Ask an Entomologist

This is a pretty cool question:

Hi,

I killed a large green grasshopper-like bug, only to find several reddish- brown rice-shaped things inside. Are they eggs? Can they still hatch?

I’m not sure what type of insect it was, but my best guess after an Internet search is… conehead/katydid.

Also, why might I find these insects in my home? Surely bright green bugs feed on vegetation?

In this case, it sounds like a Katydid which got inside a house by accident. It’s common for bugs to get inside a house, and katydids just kind of keep looking for a way to get out when this happens. Here, the katydid was smashed and some eggs popped out…which led to the above question.

If you crush a bug, and eggs come out, they’re not going to hatch. The eggs need to be activated before they can develop, and taking the eggs out of the female without them being laid bypasses that process.

…but how are the eggs activated?

What, exactly, has to happen while the eggs being laid for them to start to hatch?

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We’ve written about scientific conferences before, and we’re happy to announce that all of our writers will be together at ESA 2017 in Denver, Colorado!

As always, we’ll write a post summarizing our experience…but our talk is a bit different this year. We’d like some information on our audience for the talk.

Here’s a link to the survey, and we’ll post a short bit of information for further context below the fold.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SDG7PDX

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Written by Joe Ballenger

So…I was on Twitter, and this tweet came across my feed.

Sitting on the deck swatting away flies or mosquitos is a situation that can be dealt with non-toxically. https://t.co/ff22sYfFIr

— goop (@goop) 29 de agosto de 2017

I’m familiar with GOOP and had a pretty good idea of what I was in for when I clicked the link…and I was actually happy to see that they were selling something that looked like it could be useful.

…and then I looked at the price and freaked out a bit.

You should not be paying $30 for a bottle of bug spray.

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Written by Joe Ballenger

This question about invasive species caught my eye, mostly because I’m not sure I can give a complete response.

Reading abt Asian citrus psyllid. Are there many N. Amer. insects considered pests/invasive on other continents?

— Jesse Christopherson (@105191953) August 3, 2017

A lot of the insects I deal with are agricultural pests, and most of our agricultural pests have come from other parts of the world because of shipping activities. A lot of invasive species, however, have also come from America as well. Fall Armyworm, native to North and South America, has started cutting large and destructive swaths across Africa after it was introduced. Western Corn Rootworm, a billion-dollar pest, has been introduced to Europe and threatens agricultural supplies there as well.

Unfortunately, I’m just not familiar enough with this topic to give a super complete list…but I do want to talk about this topic because I want to highlight not only the economic ramifications but also the political ramifications that introduced species have. Instead of giving a complete list of North American introduced species, I’m going to focus on the one I believe to be the most important…not only economically but politically.

The pest species is the Colorado Potato Beetle, and it’s probably the best documented invasive species from North America. It’s expanded it’s population from Mexico, into North America, and has spread across the world over the past 150 years. It’s extremely hard to kill, and because of this, it’s played a prominent role in every major world conflict since WWI.

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Written by Joe Ballenger

Throughout my SciComm career, I’ve told a lot of stories about science. I’ve been active in online science outreach for 10 years, and I’ve written hundreds of blog posts across about a dozen different websites.

However, I’ve never considered myself an expert in the topic. In school I had a lot of writing classes, but they always focused on the type of writing that was perceived to be beneficial to a career in science. Things like grant writing, and scientific paper writing were on the top of the list…but I never got any training in creative writing.

I feel like this is really important. I’m going to be writing a post about invasive species soon, and in this post, I’ll be telling the story of how this species spread across the world and what it means to people. These sorts of stories are really important to writing about science, and I’ve always wanted to improve my storytelling. I’ve been doing my own research, but I wanted to ask someone who knows a lot more about this then I do.

This desire to become a better writer convinced me to reach out to a professional filmmaker, Michael Tucker. Tucker runs a YouTube Channel called Lessons From the Screenplay. We had a short conversation about how scientists tell stories, and I wanted to take this as an opportunity to review what I learned.

You can watch the video above, or read my reflection, and I’ll also post some of the videos we mentioned specifically.

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Written by Joe Ballenger

Wasp picture, via AaE FB inbox

Some of the more interesting questions we get aren’t even about living insects. People have lots of questions about dead bugs, too.

Hey there, I just had a quick question, I was in my backyard when I came across this little guy in the dirt. I’m not sure if the coloration is because of it being dead, or it was like that to begin with. I was hoping you could shed some light for me!

This question is neat, because it combines two of our previous posts. Nancy has written before on how insect eyes work, as well as structural coloration.

So why did the eyes of this bug turn white after it died?

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