topic: Beetles

topic: Beetles

Social media activity version | Lean version

New research shines a light on Sri Lanka fireflies
- Until recently, there had been a significant absence in research on Sri Lanka’s fireflies; previous work was by British scientists a couple hundred years ago, but now a new surge in research has led to new findings in the pipeline for publication.
- Recent research has led to the rediscovery of Luciola nicolleri, a firefly not seen since its description 100 years ago, and Curtos costipennis, a new discovery in Sri Lanka.
- Glowworms are the larval stage of fireflies, and folklore has it that once stung by them, treatment would require mud from the depths of the ocean and stars from the sky, indicating a difficult cure — shot down by experts as myth, confirming fireflies do not harm human life.
- A beautiful and common sight just a decade ago, fireflies are fast disappearing from urban landscapes due to loss of habitat, increasing temperatures and pollution levels, affecting their reproduction signals in the form of bioluminescent lights.

Is invasive species management doing more harm than good? (commentary)
- Conservationists may be thwarting their own efforts, as well as causing harm to wildlife, in their battle against invasive species, a new op-ed argues.
- In numerous cases, non-native species have been shown to benefit wildlife, while their management – from toxic chemicals to culling – may be causing more harm than good.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Death by 1,000 cuts: Are major insect losses imperiling life on Earth?
- New studies, featured in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, assess insect declines around the planet.
- On average, the decline in insect abundance is thought to be around 1-2% per year or 10-20% per decade. These losses are being seen on nearly every continent, even within well-protected areas.
- Precipitous insect declines are being escalated by humanity as soaring population and advanced technology push us ever closer to overshooting several critical planetary boundaries including biodiversity, climate change, nitrification, and pollution. Planetary boundary overshoot could threaten the viability of life on Earth.
- Action on a large scale (international, national, and public/private policymaking), and on a small scale (replacing lawns with insect-friendly habitat, for example) are desperately needed to curb and reverse insect decline.

Canopy beetles and flowering trees rely on each other in the Amazon, study
- A canopy scientist collected 859 species of beetles from the canopy species of a healthy lowland tropical rainforest in southern Venezuela.
- More than 75% of the beetle species collected were found living exclusively on flowering trees — many on trees with small white flowers.
- The results suggest that flowering trees play an important role in maintaining canopy beetle diversity in the Amazon and that these trees are being visited by beetles more than any other insect order, including bees and butterflies.
- To fight the global decline of insects, “researchers and conservationists must understand the ecological connections between insects and their food plants.”

One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
- In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
- In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
- Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
- Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”

Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects
- In a new paper, a group of 30 scientists offers suggestions for industry, land managers, governments and individuals to protect insects in the face of a global decline.
- Noting that invertebrates lack the “charisma” of larger species like pandas and elephants, the scientists call for spreading “the message that appreciation and conservation of insects is now essential for our future survival.”
- They suggest a list of actions that individuals can take to help, including planting native plants, going organic and avoiding pesticides, and reducing carbon footprint.
- “As insects are braided into ecosystems, their plight is essentially integrated with more expansive movements such as global biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and in an alliance with them,” the scientists say.

Extreme El Niño drought, fires contribute to Amazon insect collapse: Study
- A recent study found that dung beetle species experienced significant diversity and population declines in human-modified tropical Brazilian ecosystems in the aftermath of droughts and fires exacerbated after the 2015-2016 El Niño climate event.
- Forests that burned during the El Niño lost, on average, 64% of their dung beetle species while those affected only by drought showed an average decline of 20%. Dung beetles provide vital ecoservices, processing waste and dispersing seeds and soil nutrients.
- For roughly the past three years, entomologists have been sounding alarms over a possible global collapse of insect abundance. In the tropics, climate change, habitat destruction and pesticide use are having clear impacts on insect abundance and diversity. However, a lack of funds and institutional interest is holding back urgently needed research.

Iridescence helps these ‘living jewels’ hide in plain sight
- Jewel beetles (Sternocera aequisignata) have iridescent wing cases that change color depending on which angle the light hits them, like a peacock’s feather or an opal.
- A new study published in Current Biology finds that this iridescence may help the beetles hide from predators in the wild like birds.
- The study authors ran experiments that showed birds were least likely to spot the iridescent wing cases compared to static mono-colored wing cases, and even humans had the most difficulty locating them.
- This finding is important because it provides evidence for the first time that iridescence, rather than being a disadvantage, can aid a species’ survival by helping conceal it.

Mongabay investigative series helps confirm global insect decline
- In a newly published four-part series, Mongabay takes a deep dive into the science behind the so-called “Insect Apocalypse,” recently reported in the mainstream media.
- To create the series, Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations, producing what is possibly the most in-depth reporting published to date by any news media outlet on the looming insect abundance crisis.
- While major peer-reviewed studies are few (with evidence resting primarily so far on findings in Germany and Puerto Rico), there is near consensus among the two dozen researchers surveyed: Insects are likely in serious global decline.
- The series is in four parts: an introduction and critical review of existing peer-reviewed data; a look at temperate insect declines; a survey of tropical declines; and solutions to the problem. Researchers agree: Conserving insects — imperative to preserving the world’s ecosystem services — is vital to humanity.

The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
- The entomologists interviewed for this Mongabay series agreed on three major causes for the ongoing and escalating collapse of global insect populations: habitat loss (especially due to agribusiness expansion), climate change and pesticide use. Some added a fourth cause: human overpopulation.
- Solutions to these problems exist, most agreed, but political commitment, major institutional funding and a large-scale vision are lacking. To combat habitat loss, researchers urge preservation of biodiversity hotspots such as primary rainforest, regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and nature-friendly agriculture.
- Combatting climate change, scientists agree, requires deep carbon emission cuts along with the establishment of secure, very large conserved areas and corridors encompassing a wide variety of temperate and tropical ecosystems, sometimes designed with preserving specific insect populations in mind.
- Pesticide use solutions include bans of some toxins and pesticide seed coatings, the education of farmers by scientists rather than by pesticide companies, and importantly, a rethinking of agribusiness practices. The Netherlands’ Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery includes some of these elements.

The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
- Insect species are most diverse in the tropics, but are largely unresearched, with many species not described by science. But entomologists believe abundance is being impacted by climate change, habitat destruction and the introduction of industrial agribusiness with its heavy pesticide use.
- A 2018 repeat of a 1976 study in Puerto Rico, which measured the total biomass of a rainforest’s arthropods, found that in the intervening decades populations collapsed. Sticky traps caught up to 60-fold fewer insects than 37 years prior, while ground netting caught 8 times fewer insects than in 1976.
- The same researchers also looked at insect abundance in a tropical forest in Western Mexico. There, biomass abundance fell eightfold in sticky traps from 1981 to 2014. Researchers from Southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania and Africa all expressed concern to Mongabay over possible insect abundance declines.
- In response to feared tropical declines, new insect surveys are being launched, including the Arthropod Initiative and Global Malaise Trap Program. But all of these new initiatives suffer the same dire problem: a dearth of funding and lack of interest from foundations, conservation groups and governments.

The Great Insect Dying: Vanishing act in Europe and North America
- Though arthropods make up most of the species on Earth, and much of the planet’s biomass, they are significantly understudied compared to mammals, plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. Lack of baseline data makes insect abundance decline difficult to assess.
- Insects in the temperate EU and U.S. are the world’s best studied, so it is here that scientists expect to detect precipitous declines first. A groundbreaking study published in October 2017 found that flying insects in 63 protected areas in Germany had declined by 75 percent in just 25 years.
- The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme has a 43-year butterfly record, and over that time two-thirds of the nations’ species have decreased. Another recent paper found an 84 percent decline in butterflies in the Netherlands from 1890 to 2017. Still, EU researchers say far more data points are needed.
- Neither the U.S. or Canada have conducted an in-depth study similar to that in Germany. But entomologists agree that major abundance declines are likely underway, and many are planning studies to detect population drops. Contributors to decline are climate change, pesticides and ecosystem destruction.

The Great Insect Dying: A global look at a deepening crisis
- Recent studies from Germany and Puerto Rico, and a global meta-study, all point to a serious, dramatic decline in insect abundance. Plummeting insect populations could deeply impact ecosystems and human civilization, as these tiny creatures form the base of the food chain, pollinate, dispose of waste, and enliven soils.
- However, limited baseline data makes it difficult for scientists to say with certainty just how deep the crisis may be, though anecdotal evidence is strong. To that end, Mongabay is launching a four-part series — likely the most in-depth, nuanced look at insect decline yet published by any media outlet.
- Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and researchers on six continents working in over a dozen nations to determine what we know regarding the “great insect dying,” including an overview article, and an in-depth story looking at temperate insects in the U.S. and the European Union — the best studied for their abundance.
- We also utilize Mongabay’s position as a leader in tropical reporting to focus solely on insect declines in the tropics and subtropics, where lack of baseline data is causing scientists to rush to create new, urgently needed survey study projects. The final story looks at what we can do to curb and reverse the loss of insect abundance.

All you need is human feces: The strange world of dung beetle sampling
- Dung beetles have emerged as one of the most intensively studied animal groups in tropical rainforests.
- They are very easy and cheap to survey and are strong indicators of the health of rainforests and the presence of diverse mammal communities.
- Dung beetles also carry out critical roles and functions in rainforests, including spreading seeds and nutrients, but some of these are unraveling as humans drive species to extinction.

Scientists urge greater protection of Brazil’s secondary forests
- New research indicates that even after 40 years of recovery, fast-growing tropical forests in Brazil house far fewer species and sequester less carbon than their primary counterparts.
- The study finds the most-recovered secondary forests surveyed had around 80 percent the biodiversity and carbon of nearby primary forests.
- To allow greater recovery of secondary forests and the wildlife and carbon they house, the researchers say policies should be put in place to better protect these forests and give them the time they need to mature properly.
- However, they caution that enacting policy is only one part of the solution, and urge more funding and attention be given to monitoring and enforcement of forest protection regulations.

After logging, activists hope to extend protections for Bialowieza Forest
- Bialoweiza Forest straddles Poland and Belarus and is Europe’s largest remaining lowland old growth forest, home to wildlife that has disappeared from much of the rest of Europe. In March 2016, the government approved a plan to triple industrial logging in Poland’s Bialoweiza forest. The government argued it was the only way to combat a spruce bark beetle outbreak, but environmentalists believed that was largely an excuse to give access to the state-run logging regime.
- According to watchdog organizations, loggers cut 190,000 cubic meters of wood in 2017. This amounts to around 160,000-180,000 trees and affects an area of about 1,900 hectares. It also represents the most trees cut in the forest in any one year since 1987 when Poland was under a communist government.
- In May 2018, Europe’s highest court ruled the logging illegal, noting that the government’s own documents showed that logging was a bigger threat than the beetles, which are a part of natural, cyclical process that is likely exacerbated by climate change. Poland, threatened with high fines, backed down—and the logging stopped.
- Activists and environmentalists are calling for expanding national park status – which currently applies to just a small portion of Poland’s portion of the forest – over its entirety. But they worry a government panel of experts will once again push to open Bialoweiza to logging.

‘Photo Ark’ a quest to document global biodiversity: Q&A with photographer Joel Sartore and director Chun-Wei Yi
- The film “RARE: Creatures of the Photo Ark” follows National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore as he travels the world snapping pictures of thousands of different animal species.
- In the last 12 years, Sartore has photographed nearly 8,000 species.
- “RARE: Creatures of the Photo Ark” was named Best Conservation Film at the New York WILD Film Festival.

Photos: Top 20 new species of 2017
- There’s still so much we don’t know about life on planet Earth that scientists discover new species with whom we share this planet nearly every day.
- For instance, this year scientists described a new species of orangutan in Sumatra — just the eighth great ape species known to exist on planet Earth. And that’s just one of many notable, bizarre, or downright fascinating discoveries made this year.
- Here, in no particular order, we present the top 20 new species discovered in 2017.

Study finds hundreds of thousands of tropical species at risk of extinction due to deforestation
- Scientists have long believed that the rate at which we are destroying tropical forests, and the habitat those forests represent, could drive a global mass extinction event, but the extent of the potential losses has never been fully understood.
- John Alroy, a professor of biological sciences at Australia’s Macquarie University, examined local-scale ecological data in order to forecast potential global extinction rates and found that hundreds of thousands of species are at risk if humans disturb all pristine forests remaining in the tropics.
- Mass extinction will occur primarily in tropical forests because Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity is so heavily concentrated in those ecosystems, Alroy notes in the study.

Two species of beetles go extinct in the US, one gets protection
- Two beetle species found only in the U.S — the Stephan’s riffle beetle and the Tatum Cave beetle — are now officially extinct, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on October 5.
- The delay in listing these beetles for protection under the Endangered Species Act may have contributed to their extinction, according to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD).
- The Miami tiger beetle from Florida has now been listed as “endangered” under the ESA, following a petition for its listing by CBD and other conservation groups.

Reestablishing a wild population of American burying beetles
- American burying beetles (Nicrophorus americanus) were once found throughout the eastern United States but now inhabit only 10 percent of their historical range due to habitat degradation and increasing competition for prey by mammalian scavengers, among other factors.
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) designated the beetles as endangered in 1986. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) initiated the current project to save the species from extinction shortly thereafter.
- This is the fourth year in a row in which the Zoo has released members of its captive breeding population of the insects back into nature.

Are Europe’s Ash trees headed towards extinction?
- Ash trees, the second most abundant trees in Europe, are quickly being pushed towards extinction by the invasive emerald ash borer beetle and the fungus causing ash dieback.
- In Britain, ash dieback could result in up to 95 percent mortality, study notes.
- The emerald ash borer beetle is yet to reach U.K., but it is rapidly spreading westwards across Europe. The beetle could be potentially as devastating as ash dieback, if not more, researcher says.

A forest full of beetles: an interview with bug researcher Caroline Chaboo
- Caroline Chaboo has been documenting beetle diversity in the Peruvian forests since 2008.
- She focuses on leaf beetles, one of the most commonly encountered groups of beetles.
- Mongabay spoke with Chaboo about her love for beetles, and her work in Peru.

Creating wild edges on fields boosts wildlife numbers and crop yield
- Researchers investigated the value of creating wildlife-friendly habitat on low-yielding edges of fields that have been removed from food production.
- Creating such wildlife-friendly habitat seemed to boost overall crop yield, and wildlife numbers, study found.
- In fields with habitat edges, crop yield increased over time, researchers found.

Your name here: auctioning the naming rights to new species to fund conservation

A newly discovered beetle species, Cactopinus rhettbutleri, was named after mongabay.com’s founder to fund the preservation of Ethiopian forests. Meg Lowman is on a mission to save northern Ethiopia’s church forests, one at a time. Numbering around 3,500, these small “sacred” patches of forest surrounding churches are isolated natural oases in Ethiopia’s otherwise mostly agricultural […]
Wonderful Creatures: meet the beetle-riding arachnid

Without wings, smaller terrestrial animals are really restricted when it comes to moving long distances to find new areas of habitat. However, lots of species get around this problem simply by clinging on to other, more mobile animals. The common, yet overlooked pseudoscorpions are among the most accomplished stowaways, one of which (Cordylochernes scorpiodes) has […]
Spectacular new beetle discovered in French Guiana

The discovery of a new, bi-colored beetle species in the lowland rainforest of French Guiana just added a little pizzazz to the ranks of the Pseudomorphini tribe of beetles. With wing cases (elytra) that sport black spots against a rusty red background, the newcomer was dubbed Guyanemorpha spectabilis, or the spectacular Guyane false-form beetle, by […]
Wonderful Creatures: the lightning-fast Stenus beetles

A Stenus beetle. Photo by: Ross Piper. Rove beetles are among the most diverse animals on the planet, with around 56,000 species currently described. Amongst this multitude of species is a dazzling array of adaptations perhaps best illustrated by the genus Stenus. These beetles, with their bulbous eyes and slender bodies are often found near […]
Newly discovered beetles construct private homes out of leaf holes and feces

Scientists have discovered two new species of leaf beetles in southern India that display a novel way of using leaf holes and their fecal pellets to build shelters – a nesting behavior previously not known among leaf beetles. Discovered in the forests of the Western Ghats in the states of Karnataka and Kerala, the scientists […]
Beetles in the spotlight: a new species of burying beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago

If you thought of the little beetle that you saw the other day as just a ‘regular one’ then this might interest you. Scientists from the University of Alaska discovered Nicrophorus efferens, a new species of burying beetle from Solomon Islands. Studying six adult specimens borrowed from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Hawaii (BPBM), […]
New species of beetle discovered in megacity

When imagining the discovery of a new species, most people conjure thoughts of intrepid explorers, battling the odds in remote rainforests. But this needn’t be the case, at least according to a new study published in Zookeys. The study reports the discovery of a new species of water beetle in the heart of the 10th […]
New long-horned beetle discovered in China

Recent expeditions by the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Zoology to the Yunnan Province of China have uncovered the existence of a new species of long-horned beetle. This newly discovered beetle has a beautifully colored blue-green body with short, slender, and distinctively blue legs according to a new article in Zookeys. There are over […]
Scientists describe over 100 new beetles from New Guinea

In a single paper, a team of researchers have succinctly described 101 new species of weevils from New Guinea, more than doubling the known species in the beetle genus, Trigonopterus. Since describing new species is hugely laborious and time-intensive, the researchers turned to a new method of species description known as ‘turbo-taxonomy,’ which employs a […]
Mountain pine beetle threatening high-altitude, endangered trees

Whitebark pine stand. Photo by: Richard Sniezko/U.S. Forest Service. In the western U.S., few trees generally grow in higher altitudes than the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). Providing shelter and food for bears, squirrels and birds, the whitebark pine ecosystems also help regulate water flow from snowmelt. But, according to a new study in the Proceedings […]
Predicting the distribution of tropical dung beetles

Although they live in almost every ecosystem in the world—from your backyard to the Antarctic—scientists know very little about many insect species, including many individual species’ distribution. A new study in mongabay.com’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science attempts to predict the range of 53 dung beetle species in the genus Eurysternus, all of which are […]
Scientist: ‘no doubt’ that climate change is playing a role in U.S. fires

The map depicts the relative concentration of aerosols from wildlife smoke in the skies above the continental U.S. on June 26, 2012. Image by: NASA. A noted climate scientist says there is “no doubt” that climate change is “playing a role” in this year’s series of record fires in the western U.S. A massive wildfire […]
New book series hopes to inspire research in world’s ‘hottest biodiversity hotspot’

Pristine coastal vegetation: Misool island, Raja Ampat. Photo by: Dimtry Telnov, 2009. Entomologist Dmitry Telnov hopes his new pet project will inspire and disseminate research about one of the world’s last unexplored biogeographical regions: Wallacea and New Guinea. Incredibly rich in biodiversity and still full of unknown species, the region, also known as the Indo-Australian […]
Photos: two dozen new beetles discovered in Papua New Guinea hotspot

Jewel beetle named, Castiarina shelleybarkerim is only known by a single specimen from Aseki. Photo by: U.Nylander. Over the past two decades, at least 24 new beetles species have been discovered in a remote mountainous rainforest region of Papua New Guinea by Swedish entomologists Ulf Nylander. Described in the new book Biodiversity, Biogeography and Nature […]
Beetle bonanza: 84 new species prove richness of Indo-Australian islands

Re-examining beetle specimens from 19 museums has led to the discovery of 84 new beetle species in the Macratria genus. The new species span the islands of Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, tripling the number of known Macratria beetles in the region. “Species of the genus Macratria are cosmopolitan, with the highest species […]
Beetles: nature’s herbicide

New research in the Journal of Applied Ecology shows that some ground beetles help farmers in the UK by devouring weed seeds before they can sprout. The researchers say the study finds another proof of how biodiversity—the multitude of species on Earth—provides ‘free’ ecosystem services for people. “Seed predation by naturally occurring beetles in farmland […]
Animal picture of the day: spectacular blue and turquoise beetle in New Guinea

Eupholus schoenherri weevil near Manokwari in West Papua. Photo by Rhett Butler (2010). New Guinea is home to some of the world’s most unusually colored weevil species. This particular species, Eupholus schoenherri, is very similar to a number of other species found on other parts of New Guinea and surrounding islands. The coloration of weevils […]
Photo: four new jewel beetles uncovered in Thailand and Indonesia

Philanthaxia jakli (left) is from Sumatra and Philanthaxia chalcogenoides (right) is from Borneo. Philanthaxia lombokana (not pictured) is from Lombok and Philanthaxia pseudoaenea (not pictured) is from Thailand. Photo by: Svatopluk Bílý and Oto Nakládal. Researchers have discovered four new species of jewel beetles, one from Thailand and three from Indonesia. Jewel beetles, in the […]
Cloud forest dung beetles in India point to ‘fossil ecosystem’

In the cloud forests and grasslands of India’s Western Ghats, known as sholas, researchers have for the first time comprehensively studied the inhabiting dung beetle populations. The resulting study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science, has led scientists to hypothesize that the beetles in concordance with the sheep-like mammal, the nilgiri tahr (Nilgiritragus […]
The effect of forest regeneration strategies on beetles

As conservationists attempt to find the best way to re-establish forests in abandoned areas, a new study in the open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science compares the impacts on bess beetles of different method to regeneration forest. Bess beetles are important dead wood-recyclers in the forest. Looking at three different forests in the Colombian Andes—natural regeneration, […]
Logged forests retain considerable biodiversity in Borneo providing conservation opportunity

75 percent of birds and dung beetles remain even after a forest is logged twice. A new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B finds that forests which have undergone logging in the past, sometimes even twice, retain significant levels of biodiversity in Borneo. The researchers say these findings should push conservationists to […]
conservation biology needs to be accessible to the masses

Conservation biology needs to be accessible to the masses Conservation biology needs to be accessible to the masses Are we doomed to repeat our mistakes in Conservation Biology? mongabay.com May 31, 2007 Since its earliest days, when private collectors amassed great stores of specimens collected from the farthest reaches of the Earth, natural history studies […]
Ladybugs ruin good wine

Ladybugs ruin good wine Ladybugs ruin good wine Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com March 26, 2007 Secretions by ladybugs can taint the aroma and flavor of otherwise perfectly good wine, but scientists at Iowa State University say they may have devised a solution. Iowa State chemists have identified several compounds that are responsible for the ladybug’s […]
Invasive species is pestering Europe’s rich
Invasive species is pestering Europe’s rich Invasive species is pestering Europe’s rich mongabay.com March 24, 2007 An invasive species is causing mounting concern among rich Europeans according to an article in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, a palm weevil native to southeast Asia, is decimating ornamental palms across the Mediterranean, reportedly […]
Biomimicry of beetle could produce whiter teeth

Biomimicry of beetle could produce whiter teeth Biomimicry of white beetle could produce whiter teeth Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com January 18, 2007 A pure white beetle found in the forests of southeast Asia could eventually lead to “brilliant white ultra-thin materials” including whiter teeth and finer paper, according to research led by scientists at the […]
Beetle biomimicry could allow robots to climb vertical glass walls

Beetle biomimicry could allow robots to climb vertical glass walls Beetle biomimicry could allow robots to climb vertical glass walls mongabay.com November 3, 2006 Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Metals Research are developing adhesives based on biomimicry of beetles’ feet. The design enables the materials to stick to smooth walls without any adhesives. The […]
Higher oxygen levels could produce monster insects

Higher oxygen levels could produce monster insects Higher oxygen levels could produce monster insects mongabay.com October 10, 2006 Higher concentrations of oxygen could produce giant insects according to a paper presented at the Comparative Physiology conference currently meeting in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The paper, “No giants today: tracheal oxygen supply to the legs limits beetle […]

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia