insects

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Beetles Are Chowing Down in Hungary's Oldest Library

About 100K books are pulled from shelves at Pannonhalma Archabbey due to beetle infestation

(Newser) - Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of Hungary's 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey—a sprawling Benedictine monastery that's one of Hungary's oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage Site—in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that...

Stampede After Beyonce Show Was Apparently Caused by Bug

Girl is rumored to have screamed at seeing insect, leading to chaos that left 9 people injured

(Newser) - A stampede that left nine people injured at Atlanta's Vine City transit station may have been triggered by something rather unexpected: a startled reaction to an insect. The incident occurred just after midnight on Tuesday, as crowds exited Beyonce's Cowboy Carter concert at nearby Mercedes-Benz Stadium, according...

South Koreans' Pesky Problem: Swarms of 'Lovebugs'

Insects relatively new to the nation have surged this year

(Newser) - Swarms of "lovebugs" are back in South Korea, blanketing a mountain peak, entering houses, and sticking to car windows. Flying attached to one another while mating, the insects, known to scientists as Plecia nearctica, are also called united bugs, double-headed bugs, or honeymoon flies, per the AP . Lovebugs were...

In the Dead of Night, an Escape of 250M Bees

Authorities try to round the critters back up after truck carrying them overturns in Washington state

(Newser) - You probably don't want to be the guy manning the truck filled with 250 million honeybees when it rolls over in the middle of the night. That's what happened to one driver in northwestern Washington state on Friday when a commercial truck hauling about 70,000 pounds of...

Scientists May Have Found a New Way to Halt Malaria

Bed nets coated with drugs that 'cure' mosquitoes may help stop disease in its tracks

(Newser) - What if, instead of killing mosquitoes to stop malaria, we simply cured them? Harvard scientists believe giving mosquitoes anti-malarial drugs could turn these notorious disease-carriers into harmless biters. Malaria, a parasitic disease spread by female mosquitoes, causes nearly 600,000 deaths annually, most of them children, and traditional prevention...

Tuesday Is for the Bees
On Tuesday, the Bees
Get Their Day
May 20, 2025 10:05 AM CDT

On Tuesday, the Bees Get Their Day

On 'World Bee Day,' the bees remained busy—and oblivious to threats that endanger their survival

(Newser) - On the eighth annual "World Bee Day," around 400,000 bees in urban rooftop hives in Cologne, Germany, were busy at work making honey. They seemed oblivious to the threats that endanger their survival. Scientists and bee experts hope Tuesday's World Bee Day can raise awareness, reports...

California Logs a Win in Its Battle With Mosquitoes
They Released Thousands
of Mosquitoes, Then Waited
in case you missed it
May 11, 2025 7:53 AM CDT

They Released Thousands of Mosquitoes, Then Waited

Setting free sterilized males is found to reduce invasive populations in Southern California

(Newser) - Officials are seeing promising signs that efforts to combat mosquitoes are working in Southern California as the season of peak activity begins. A local agency known as a vector control district (VCD) began releasing sterile male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in 2023, followed by a second district the following year. The...

Teens Found With 5K Ants in Test Tubes Are Sentenced

Belgium's Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijck can choose between a fine and prison

(Newser) - Two Belgian teenagers found with 5,000 ants in Kenya were on Wednesday given a choice of paying a fine of $7,700 or serving 12 months in prison—the minimum penalty for the offense—for violating wildlife conservation laws. Magistrate Njeri Thuku said in her ruling that despite the...

'Hell Ant' Is Oldest Ever Found—by Millions of Years

113M-year-old species may have impaled prey with upward-moving jaws

(Newser) - An overlooked fossil in storage in Brazil was hiding the 113-million-year-old remains of a "hell ant," now the oldest ant specimen known to science. The winged ant dubbed Vulcanidris cratensis, described Thursday in Current Biology , is one of numerous extinct "hell ant" species, so named for their...

'Bone Collector' Caterpillar Dresses in Insect Parts
'Bone Collector' Caterpillar
Dresses in Insect Parts
NEW STUDY
Apr 25, 2025 12:22 PM CDT

'Bone Collector' Caterpillar Dresses in Insect Parts

'They need to hide in a tapestry of bug parts to stay alive in the spider's lair'

(Newser) - A newly discovered carnivorous caterpillar that wears the remains of its prey has been dubbed the "bone collector." The odd insect is only found on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, the AP reports. It creeps along spiderwebs, feeding on trapped insects and decorating its silk case with their...

Once 'Extinct,' the 'Tree Lobster' Gets a Second Chance

Rats had driven the Lord Howe Island phasmid to the brink, but a Czech zoo is now lending a hand

(Newser) - The Prague Zoo has joined an international effort to ensure the survival of a rare insect that had been considered extinct for more than 80 years. As the AP reports, the zoo is among six institutions around the world that have been able to create living conditions for the largest...

Male Fruit Flies Get Tipsy and the Ladies Come Running

New research finds that alcohol causes males of the species to produce, emit more pheromones

(Newser) - Fruit flies—they're just like us. Meaning, booze seems to boost sexytime for the pesky insect that hovers around fermented drinks and alcohol-producing rotting fruit, but perhaps not for the most obvious reason. According to new research published last week in the Science Advances journal, female members of the...

It's a Very Bad Year for the Honeybee

With colonies declining up to 70%, experts say this could be biggest such loss in US history

(Newser) - It's not easy being a bee, especially in 2025. Honeybee colonies typically decline 40% to 50% annually, but this year colonies could decline up to 70% owing to a host of problems, including nutrition deficiencies, mite infestations, viral diseases, and potential pesticide exposure, according to entomologists at Washington State...

This Ancient Giant Bug Grew to 8 or 9 Feet

Scientists use fossils, CT scans to re-create head of Arthropleura insect

(Newser) - As if the largest bug to ever live—a monster nearly 9 feet long with several dozen legs—wasn't terrifying enough, scientists could only just imagine what the extinct beast's head looked like. That's because many of the fossils of these creatures are headless shells that were...

North Carolina's New Post-Helene Issue Really Stings
North Carolina's
New Post-Helene
Issue Really Stings
in case you missed it
Oct 6, 2024 2:45 PM CDT

North Carolina's New Post-Helene Issue Really Stings

State health officials stock up on Benadryl, EpiPens after yellow jackets start swarming

(Newser) - "The air was full of yellow jackets, which seemed incongruous with an otherwise lovely late fall afternoon. But like so many of the folks standing on the highway, they had nowhere else to go." That was the observation last week of a North Carolina local checking out the...

'Iconic Animal' Proposed for Endangered Species List

Bethany Beach firefly could be first firefly to receive federal protections

(Newser) - The act of catching fireflies may soon be a thing of summers past. For the first time, the US government hopes to add a firefly to the list of endangered species, making it illegal to harm the insect in most cases. Named after the Delaware town where it was discovered...

Termite 'Apartment Complex' Has Been Busy for 34K Years

'We knew they were old, but not that old,' South African researcher says

(Newser) - Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they're the oldest known active termite hills. Some of the mounds near the Buffels River in Namaqualand were...

Disease-Ridden Mosquitoes Are Swarming Vegas
Disease-Ridden Mosquitoes
Are Swarming Vegas
THE RUNDOWN
Jun 22, 2024 8:00 AM CDT

Disease-Ridden Mosquitoes Are Swarming Vegas

Record number of skeeters carrying West Nile virus are showing up in southern Nevada

(Newser) - Dozens of ZIP codes in south Nevada, including Las Vegas, are being overrun by mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus, in what NBC News says are record-busting numbers. Health officials say that, in recent weeks, 24,000 pools of mosquitoes were tested for the contagious disease in 25 ZIP codes in...

Giant Parachuting Spiders Will Be Summering in NY, NJ
Giant Parachuting
Spiders Are Back
Jun 5, 2024 9:40 AM CDT

Giant Parachuting Spiders Are Back

Invasive but usually harmless Joro spiders are headed up the East Coast, sights set on NY, NJ

(Newser) - If you're an arachnophobe living on the East Coast, you may want to hunker down in your bunker for a while: The Joro spiders are back. NJ Pest Control had warned earlier this year that the invasive species also known as Trichonephila clavata would likely be returning to the...

These US Cities Are Heaven for Mosquitoes

Los Angeles tops Orkin's top 50 list

(Newser) - Time to break out the repellent: Mosquito season is bearing down upon us. Pest control company Orkin wanted to see which cities in America have the most issues with the flying pests, so it analyzed the numbers on how many customers it provided residential mosquito treatments to in major metro...

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