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

[ubi@ecoevo.social]

@KaraLG84 @stevegis_ssg @ShaulaEvans It has something to do with the frequency of the wing beats. Flies and bees move their wings very rapidly to fly, while butterflies flaps slower and tend to glide more. Some moths like hawk moths also have rapid wing beats, so they buzz quite a bit.

[peterbrown@mastodon.scot]

@ShaulaEvans I read recently on here that if you put red ants and black ants in a jar they will co-exist quite happily. But if you shake the jar, the black ants will blame the red ants and attack and kill them. Meanwhile the red ants blame the black ants and attack and kill them.

[annehargreaves@ioc.exchange]

@benroyce @ShaulaEvans
"Big fleas have lesser fleas
Upon their backs to bite'em
Lesser fleas have lesser fleas
And so ad infinitem"

Sorry I've forgotten the author

[annehargreaves@ioc.exchange]

@jetlagjen @ShaulaEvans When I was a kid I knew these as "Mr Pills".

[annehargreaves@ioc.exchange]

@statsguy @ShaulaEvans The moths are pretty too

[ubi@ecoevo.social]

@ShaulaEvans Not all dung beetles roll dung balls, in fact most species don't. A majority of dung beetles either live inside or under dung, collecting dung in tunnels or chambers. They shape the dung there into balls or sausage shapes, and lay a single egg inside. The developing larva is sometimes tended to by one or both parents. All its larval and pupal development happens in the nest, and it emerges as an adult.

[adamstuartsmith@sauropods.win]

@inj4n @lavievagabonde @ShaulaEvans Grace Hopper?! That’s hilarious! 😄

[ubi@ecoevo.social]

@ShaulaEvans The ecologist Ilka Hanski once theorised that pre-pyramid Pharaoh tombs, called mastabah, are designed to resemble the nests of tunneling dung beetles. Which were a symbol of rebirth.

The tomb lies in a tunnel chamber, under a rectangular tomb structure. Hanski argued that the structure resembled the dung beetle's nest, tunnel and a dung pat.

[hryggrbyr@fedia.social]

@ShaulaEvans Bumble bees live in burrows

[sarah111well@mas.to]

@ShaulaEvans I have some good bug stories - not so hot on facts.
Eg When I worked at Trading Standards Dept. a member of the public brought in a brand new cricket bat complaining about a noise coming from it. The bat was sealed in a plastic bag and sat next to my desk for several days before being shipped to a Laboratory for testing.
The result was a 7+cm grub from Pakistan that had tunnelled most of the inside of the cricket bat away!

[dazzr@social.tchncs.de]

@ShaulaEvans And another one: an impressive example of moth long-distance navigation capability, and a lovely piece of research to track and analyze their flight strategy.

The navigation strategies of migrating death’s-head hawkmoths rival those of birds.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-08-12/silence-of-the-lambs-deaths-head-hawk-moth-flies-straight/101315688

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn1663

[micron@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans The jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii can reverse its aging process.

https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-animal-that-lives-forever

[lindarosesmit@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans there are lady bugs in the ocean. They live in and around tunicates etc.

[ghouston@mamot.fr]

@jetlagjen @afewbugs @ShaulaEvans I think aphids using parthenogenesis can also have "telescoping generations", i.e., they are born already pregnant.

[statsguy@mas.to]

@annehargreaves @ShaulaEvans Yes they are! Sadly I don't have a photo of any.

[yattoz@shelter.moe]

@ShaulaEvans here's one I learned yesterday: earwigs are harmless creatures, and they have beautiful wings that fold in super tiny elytra. When they unfold they look like they belong to some kind of unreal cristal butterfly.

[talesfromthearmchair@hachyderm.io]

@ShaulaEvans Male bees (and wasps, and ants) are _haploid_ and do not have fathers. They are not just the only animals, but the only _eukaryotes_ to evolve reproduction that differs from the normal alternation of haploid/diploid generations. (Reproduction is usually very strongly evolutionarily conserved, for obvious reasons: if a mutation messes it up somehow, there's no chance for it to get sorted out again in future generations, because there won't _be_ any future generations.) So euphemising sex ed as "the birds and the bees" is unhelpful, as "the bees" are literally _the_ worst available model organism for human reproduction.

[tiotasram@kolektiva.social]

@ShaulaEvans okay, here are some fun/gross/terrifying bug facts about polycheate worms (which live in the ocean):

1. The Bobbitt Worm is a marine ambush predator that burrows in ocean sediment and then shoots out to grab prey with its mandibles, the force of which sometimes cuts prey in half. It grows up to 3 meters long in extreme cases, although it's only about 25 millimeters in diameter. At least one article I read mentioned toxic bristles, but I wasn't able to find a legitimate source for that and suspect it was sensationalization.

2. The Bearded Fireworm does have toxic bristles (as do other fireworms). They can cause a painful sting that lasts for hours. They're also quite beautiful.

3. The Palolo Worm spawns by growing tail segments filled with sperm or eggs, and then on a specific night tied to the lunar & solar cycles, releasing these segments to float to the surface, where they disintegrate into a frothy mass. They're apparently delicious fried in coconut oil.

In case you want to do your own deep dive (😉) on segmented ocean worms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychaete

[amenonsen@mastodon.social]

@AnAutieAtUni @ShaulaEvans As it happens, I was pointing to a tiny, delicate green-and-white jumping spider (most likely Epeus sp.) on a wooden railing just a few hours ago, and before I finished saying "look at this spider", it had hopped up on my finger, cool as you like. And after several seconds, I tapped lightly on the railing, and it hopped off again. Lovely.

[timdesuyo@mastodon.social]

@ShaulaEvans

the cockchafer and the red-headed cockchafer exist