Insects entomed

Aquatic Insects: Hemimetabolous Insects – Plecoptera

Diversity and Abundance of Insects in Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria

A field survey was conducted in Wukari, Taraba State to assess the diversity and abundance of insect species in selected habitats (residential, open field made up of grassland and an agroecosystem). Sampling were done biweekly using light, pitfall and yellow pan traps set in 3 replicates, 30 m apart. Insects recovered were wet preserved in 70% ethanol except butterflies and moths. Representativ...

Counting insects

When counting-like abilities were first described in the honeybee in the mid-1990s, many scholars were sceptical, but such capacities have since been confirmed in a number of paradigms and also in other insect species. Counter to the intuitive notion that counting is a cognitively advanced ability, neural network analyses indicate that it can be mediated by very small neural circuits, and we sh...

Extreme insects

Researchers interested in biodiversity could make no better start than with insects. A new illustrated book looks at the extremes in these species, highlighting just how diverse and numerous these animals are. “Through looking at insects,” the author Richard Jones says, “you can study the world — the whole natural environment — far better than you can by looking at humans. In fact, there’s a lo...

Social Insects

■ Abstract Reproductive-skew theory can be broadly divided into transactional models, in which reproduction is shared among group members in return for some fitness benefit, and tug-of-war models, in which reproductive sharing arises solely from an inability of each group member to fully control the others. For small-colony social insects in which complete reproductive control by a single indiv...