It’s easy to be captivated by the giants—the towering dinosaurs, massive mammals, and colossal pterosaurs. Yet, if we zoom in, quite literally, we’ll find that the true champions of evolution are the tiny organisms, often overlooked but incredibly resilient and ancient. Picture this: the Earth, freshly cooled, about 3.8 billion years ago. It’s a world […]
Tag: beetle
New Species of Fluffy Beetle Discovered in Australia
Entomologists have discovered a remarkable new genus and species of longhorn beetle living in the subtropical rainforests of southeastern Queensland, Australia. Longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae) are one of the most diverse animal families on the planet with over 36,000 recognized living species and 5,100 genera. The Australian fauna contains approximately 1,400 recognized species distributed amongst more […]
Many Australians believe Christmas beetles are disappearing. Is it true?
In eastern Australia the arrival of the summer holidays has traditionally been heralded by big iridescent beetles known as Christmas beetles due to their appearance during the festive season. Public perception seems to suggest these lovely insects may no longer be arriving in high numbers. Each year insect scientists like us field questions from the […]
Seven-striped Darkling? – Haradh
Whilst birding the Tabuk area I came across a number of darkling beetles resembling Pitted Beetle feeding around the edge of some large pivot irrigation fields. They were not this species and looked like a Seven-striped Darkling although this is mainly nocturnal? This was a medium sized beetle, with the head and thorax almost the […]
Blister Beetle – Wadi Grosbeak
The Blister Beetles (Coleoptera:Meloidae) are global distributed insects except for New Zealand and the Antarctic region and are also called Oil Beetles. The species seen near Bani Saad wasMylabris calidathat has a distribution in central Asia (east to China and Korea), Caucasus and Transcaucasia, southern Balkan Peninsula, Near East, Levant and Arabian Peninsula and northern […]
A Walk in Central Park
Last week I led a nature walk in Central Park for the American Museum of Natural History‘s Membership Department. Even though I got rained on twice, there was a lot to see. Here are some of the wild creatures that were in the park on Wednesday. Turtles were basking in The Lake. Red-eared sliders are […]
Rose Weevil
Rose weevils have long beaks with chewing mouthparts at the end. They poke them into rosebuds and munch away, making holes. When the buds unfold, the damaged layers unfurl. Rose weevils lay eggs in some of the holes they drill in buds. The eggs hatch into wormlike larvae that feed inside the bud and can […]
Free-tailed funnel cloud (reprint from June 2011)
When Doppler radar first arrived in the area known affectionately to Texans as the Hill Country, the local television station meteorologists were understandably eager to show off the weather forecasting capabilities of their newest toy. Unfortunately, they got off to a less than impressive start. Night after night that summer, evening thunderstorms were forecast but […]