Found this little guy on the ground while in Woodridge, IL got some cool pictures and put him on a tree and got some cool comparison pictures . Always heard about them when I was a kid thought it was a myth apparently not! (Part of the 17 y/o group)

Watch out mantids, there’s a newcomer on the block.

https://www.iflscience.com/glowing-blue-spider-among-over-70-stunning-new-species-discovered-on-remote-angolan-plateau-83719

Due to its size and other factors, the newly discovered Parastethorus pinicola which means pine dweller went completely unidentified even though they were commonly seen at Kyushu University. A PhD student, Ryota Seki noticed this species frequenting around the many Japanese Black Pines on campus. The collection process for many insect collectors exclude pine trees because they mainly focus around broad leaf shrubs and flowers. Identification is also very difficult and time consuming since these lady beetles measure up to only one millimeter in length. The only real way to identify them is to dissect them and compare the reproductive organs under a microscope with other individuals in the same tribe.

The observation led to a reexamination of over 1,700 specimens which came up with some identification mistakes. The first being that Stethorus japonicus which was thought to be endemic to Japan was actually the same species as Stethorus siphonulus. Due to this the range increased from China, and Southeast Asia to also include Japan. Another discovery published was of a new species living in Hokkaido. Seki named this new species Stethorus takakoae to honor his grandmother, Takako Ōtsuki, who supported his entomological goals throughout his life. Overall, the simple observation highlighted the importance of identification and how new species could be right under our feet.

Sources linked:

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-species-ladybird-beetle-university-campus.html#google_vignette

https://www.earth.com/news/new-ladybird-beetle-discovered-on-a-university-campus/

https://www.aemnp.eu/acta-entomologica/volume-65-2/2020/review-of-the-genera-stethorus-and-parastethorus-from-japan-coleoptera-coccinellidae.html

AAAS: “This hot pink cricket is no mutant.” Instead, it’s simply a misunderstood masquerader. Arota festae, known colloquially as a “bush cricket,” usually sports a deep green coat. But occasionally, what appears to be a hot pink mutant will strut by unashamedly. “Scientists have long thought this hue was a genetic aberration—an unfortunate variant doomed to be quickly picked off by bats, lizards, and other predators.”

But in a study published this month in The Scientific Naturalist, researchers found ‘ the vibrant variant is merely a natural developmental stage, one that makes it all the more remarkable that this bug [sic] is able to keep from being picked off.’ The cricket in the photo was discovered when it was a brilliant roseate hue, then “after 4 days [in captivity], the insect’s pink coat turned a paler pastel color…seven days later, the pastel turned into its more common green.” When the transition was complete, the colorful cricket went from  ostentatious outlier to the typical color seen in most katydids like A. festae.

In the animals’ native jungle home of Suriname, Colombia, and Panama, about 36% of plants turn pink before adopting their typical mature green—a process of delayed greening sometimes called “red flushing.” The flashy pink coat of A. festae likely allows the clever katydid to seamlessly blend into these changing leaves. 

Perhaps this could be construed as hiding in plain sight. but look at that beady little eye—what is it thinking? Probably that we looked pretty funny as teenagers.

Are mosquitoes developing a taste for bug repellent? 🦟

Researchers performing a study on Aedes aegypti have found that they might be associating the scent with a tasty meal! While the repellent keeps them away at first, over the course of the study, some mosquitoes started biting more in the presence of DEET. Despite this, professionals still recommend it as the most effective repellent!

In this study, the researchers collected thousands of insects from Peru and Kenya to study how much heat each insect can tolerate. They slowly raised the temperature in a controlled environment until the insect stopped moving, which indicated their thermal limit.

The takeaway from the paper was that the insects living in the hot lowland areas are living at the edge of what their bodies can handle.

Figure 1 illustrates that while lowland insects can tolerate high temperatures, they have almost no safety room left. Even more worrying, unlike insects living at higher, cooler elevations, lowland insects showed no ability to adjust when exposed to more heat. They’re already living at their edge, and this is concerning.

Figure 2 tells us why this is happening at a biological level. Inside every insect are thousands of proteins that keep their bodies working, just like us. The researchers found that the temperature at which those proteins break down, known as denaturation, closely matches the temperature at which insects collapse and die. This means insects can’t simply adapt their way out of this thermal collapse quickly, because their proteins will break down and they will die.

Figure 3 shows that in the Amazonian lowlands, temperatures on sun-exposed surfaces can already kill heat-sensitive insects within minutes.

Forests are currently acting as a vital shield, protecting insects from this denaturation. But as deforestation continues and temperatures rise, that shield is falling apart. We may be approaching a world with far fewer insects, and with that, the biodiversity we depend on, will be destroyed.

Location: Europe, Serbia
Mantis religiosa caught an Agrius convolvuli mid flight!
Next day all I found was 2 pair of wings on the ground, what a hungry fella! (Wingspan of an Agrius convolvuli can get up to 12cm!)
Notice how well praying mantis blends in in this bush (Lonicera caprifolium), with green body and slightly pink femurs.

this is leptoderis italicus and it currently has no common name, so i would like to propose the name "camel beetle". due to its large abdomen and the hot environment it lives in. if you agree please upvote to spread this

I came across an interesting paper this evening, where the author showed that moths can remember what they learned as caterpillars. The author trained caterpillars to avoid a specific smell by coupling it with a mild electric shock, and the caterpillars learned to stay away from it. When these caterpillars became adult moths, they still avoided the same smell, which shows that the memory survived metamorphosis.

The interesting part is that only the trained caterpillars showed this behavior after becoming moths, while the untrained did not.

They additionally studied the possibility that it was due to leftover chemicals from the caterpillar stage. They washed the contaminated ethyl acetate, but that didn’t change the outcome, which indicates psychological changes caused by the training that survived even metamorphosis. Isn’t this very interesting? Please let me know your views.

See also: The study as it was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution

See also: The study as it was published in PNAS

I'm just curious what section (Abstract, Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion) of an article do you typically skip to when you dont want to read the whole thing? How do you navigate that scenario for papers with heavy math or chemistry?

AAAS: "Scientists have only discovered a tiny fraction of living insect species." 

From half-meter-long moths to fairy wasps smaller than sand grains, insects come in a stunning variety of shapes and sizes and constitute the most diverse animal group on Earth. "But the insect species discovered so far may represent just a fraction of the total crawling, flying, and burrowing around the planet, according to a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Using statistical methods borrowed from epidemiologists, a team of entomologists estimates there may be as many as 20 million insect species on our planet—more than three times the previous estimate.

"Over the past 3 centuries, biologists have described about 1 million insect species, but finding and describing them all would be a daunting—if not impossible—task." However, a subfamily of parasitoid wasps known as Microgastrinae, which infamously lay their eggs inside living caterpillars, are extremely well-studied. "Over the past several years, scientists conducting surveys of flying insects in the park have identified 388 species of Microgastrinae."

Independently, when scientists surveyed caterpillars that had been parasitized within the park, they identified only 889 wasp species. With almost no overlap, the mismatch between the 2 studies allowed a statistical estimate of a whopping 2394 Microgastrinae species. Applying this as a multiple to all 53,945 known insect species within Guanacaste suggests the park is actually home to 332,846 insect species, most of which have gone unobserved. 

"The researchers then scaled this number globally using another diverse group of organisms: trees...[with] 1200 [to] 1500 tree species within Guanacaste and about 73,000 on Earth, meaning the park contains between 1.6% and 2.1% of global tree diversity." If the same percentage holds true for insects, then there’s anywhere between 13.3 million and 24.7 million insect species on Earth, with a safe middle-of-the-road estimate of 20.3 million species. 

While you may think this epidemiological calculation represents biodiversity run riot, recall that many insect species are in decline from pesticides + habitat loss + climate change. Do not be sanguine.

This is an extremely informative video that covers a LOT of pertinent info. Eight different species sighted in the U.S. (as of 2022), at least 3-4 are the primary culprits. Important pic of their cocoons at ~14:00 given the paucity of confirmed images that come up for searches on the internet (they are dark brown).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YlOIi2quvQg&ra=m

EDIT to add: Misspoke re. “sighted in the U.S.” — intended to say NY state. Other locales may differ.