2022 in review

The mystery of where the German cockroach originated from has been solved! There's also a new ant species named after Voldemort. In this news episode we cover the aforementioned as well as how mosquitoes can be used for bird feed, how rusty patched bumble bee populations are organized, a New York City bee conservation effort, and more.  

Ah the venerable Honeybee. Humanities history with this insect stretches back beyond the written word, even beyond podcasts. This incomprehensible timeframe has left people with a lot of time to figure out many different ways to keep, collect, and utilize honeybees. This is the focus of our first episode on honeybees, where we cover topics like early honey collection methods, the development of beekeeping, and the competing theories around the honeybees evolutionary origins. 

Hear about the bedbug infestation terrifying the city of Paris, an interesting new way of detecting heavy metal contamination (hint, if you were planning on eating plant galls in industrial areas, don't), and why there's a journal of apiculture in the Wright Brothers exhibit at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museums. 

Pierre Andre Latreille, a French entomologist who lived from 1762-1833, is probably best known for having his life saved by a beetle. However there's a lot more to his story, and he went on to make a number of sigificant contributions to the field of entomology ( all thanks to the beetle ). Learn all about this lesser known but important entomologist on this new episode of Insectview. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.en.19.010174.000245https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/09/pierre-andre-latreille-entomologist-who.html

Get the scoop  on why insects fly to light, the bugs at the American Musuem of Natural History's new wing, and what happened to the LAPD officer who was attacked by bees in this new news episode! Sourceshttps://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.11.536486v1https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/arts/design/jessica-ware-insects-american-museum-natural-history.html?searchResultPosition=5https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/arts/design/gilder-center-natural-history-museum.htmlhttps://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/1-sent-to-hospital-after-hundreds-of-bees-swarm-encino-neighborhood/https://ktla.com/news/local-news/swarm-of-bees-closes-streets-in-encino-injuries-reported/https://ktla.com/news/local-news/lapd-volunteer-recovering-after-being-swarmed-by-bees-in-encino/https://www.foxla.com/news/lapd-volunteer-suffers-fractured-eye-socket-after-horrific-bee-attack-in-encinohttps://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-18/los-angeles-expenses-lapd-volunteer-stung-bees-attack-viral-videohttps://twitter.com/LAPDPIO/status/1659000653832933376https://www.gofundme.com/f/volunteer-lapd-officer-attacked-by-bees

Meet Antarctica's largest native terrestrial animal, the Antarctic Midge, Belgica antarctica. Learn all about it's discovery during the voyage it was named after, it's interesting biology, and tiny genome in this new episode of Insectview!

New year same Insectview! Tune in to hear our recap of 2022, as well as some plans for the future. 

If you life in north America, you're almost certainly familiar with the little orange and brown caterpillar called the wooly bear. If you're in the Eastern US you may have even gone to a wooly bear festival! However, the rest of its life cycle is less familiar to most people, a fact we hope to remedy! Tune in to hear about the wooly bear, its mythos, and the celebrations that have sprung up in it's honor!Citations:https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/68/4/557/2645369https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/214/14/2416/918/How-do-tiger-moths-jam-bat-sonarhttps://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/214/7/1205/33560/The-sub-lethal-effects-of-repeated-freezing-in-thehttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12770036/https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/banded-woollybearhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26281804/http://www.minnesotaseasons.com/Insects/Isabella_tiger_moth.htmlhttps://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/68/4/557/2645369

In this episode of insect news hear about a rediscovered rare army ant fossil, a newly discovered milk like substance ants consume, and a selection of insect news stories from the early 20th century. Amber army ant: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221122221254.htmAnt milk: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221130114454.htm

In this episode of Insect News we look back on the story of bumble bees playing that was all over the news a few weeks ago. We also take a look at why you might be attracting more mosquito bites then other people, and how some researchers used a CT scanner... on a swarm of bees?