Tag Entomology
What’s with sloths’ dangerous bathroom breaks? Maybe hunger
For the three-toed sloth, a trip to the restroom is no rest at all. It's a long, slow descent into mortal danger from the safety of home among the upper branches of the forest.
UW’s bug-eating advocate had global impact
When Gene DeFoliart had his brainstorm in 1974, not even he thought his brainchild would be an easy sell. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, DeFoliart was focusing on how insects spread viral disease. Now he was captivated by an opposite proposition: using insects to foster human health — using them, to be specific, as food.
Exotic lone star tick making a home in Wisconsin
It's shaping up as a summer like no other for ticks across Wisconsin - including the strongest contingent yet of a bloodsucker new to the state.
Curiosities: How high can bugs fly?
“We can pick up insects at 5,000 or 6,000 feet,” says Phil Pellitteri of the UW–Madison insect diagnostic lab. “But wind is a big…
Rhythmic vibrations guide caste development in social wasps
Future queen or tireless toiler? A paper wasp's destiny may lie in the antennal drumbeats of its caretaker.
Curiosities: Why are yellow jackets most noticeable in late summer?
Often mistaken for bees, German yellow jackets are social wasps that cooperate to build their nests and support their queen, and they…
Fighting the Grinch who stole Wisconsin’s Christmas trees
An entomology research team from UW–Madison aims to squash a grub that plagues as many as one-third of Wisconsin’s approximately 1,100 Christmas tree farms.
As ticks expand, new areas may become prone to Lyme disease
Last summer, after returning home from a walk in Madison's Dudgeon-Monroe neighborhood, Susan Paskewitz was astonished to find a deer tick crawling up her dog's hind leg. It was the first time Paskewitz, a University of Wisconsin–Madison entomologist, had collected a tick in the city. Within the month, she learned of two other such cases.
Wielding microbe against microbe, beetle defends its food source
As the southern pine beetle moves through the forest boring tunnels inside the bark of trees, it brings with it both a helper and a competitor. The helper is a fungus that the insect plants inside the tunnels as food for its young. But also riding along is a tiny, hitchhiking mite, which likewise carries a fungus for feeding its own larvae.
Professor tracks mosquitoes for the sake of public health
Under a cloud of mosquitoes on a muggy June morning, Susan Paskewitz sits down in the grass, rolls up her pant leg and extends her calf as bait.
Curiosities: Why does it seem like mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than others?
“It’s true. There’s always one in every group,” says UW–Madison entomology professor and mosquito expert Susan Paskewitz. Photo: Jeff Miller That’s…
Recent sightings: Bugged
Kindergarteners experience hands-on learning and exploration during a UW–Madison Insect Ambassadors program held at C.H. Bird Elementary School in Sun Prairie…
Hungry insects leave clues to impacts of climate change
Harshaw, Wis. — A boardwalk beckons into the stand of trees, pleasantly cool on a hot summer morning — where it becomes immediately clear…