Hey, Fedi. I have a favour to ask you.

[wizardofdocs@wandering.shop]

@AdamStuartSmith @inj4n @lavievagabonde @ShaulaEvans I believe it was one of her students, but yeah, finding a grasshopper in your mainframe would be a hell of a bug

[wizardofdocs@wandering.shop]

@pikhq @ShaulaEvans so the metaphor of mayflies being ephemeral is just about adolescence?

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@afewbugs @Pepijn

😆

Quality marketing

[pikhq@social.treehouse.systems]

@WizardOfDocs @ShaulaEvans No, that's the thing that makes it so weird. Their winged adult forms are all also super short-lived.

[plumbert@thecanadian.social]

@ShaulaEvans I checked my FediFeed this morning and found a flood of cool posts about insects, instead of the usual doom and news about fascism. I had no idea why all the bug people were out until I scrolled for enough to find your post asking for cool insect facts.

I love this place.

[anke@social.scribblers.club]

@dazzr @ShaulaEvans
They also squeak

[psychuan@plush.city]

@ShaulaEvans my favourite fact is that it's theorised that moths are fluffy to help throw off sonar by bats, and a reliableish way to tell if a moth is male or female is to check its antennae; extra thick antenna mean male!

[sonnybonds@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ShaulaEvans I love the idea of animals evolving wheels, but unfortunately that has not happened yet as far as I know. However there is a bug, "Planthopper", that technically with a little bit of stretching the concept has _gears_.

It doesn't actually convey continuous rotation with them, but it interlocks its legs to get stable movement when launching as I understand it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issus_(planthopper)

[beaiouns@is.nota.live]

@ShaulaEvans This is the coolest bug I've seen recently (article by @grrlscientist ): https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/10/04/half-male-half-female-spider-discovered-in-thailand-is-new-to-science/

[dazzr@social.tchncs.de]

@Anke @ShaulaEvans Yup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mi0D-ya4Wk

[queenofpalms@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans As part of my degree, I had to take an entomology course. We were required to use a dichotomous key to identify an insect. My assigned insect was a cockroach. I failed the assignment bc the key said it was a cricket even though I knew it was a cockroach. I made an A minus in that class.

[tadbithuman@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans have you asked @futurebird ?

[eetschrijver@mastodon.social]

@annehargreaves
I read this first in a Robert A. Heinlein novel, but I'm not sure whether he authored it.
@benroyce @ShaulaEvans

[catselbow@fosstodon.org]

@annehargreaves @benroyce @ShaulaEvans

Then there's Ogden Nash's short poem about fleas:

Adam had 'em

[bytebro@mastodonapp.uk]

@annehargreaves

Close to my recollection...

"Big fleas have lesser fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em.
Lesser fleas have smaller fleas
And so ad infinitum"

@benroyce @ShaulaEvans

[curtadams@urbanists.social]

@annehargreaves @benroyce @ShaulaEvans

It's a punched up part of "Vermin", by Jonathan Swift. Can't say who is responsible for the rephrasing. https://libquotes.com/jonathan-swift/quote/lby8o4e

[semilanceata@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans (Haven't read through all the replies, so maybe it has been said before.. )

Mechanical gears used to be thought of as a man made invention, but there is a species of plant hoppers that uses them as part of their jumping technique!

Prof. Malcolm Burrows from Cambridge University explains it in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8fyUOxD2EA

[cptbutton@dice.camp]

@annehargreaves @benroyce @ShaulaEvans

Augustus De Morgan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem)

[adamstuartsmith@sauropods.win]

@WizardOfDocs @inj4n @lavievagabonde @ShaulaEvans It was a moth. But it would have been perfection if Grace Hopper had found a grass hopper.

[lolcat@digipres.club]

@ShaulaEvans

A bug that's sometimes called the rarest in the world, and also happens to be HUGE, is native to a remote 1,877' rock pyramid way out in the ocean, east of Australia.

Not a lot of interesting facts about the bug itself (though there are some!), it's the story of the presumed extinction, rediscovery, subsequent preservation and breeding, and the extreme location that makes this an interesting bug story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryococelus