0 Happy New Year:Glowing Cockroaches For All!

 So let's start a new yearly tradition: Find our favorite new species discovered this past year. There were a lot of cool things, including a tyrannosaurid and a smallish extinct felid from Tibet. My pick, however, goes to...

Via Pintrest.

...a cockroach. An adorable, glow-in-the-dark cockroach, but still a cockroach. It has been dubbed  Luchihormetica luckae, with no good common name. We'll just call him "Lucky" for the rest of this entry; nobody wants to write that name out ten plus times, and face it, this is one of the more likeable cockroaches out there. Just don't get any ideas about stealing his Lucky Charms. He really doesn't like that.

Here's why this little cockroach of glowy awesomeness was picked over a T-Rex relative: I have never seen anything like Lucky! It's apparently mimicking another toxic, glow in the dark insect called a click beetle. This beetle is toxic; that paint job is warning colors. This is the only known instance of a glow being used as mimicry. Yeah, these guys will survive the apocalypse just fine.

Bioluminescent bugs are rare. The most commonly-known ones are glow worms and fireflies. Along with glowing on its body, the "eyes" on its glowy outline are pools of bioluminescent bacteria. Don't "ew" that - if you didn't have E.coli in your gut, let's just say digestion would be a lot harder. It's exciting to have another glowing bug to add to the short list!

Lucky was found in the rainforests of Ecuador near an active volcano. That's a pretty bizarre environment if you think about it. There cannot be too many rainforests like that around, meaning that this cockroach might only be able to live in that one area. Save the rainforest - it has neon roaches! It sounds weird to use a cockroach as a reason to protect the rainforest, but darnit, this is a gorgeous one!

Happy New Year! May many new species be discovered in 2014!

Detail: Happy New Year:Glowing Cockroaches For All!

0 Newsflash: U.S. Military's Latest Weapon: Cyber-Bugs!

Remember when this blog covered the Robo-roach? It turns out that the military thought that was a good idea, too. They have now made sophisticated beetle cyborgs, capable of watching you in your sleep, or naked in front of your PC.



...Y'know, as if purely mechanical drones weren't enough. More on the how and why below:

"Facing problems in its efforts to train insects or build robots that can mimic their flying abilities, the U.S. military now wants to develop "insect cyborgs" that can go where its soldiers cannot.
The Pentagon is seeking applications from researchers to help them develop technology that can be implanted into living insects to control their movement and transmit video or other sensory data back to their handlers.

In an announcement posted on government Web sites last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, says it is seeking "innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect cyborgs," by implanting tiny devices into insect bodies while the animals are in their pupal stage.

As an insect metamorphoses from a larva to an adult, the solicitation notice says, its "body goes through a renewal process that can heal wounds and reposition internal organs around foreign objects, including tiny (mechanical) structures that might be present."

The goal is to create technology that can achieve "the delivery of an insect within five meters of a specific target located at hundred meters away, using electronic remote control, and/or global positioning system." Once at the target, "the insect must remain stationary either indefinitely or until otherwise instructed ... (and) must also be able to transmit data from (Department of Defense) relevant sensors ... includ(ing) gas sensors, microphones, video, etc."

The move follows challenges the agency says it has encountered in its efforts to train insects to detect explosives or other chemical compounds, and to mimic their flight and movement patterns using small robots.

Several years ago, DARPA launched a $3 million project to train honeybees to find landmines. According to a report by the American Forces Press Service, scientists used sugar-soaked sponges treated with explosives to get the bees to identify the smell as a possible food source." -Source with more. Now you'll be carrying a flyswatter wherever you go...just in case.

Detail: Newsflash: U.S. Military's Latest Weapon: Cyber-Bugs!

0 Creature Feature: Leaproach.

Sure, they'll never get an awesome story glamourizing how awesome they are at surviving, but you still have to admire that cockroaches are so good at surviving that they've been around, and will be around, longer than we have or ever will.

Oh, and they have evolved to leap. Wait, what?



Yes, in 2011, a leaping cockroach (Saltoblattella montistabularis) - "leaproach," if you will- was discovered in Africa. If it's any comfort, it feeds on grasshopper droppings. Come off it- anyone who has done research beyond the school books knows that plenty of animals literally eat crap. It is not even an inch long, so should you be in South Africa and come across one, there's a good chance you will not even notice its existence.

This creature is not a grasshopper. It is, however, an astounding example of convergent evolution - looks like a grasshopper, hops like a grasshopper, but isn't a grasshopper. Instead, it is a cockroach with grasshopper traits and the astounding superpowers of cockroaches. It can jump up to 50 times its body length, and living entirely on excrement is also quite the feat.

Believe it or not, leaping cockroaches used to be a common thing. Until this discovery, they had not been seen since the Jurassic Period. Part of me also wonders if some of them might have survived long enough to make it into the Bible and appear as one of the plagues in Exodus - even though locusts are totally another creature. This is still a horror-roach that deserves some terrifying mention.

But wait, is it? This cockroach is hardly a pest. It feeds off of the crap of pests, but is not a pest in itself. It's tiny. I daresay it's almost cute. And hey, roaches aren't all that bad; they're just better survivalists than we are. Maybe we should embrace the cute roach and treat it as a peace offering - riiight before the insects conquer us for real. Yeah, still waiting on that.

Detail: Creature Feature: Leaproach.

0 Newsflash: Manipulation of Monarch Butterflies.

It's almost March. That means Spring will be coming soon. This also means that several other animals, such as monarch butterflies, will soon be flourishing in our lawns. 

For those of you who know nothing about monarch butterflies aside from what they look like, you are missing out. Monarchs migrate from the cooler parts of North America down to Mexico as soon as winter hits. They give birth there, then die. The new monarchs that result then fly their way back up north when things get warmer. They are the only insects that migrate 2,500 miles a year. One of the classic butterflies happens to be one of the most impressive in several regards.

One mechanism has been found to play a tole in this intense migration: monarch butterflies have an uncanny genetic instinct to migrate to the exact same spot every year. The monarchs mate, then die, leaving their offspring to navigate the exact same path. That's 2,500 miles, all wrapped into genes like the world's finest GPS. Beat that, Google Maps.

Now, scientists have found what makes these butterflies tick. Here's the deal:

"Until now, researchers didn’t know what triggered the trek north. They suspected environmental factors such as temperature or changing day length could cue the monarchs. To find out, Reppert’s team studied southward-migrating monarchs captured in the eastern United States. The scientists housed one group of migrants in an incubator for 24 days and turned down the temperature to 4° Celsius during dark “night” periods and 11° C during light “day” periods — the average temperatures in the wintertime butterfly roosts. The team exposed a second group of butterflies to the same temperatures while also simulating the subtle increase in daylight that monarchs see over the winter while in Mexico.

Then the researchers took the two groups outside and tethered them one by one inside a flight simulator — a white plastic barrel that gauges flight bearings. In both experimental groups, the lab-wintered butterflies flew north. In fact, Reppert says, “the data were identical.”
Also, southern-migrating monarchs that had been captured in Texas and kept in the lab under fall conditions — with no pulse of nightly cold temperature — continued to head south when hooked up to the flight simulator.

“It’s astounding,” says ecologist Karen Oberhauser of the University of Minnesota, who supplied captured butterflies to Reppert’s team. She’s convinced that just 24 days of cold temperature is enough to switch butterflies’ flight direction from south to north. But she’s also curious about the effects of day length alone.

Reppert says the direction trigger might be modified by changes in day length, but “clearly coldness is the main factor.” Next, his team hopes to figure out exactly how the monarchs sense temperature."


Source + more here. 

This is neat stuff.A lot of people don't really think about seasonal cycles in wild animals. We're kinda used to animals, including humans, mating all the time. In reality, animal mating cycles are fine-tuned such that mommy only gives birth when there is an abundance of food available. Humans and domestic animals usually don't have to worry about that.

More importantly, however, this revelation on the impact of temperature may mean that the monarch is in trouble. If global climate change messes with their migration patterns, the species could die out. Enjoy the magnificent butterflies while we have them; if these findings are any indication, we might not have them around much longer.

Detail: Newsflash: Manipulation of Monarch Butterflies.

0 Creature Feature: Spiny Leaf Insect.

There is a rather bizarre game that I like to play in the shower at my local health club. For whatever reason, there are a strange number of small flies in the women's locker room - usually one or two to a stall. (I haven't said anything; they've been there for as long as I can remember, and I'd presume the various renovations they've done would have fixed something.) My goal, as soon as I hit the shower, is to go fly-hunting. I show no mercy; rather, the night is not complete without swatting one fly on the marble. After all, I'm only selecting out the flies who aren't fast or clever enough to camouflage themselves, right?



That said, some insects, like this spiny leaf insect (Extatosoma tiaratum), have stunning camouflage. It is so good at camouflage that it is also called "Macleay's Spectre." This insect is native to Australia and possibly New Guinea. It is related to walking sticks despite looking a fair amount like a mantis, and is not a true leaf insect at all.

One word can sum up the spiny leaf insect: Impressive. It's large, for a bug, able to stretch across a grown man's fingers. Both sexes will occasionally curl their long abdomens like scorpion tails when threatened, creating a sort of mantid-scorpion look. Again, that camouflage is a real treat; it even has thorns. 

There are a number of interesting things about spiny leaf insect reproduction. For example, the males can fly, and only the females have that godly camouflage. The females, after getting knocked up, flick their eggs out of their bodies and onto the forest floor. These eggs hatch better in cooler temperatures, - under 25 degrees Celsius. Also, the girls are parthenogenic- that is, they can produce other female progeny without a male.

Know what's awesome? These unique insects make excellent pets. They can be found in schools and laboratories as test animals, and are very good for the first-time insect fancier. They are vegetarians, and can feed on any number of plants. Find a care sheet on them if you're interested; I'm sure they're around. It would be hard to find a better pet or display insect, if that's up your unique alley. Look closely at that tree branch- it might be a bug.

Detail: Creature Feature: Spiny Leaf Insect.

0 Newsflash: Dung Beetles use the Milky Way.

...wow, that title sounds dirty. If you're too young to have a mind that goes to the gutter, don't worry about what I just said. Just know that almost everything in nature has an amazing sense of navigation compared to the silly humans who use Google Maps.  Like the sailors of old, they often use the stars as a sort of natural map. It turns out that this holds true for dung beetles as well.

Many animals, including birds and humans, use stars for navigation. This is  not the case for some creatures, like pigeons, who use the Earth's magnetic pull. Given that a little insect probably doesn't have great eyesight like birds and humans, it is mind-boggling to see one use the galaxy as a road map.



If Discovery News is correct, dung beetles don't just use the starry sky, but the Milky Way for navigating as they roll their dung balls. Even on a moonless night, a dung beetle will roll its ball of feces in a perfectly straight line. It was a mystery how they could do this without moonlight.

The experiment to test this went along these lines:

 "To test their navigation, researchers watched the beetles in a planetarium under a starry sky, a sky showing only the Milky Way, and an overcast sky. The beetles had no problem maintaining their straight lines under the first two skies, but couldn’t do it when the Milky Way was indistinguishable.

Most stars are probably too dim for the insects’ eyes, the researchers said in the study published online in Current Biology."

Hm. So along with making pyramids, the ancient Egyptians figured out that dung beetles rolled their balls of feces according to the heavens. Maybe they were onto something about scarabs being sacred. I wouldn't sacrifice an animal to that, though.

Detail: Newsflash: Dung Beetles use the Milky Way.

0 Creature Feature: Picture-Wing Flies.

Flies are really taken for granted. Sure, they land on our food, but it's only because we leave it out for them. Without flies, the world would be covered in dog poop. In more than one sense, they're garbage men for the entire planet - it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

But did you know that flies can also be gorgeous? As in, comparable to birds-of-paradise?



That is one of several (111) species of picture-wing fly found only on Hawaii. They are closely related to the common fruit flies around the world, and are so named for the patterns that the males have in their lacy wings. Several of these fly species are endangered or threatened, which are in turn important to equally-endangered plant species on the island. Yes, these flies are nectar-drinkers and pollinators- just like hummingbird, butterflies, and fuzzy-wuzzy bumblebees. They're sounding cuter already.

Compared to the 1000-something species of fruit flies in existence, 111 species is not a lot, nor should it be a surprise. It only takes two fruit flies for there to suddenly be millions on an island. If the Center for Biological Diversity is correct, those 111 picture-wing species came to Hawaii only 5 million years ago from one egg-bearing female- even more stunning than if a male had been present. They reproduce faster than rodents.

Fruit flies also have simply amazing genetic potential. That's why they're so horribly popular in genetic studies: they breed like crazy and have a million mutations to play with.  Lek courtship is unusual in insects, and is far more common in birds, which have more potential for elaborate courting rites...or so we thought.



When the rapid breeding rate and genetic potential of the fruit fly is brought to an island, the flies flourish. What were once ravenous pests suddenly become nectar-drinking, dancing insects with beautiful wings. Even humans do not change that radically in such a short amount of time. These must be Beelzebub's personal entertainers, if I must make a reference to Lord of the Flies. Flies may annoy us on the mainland, but they aren't all bad.

Detail: Creature Feature: Picture-Wing Flies.

0 Creature Feature: Giraffe Weevil.

Insects are automatically nightmare fuel when it comes to creature design. With the possible exception of butterflies, there is no insect on the planet that cannot be made into an object of terror. Even harmless, annoying things can be magnified into monsters. Weevils, which are already terrifying if seen up close, reach the peak of their horror monster potential in this fellow:

This bug-meets-Apatosaurus creature is called a giraffe weevil (Trachelophorus giraffa) . It is native only to Madagascar, second only to Australia for the title of "World's Weirdest Island." They are herbivorous like all weevils, partial to seeds and fruit. New Zealand also has a "giraffe weevil," so just to be clear, this one is from the island with happy lemurs.

The giraffe weevil cannot help but stand out. That long neck on the males is 2-3 times the length of the females. It is almost an inch log - not the record for weevils, but still quite big for one. It has a striking, red and black palette. No, it is not poisonous as far as my sources know. Seeing a giraffe weevil in the wild must be amazing. The bright  color and long neck both make it unforgettable.



This long neck is for one very important purpose: Mating. Specifically, male giraffe weevils fight each other with their long necks. The females have much shorter necks, and referee the neck-fights between the two males. The winner gets laid. Fair enough.

This is not to say that the ladies of the species are not at all interesting. Unusually for insects, the female lays exactly one egg after mating. She then encases it in a tube cut from a leaf. The leaf is then cut such that two edges mesh together-  effectively, primitive Velcro. The leaf nest then drops to the forest floor, where the weevil will hatch, grow, and repeat the process.  Giraffe weevils: males look freaky, females invented Velcro before people.

Detail: Creature Feature: Giraffe Weevil.