Category Archives: Insects

First murder hornet nest found to have 200 queens capable of spawning new nests

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Washington state scientists found about 500 live specimens in various stages of development inside the basketball-sized nest

When scientists in Washington state destroyed the first nest of so-called murder hornets found in the US, they discovered about 500 live specimens in various stages of development, officials said Tuesday.

Among them were nearly 200 queens that had the potential to start their own nests, said Sven-Erik Spichiger, an entomologist leading the fight to kill the hornets.

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‘They give me the willies’: scientist who vacuumed murder hornets braces for fight

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Chris Looney helped dismantle the first nest of Asian giant hornets in the US. Now he’s preparing for the next step

The eradication of the first nest of Asian giant hornets on US soil somewhat resembled a science fiction depiction of an alien landing site. A crew of government specialists in white, astronaut-like protective suits descended upon the hornet nexus to vanquish it with a futuristic-looking vacuum cleaner, to the relief of onlookers.

The nest of the fearsome invasive insects, notoriously known as “murder hornets”, was found in a tree crevice near Blaine, in Washington state, via a tracking device attached to a previously captured worker hornet. The Washington state department of agriculture (WSDA) confirmed the nest had been successfully removed, with dozens of live captives taken back for inspection.

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Large blue butterfly flutters in Cotswolds for first time in 150 years

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Painstaking conservation effort to accommodate insect’s complex lifecycle pays off

The biggest reintroduction to date of the large blue has led to the rare butterfly flying on a Cotswold hillside where it has not been seen for 150 years.

About 750 butterflies emerged on to Rodborough Common in Gloucestershire this summer after 1,100 larvae were released last autumn following five years of innovative grassland management to create optimum habitat.

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Fears rise of ‘murder hornet’ spreading in western Canada after sighting

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Latest discovery suggests the species has reached far deeper into British Columbia than previously thought

When officials in western Canada received the squashed remains of a hornet in late May, they immediately knew trouble was in their hands. 

With its hulking orange and black body, the insect sent in by a concerned resident was unmistakably an Asian giant hornet – an aggressive predator increasingly known as the “murder” hornet.

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‘Make noise and don’t panic’: India tries to ward off locust invasion

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Delhi braces for swarm while farmers in badly-hit north play loud music and honk car horns to try to prevent decimation of fields

Residents of Delhi are bracing themselves for a possible invasion of locusts, which have been ravaging areas in the north of the country.

A change in wind direction could save the city, but Dr K L Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, has warned residents to be prepared to “make a lot of loud noise so that instead of settling, they keep flying and fly past the city. And don’t panic”.

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‘Murder hornets’ in Washington state threaten bees and whip up media swarm

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Asian giant hornet, which became more active in the state in April, is the world’s largest and can kill humans with multiple stings

Researchers and citizens in Washington state are on a careful hunt for invasive “murder hornets”, after the insect made its first appearance in the US.

The Asian giant hornet is the world’s largest and can kill humans. But it is most dangerous for the European honeybee, which is defenseless in the face of the hornet’s spiky mandibles, long stinger and potent venom.

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Insect numbers down 25% since 1990, global study finds

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Scientists say insects are vital and the losses worrying, with accelerating declines in Europe called ‘shocking’

The biggest assessment of global insect abundances to date shows a worrying drop of almost 25% in the last 30 years, with accelerating declines in Europe that shocked scientists.

The analysis combined 166 long-term surveys from almost 1,700 sites and found that some species were bucking the overall downward trend. In particular, freshwater insects have been increasing by 11% each decade following action to clean up polluted rivers and lakes. However, this group represent only about 10% of insect species and do not pollinate crops.

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Fears for wildlife recovery after bushfires as coronavirus crisis stymies scientists’ fieldwork

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Monitoring work suspended due to restrictions on travel and physical contact, in a blow for research into threatened species

Scientists are being forced to shut down or scale back fieldwork to assess the impact of last summer’s devastating bushfires on threatened species amid the coronavirus crisis, prompting concerns it could affect wildlife recovery.

Several universities have shut down fieldwork to comply with restrictions on travel and physical contact and government agencies working on the recovery have had to scale back some of their operations.

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Insects likely to be approved for human consumption by EU

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Food safety agency’s decision could put mealworms, locusts and baby crickets on menus

It is being billed as the long-awaited breakthrough moment in European gastronomy for mealworm burgers, locust aperitifs and cricket granola.

In the next few weeks the EU’s European Food Safety Authority is expected by the insect industry to endorse mealworms, lesser mealworms, locusts, baby crickets and adult crickets as being safe for human consumption.

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Uganda’s ‘locust commander’ leads the battle against a new enemy

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The army has been called in to eliminate the insects swarming across Africa, but their mission is dangerous and unending

  • Photographs by Edward Echwalu for the Guardian

Sitting at a plastic table in the garden of Timisha hotel in Soroti, eastern Uganda, Major General Samuel Kavuma takes a drag of his cigarette and looks down at his phone, which has barely stopped ringing for the past hour.

A military figure for nearly 40 years, Kavuma fought the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgent group. Now, he’s become the “locust commander”, the man leading the fight against the country’s worst locust outbreak in decades.

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California street shut down after 40,000 bees swarm from hotel

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Several people hospitalized in Pasadena after Africanized bees emerge from hotel’s eaves: ‘Something set them off’

A swarm of as many as 40,000 Africanized bees sent several people to hospital and closed a street in California, after swarming from the eaves of a Howard Johnson Inn.

Related: Ursus urbinus: 'elderly' 400lb bear spotted roaming Los Angeles suburb

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Why the lights are going out for fireflies

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Fireflies face a dim future because of habitat loss and light pollution. How can conservationists help?

At dusk, graduate student Sara Lewis was sitting on her back porch in North Carolina with her dog. “We were supposed to be mowing our grass, but we never did, so we had long grass in our yard,” she recalls. “Suddenly this cloud of sparks rose up out of the grass and started flying around me.”

Each spark was a firefly: a beetle that glows in the dark. Hundreds of fireflies had gathered in Lewis’s back yard and were soaring around her. “It was this incredible spectacle,” says Lewis, “and I just sort of gasped.” Then she became fascinated. “I started wondering what the heck was going on here, what were these bugs doing, what were they talking about?” She has spent much of the past three decades studying fireflies.

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Paris launches emergency bed bugs hotline

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New campaign includes advice on how to prevent and treat an infestation, and a number to call for expert help

The French government launched a campaign Thursday, complete with an emergency number, to combat an influx of unwelcome visitors that have left Parisians in despair: bedbugs that have settled in homes and hotels to feed, uninvited, on human blood.

After disappearing from France in the 1950s, the insects have made a resurgence, according to the ministry of housing, which cited international travel and growing resistance to insecticide as the main causes.

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Car ‘splatometer’ tests reveal huge decline in number of insects

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Research shows abundance at sites in Europe has plunged by up to 80% in two decades

Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades.

The research adds to growing evidence of what some scientists have called an “insect apocalypse”, which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Earth. A third study shows plummeting numbers of aquatic insects in streams.

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A humanitarian crisis looms in Africa unless we act fast to stop the desert locust

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The destructive migratory pest threatens catastrophe as it swarms through countries already plagued by food insecurity

A colleague at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells a terrifying story about the desert locust.

In 2005 she visited farmers in Niger as they prepared to harvest their crops. Just hours later, a swarm of locusts swept through the area and destroyed everything. One month later, truckloads of families were forced to leave their homes because they had nothing to eat.

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Fear in Mexico as twin deaths expose threat to monarch butterflies and their defenders

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The deaths of two butterfly conservationists have drawn focus to a troubling tangle of disputes, resentments and violence

The annual migration of monarch butterflies from the US and Canada is one of the most resplendent sights in the natural world – a rippling orange-and-black wave containing millions of butterflies fluttering instinctively southward to escape the winter cold.

The spectacle when they reach their destination in central Mexico is perhaps even more astonishing. Patches of alpine forest turn from green to orange as the monarchs roost in the fir trees, the sheer weight of butterflies causing branches to sag to the point of snapping. Tens of thousands of the insects bounce haphazardly overhead, searching replenishment from nearby plants.

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Bumblebees’ decline points to mass extinction – study

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Populations disappearing in areas where temperatures are getting hotter, scientists say

Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say.

A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”.

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Kenya suffers worst locust infestation in 70 years as millions of insects swarm farmland

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UN urges immediate action as east African nations already experiencing devastating hunger see large areas of crops destroyed

The worst outbreak of desert locusts in Kenya in 70 years has seen hundreds of millions of the insects swarm into the east African nation from Somalia and Ethiopia. Those two countries have not had an infestation like this in a quarter century, destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region with devastating hunger.

“Even cows are wondering what is happening,” said Ndunda Makanga, who spent hours Friday trying to chase the locusts from his farm. “Corn, sorghum, cowpeas, they have eaten everything.”

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Locusts swarm into Kenya as UN warns of ‘extreme danger’ to food supply

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Government races against time to contain threat to key food-producing regions in country still reeling from droughts and floods

The UN has warned of a “significant and extremely dangerous” escalation in the number of desert locusts descending on Kenya, as the government strives to contain the threat before it reaches the country’s food-producing regions.

The tropical grasshoppers have been wreaking havoc on Kenya’s neighbours to the north and east, devouring tens of thousands of hectares of crops in Ethiopia and Somalia since last June.

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‘Like sending bees to war’: the deadly truth behind your almond-milk obsession

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Bees are essential to the functioning of America’s titanic almond industry – and billions are dying in the process

Dennis Arp was feeling optimistic last summer, which is unusual for a beekeeper these days.

Thanks to a record wet spring, his hundreds of hives, scattered across the central Arizona desert, produced a bounty of honey. Arp would have plenty to sell in stores, but more importantly, the bumper harvest would strengthen his bees for their biggest task of the coming year.

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