best to think of this news as a wakeup call. You're eating bugs already. Why not do it intentionally?

The power of the swarm

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:20:25 +0000

At Wired, Ed Yong has an incredible long-read story about the researchers who are figuring out how and why individual animals sometimes turn into groups operating on collective behavior. That research has implications far beyond the freakish, locust-filled laboratories where Yong's story begins. Turns out, bugs and birds can teach us a lot about the brain, cancer, and even how we make predictions about our own futures.

Amazing LEGO insects and arthropods

David Pescovitz — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:15:55 +0000

Sean and Steph Mayo created an exquisite series of LEGO bugs for the "Creepy Crawly" category in the 2013 MocAthalon building competition. See them all in this Flickr set. (Thanks, Jake Dunagan!)…

Teacup, spoon and saucer made from cicada body-parts

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:06:44 +0000

Carrianne Bullard made this teaset out of the wings and legs of cicadas. It's got a lovely Silence-of-the-Lambs meets Tinkerbell vibe.

Carrianne Bullard (Object Cicada wings, legs) (via Bruce Sterling's Tumblr) …

Who benefits if pubic waxing is an environmental catastrophe for crab-lice?

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:21:56 +0000

The crab-louse is in apparent decline, a situation that some doctors and entomologists attribute to widespread Brazilian waxing. Though, as Skepchick points out, there's a huge industry that stands to make a lot of money from this claim, and not a lot of evidence to back it up:

“Pubic grooming has led to a severe depletion of crab louse populations,” said Ian F. Burgess, a medical entomologist with Insect Research & Development Ltd. in Cambridge, England. “Add to that other aspects of body hair depilation, and you can see an environmental disaster in the making for this species.”
...“We put the flag out, so to speak, if we see a case of pubic lice nowadays,” [Janet Wilson, a consultant in sexual health and HIV] said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The ‘habitat destruction’ of the pubic lice is increasing and they are becoming an endangered species.”

Brazilian Bikini Waxes Make Crab Lice Endangered Species [Jason Gale & Shannon Pettypiece/Bloomberg]

(via Reddit)

(Image: Crab Louse (Phthirus pubis), a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from euthman's photostream)

Man dies after eating roaches and worms

David Pescovitz — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:20:37 +0000

Edward Archbold, 32 had just competed in a roach and worm-eating contest at a south Florida reptile store when he keeled over and died. (The video above shows the contest in progress.) Archbold was hoping to win a python. Not surprisingly, Ben Siegel Reptiles has retained lawyers who are waving waivers. From CNN:

Archbold swallowed roach after roach, worm after worm. While the store didn't say exactly how many Archbold consumed, the owner told CNN affiliate WPLG that he was "the life of the party."
"He really made our night more fun," (store owner) Ben Siegel told the station…
Luke Lirot, who says he is legally representing the store, said in a post on the store's Facebook page that all participants "signed thorough waivers accepting responsibility for their participation in this unique and unorthodox contest."
"The consumption of insects is widely accepted throughout the world, and the insects presented as part of the contest were taken from an inventory of insects that are safely and domestically raised in a controlled environment as food for reptiles," Lirot said.

"Florida man dies after winning roach-eating contest"

Peacock spider shakes it for the ladies

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:57:55 +0000

Male peacock spiders are fuzzy, strangely adorable, and boast a brilliantly colored abdomen that they flip up and use as a prop for an elaborate (for a spider) mating dance.

In this video, the mating dance of the peacock spider has been helpfully set to music, so you can really see why his abdomen makes female spiders wanna shoop.

This particular specimen is apparently a representative of an as-yet-unnamed species of peacock spider. You can read more about this species, and what makes it different from its cousins, in this paper by Jürgen C. Otto and David E. Hill, who also made the video.

Via Bug Girl

Ballad of the Scutigera coleoptrata

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:53:06 +0000

Longtime readers will remember my morbid affection for Scutigera coleoptrata—aka, the house centipede—a species of oddly adorable, 30-legged, mostly harmless arthropods that frequently set up housekeeping in bathrooms and basements*. Originally native to the Mediterranean, they now live ... everywhere. (And please, feel free to imagine these buggers speaking in comic, stereotypical Italiano-Greek accents from now on. God knows I will.)

Now, YouTube musician Pink Torpedo has created a song dedicated to promoting peace and understanding between humans and Scutigera coleoptratas. I dig it!

*Side note: Scutigera coleoptrata do not always live in your house. But, when they do, they prefer to live in damp places. Thus, their affinity for bathrooms. Why? Because they don't actually breathe through their mouths. Like many arthropods, Scutigera coleoptrata get their air intake via little valves all along their exoskeleton. These valves are called spiracles. In most species that have them, spiracles can be opened and closed.

Scutigera coleoptrata are not so lucky. Their spiracles are stuck in the open position, which is sort of like only being able to pant, rather than breathe normally. One of the reasons dogs pant is to increase evaporative cooling of the body—walking around with your mouth open exposes the liquid in your body to relatively drier air, the liquid evaporates, and you get a nice cooling effect. But if your mouth is stuck open, you're at risk of dehydration and, sometimes, you're cooler than you really want to be. Scutigera coleoptrata live in damp places because they really need easy access to water. As a bonus, basements and bathrooms maintain a pretty constant temperature year-round, something else that's rather nice if you can't control your own body temperature very well.

Video Link

Big thanks to Will Bower!

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Rare photo of honeybee leaving its stinger behind

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 18:48:31 +0000

Kathy Keatley Garvey has won the Association for Communication Excellence gold medal for her rare photo of a honeybee leaving behind its stinger in an unfortunate (but now immortalized) human. Ms Garvey comes from a line of California dairy farmers who have kept bees since the mid 19th century. She is a communications specialist at UC Davis in the Department of Entomology. Andrea Gallo reports in the Sacramento Bee:

Garvey recognized an opportune time to capture this photo when she was walking with a friend. A bee came close to him and started buzzing at a high pitch. She said that's normally a telltale sign that a bee is about to sting, so she readied her camera and snapped four photos.
The images showed the progression of the sting, but the most interesting part was that the bee's abdominal tissue lingered behind, she said.
"As far as I know, nobody's been able to record anything like this," Garvey said. She said the only time she's seen it illustrated was in a textbook.

UCD worker wins award for rare photo of bee sting in action (via MeFi)

(Image: downsized thumbnail from a larger photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Tarantula with strange, antler-like fungal appendages

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 05:11:03 +0000

This unhappy fellow is a tarantula that has been colonized by cordyceps, a fungus that "invades and eventually replaces the host tissue." Paging Mr Mieville, your subconscious mind is manifesting again.

Tarantula infected with Cordyceps (i.imgur.com) (via Super Punch)

Step Gently Out: kid's poem illustrated with gorgeous macro-photo portraits of backyard bugs

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:43:11 +0000

Step Gently Out is children's picture book in which poet Helen Frost's verse accompanies the incredible garden insect photographs of artist/photographer Rick Lieder. I've written here many times about Rick's Bugdreams photos, and they never fail to impress and move me. Lieder's photographic portraits of bugs are all the sweeter for his method, which is to patiently crouch in his Michigan back-yard for hours and hours, waiting for the shot; it's a wonderful alternative to the traditional dead-bug-on-a-pin photos I grew up with.

Frost's poem is a sweet accompaniment to Lieder's pictures, a very light narration for photos that really speak for themselves. We got this book this week, and it's a real favorite with me and my four-year-old, and has sparked many conversations and bug-watching expeditions on the way home from day-care. To this end, there's a nice entomological appendix with interesting facts about all the bugs featured in the book.

Stunning close-up photography and a lyrical text invite us to look more closely at the world and prepare to be amazed.
What would happen if you walked very, very quietly and looked ever so carefully at the natural world outside? You might see a cricket leap, a moth spread her wings, or a spider step across a silken web.
In simple, evocative language, Helen Frost offers a hint at the many tiny creatures around us.
And in astonishing photographs, Rick Lieder captures the glint of a katydid’s eye, the glow of a firefly, and many more living wonders just awaiting discovery.

For our Michigander readers, Rick and Helen will have a gallery show at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art featuring the photos, and including a signing on April 6.

Step Gently Out View the gallery here.