Insects for Fun!

Something is in Deez Nuts! (Acorn Weevils)

This week is a special listener request for Acorn Weevils! The cute little beetles that use acorns as their safe spaces during development. The focus for today's episode is on the Northen acorn weevils scientifically known as Curculio glandium. 
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Featured Artists: Prigida, Sleepermane, and S N U G
 
Transcript:
 
Welcome to episode 38 of Insects for Fun! Today’s episode was actually a listener request sent to me via IG by Dean F! Without further ado let’s start the episode. 
 
The acorn weevil is the first weevil to be featured on this podcast and it is possibly the cutest weevil to ever exist. If you haven’t seen it then please give it a google or check out the IG or FB page and drop a comment letting me know what you think! 
 
Now because this is the first time we are talking about Weevils I will now just go over the very basics. Weevils are beetles within the family curculionidae and as with other beetles, weevils go through complete metamorphosis and they can be found worldwide except for… well, you know what I’m talking about. Now what makes weevils really cool is their modified head. They all have snouts which are called rostrums and at the end of this rostrum is a functional mouth part which they use to feed on plants. These guys happen to be herbivores so there is no need to worry that they will pierce you the same way some true bugs might
 
 like kissing bugs for example. The females also usually have longer rostrums than males do which they use to help them prepare an egg laying site. 
 
Acorn weevils as the name suggests are weevils which feed on and use acorns for their young, but they are actually divided into two different genera. The first are referred to as long-snouted and belong to the genus curculio and the second are short-snouted weevils in the genus Conotrachelus. Not every species within these genera are restricted to acorns though which is why they are also often referred to as nut weevils. 
 
Actually, most of today’s episode will be focused around one of the 36 species within the genus Curculio because the other genus Conotrachelus has over 1000 species and there is much we don’t know. One thing we do know is that these short-snouted weevils cannot bore holes into nuts themselves, and as a result can only use acorns and other hard nuts if they’ve been previously damaged. Most of the time these weevils will lay their eggs on soft fruits and the larvae bore holes into those and feed on the flesh of the fruit until they are ready to pupate in the ground. We also know that species within this genus can be found from Canada down to Argentina! 
 
Curculio weevils on the other hand are found in North America and Europe but don’t have a range as far south. These ones can also actually make holes in acorns and other hard nuts using a saw-like mouth at the end of their long snouts or rostrum. This is accomplished by doing circular motions with their mouth steady on the acorn until they’ve successfully created a small hole. Once this is accomplished they can deposit one or more eggs into the acorn or other hard nut using a long ovipositor and the larva will remain feeding inside until it is ready to pupate. 
 
If you’ve ever noticed acorns, hazelnuts, chestnuts or pecan nuts with a small perfect looking hole then you can be sure that it once or might even still have a larva inside. The cool thing is that these kinds of weevils are particular about which host plant they like. For example, one species of weevil won’t target acorns AND chestnuts. They each have their specialty or at least that’s what the literature says.  
 
In North America, there are about 30 species of curculio weevils but there is one species in particular which is known as the acorn weevil in both North America and Europe. This would be Curculio glandium. 
 
This species of weevil is relatively small reaching an adult length of 3/8th inch but is actually larger than other acorn specific species and they also have characteristically longer rostrums when compared to other acorn weevils as well which they use when making galleries for egg laying.  
 
The digging behavior usually begins with a shallow hole in the acorn to see if it’s already been disturbed or used by another insect. If the acorn is fine then females begin actual drilling which involves inserting the entire rostrum into the acorn creating galleries that run along the side of the acorn but never deep into the center of an acorn. Afterwards the female will turn around to oviposit eggs within one or more galleries, but she does not place eggs in every gallery she’s made. It's actually pretty smart to not drill deeply into the acorns because it gives the acorns the opportunity to heal and re-seal the initial hole protecting the eggs and larvae from wasps and other predators. 
 
These weevils also start mating and creating galleries in acorns later in the season compared with other acorn Curculio species. It is believed to be a matter of difference in size which allows these species to be better adapted for larger and more mature acorns. In fact a study was done comparing acorn size preference and the females of Curculio glandium always chose to lay eggs in larger acorns when given a choice. They also preferred to lay eggs in acorns which were already damaged or cracked as opposed to spending an hour or two drilling a fresh hole into an undamaged acorn.
 
The females of C glandium begin mating and scavenging for acorns to lay eggs in towards the 3rd week of July and then cease drilling in the end of August when acorns are too stiff for them to pierce. These insects along with other curculio species start drilling their holes within acorns prior to their fall from the tree.
 
The larvae for curculio weevils are C shaped and develop within the nuts rendering the nut infertile after their development. This is actually why acorn weevils are considered a pest in Oak trees. If you want to collect acorns to use as seeds it's best to collect them just as soon as they fall, but by this time they might already be infested. If you happen to find acorns with holes that have freshly fallen you can actually soak them in water up to 120 F or 48.8 C for 20min which should kill the grubs and save the acorn. 
 
You can’t freeze the acorn because that actually kills it, unless you don’t need the seeds for planting in which case by all means because freezing kills the grubs too as these ones aren’t resistant. 
 
The acorn weevil grubs actually leave the acorns as soon as they are ready to pupate and they bury themselves into the ground and remain there for 1 or 2 years. It really depends on the location and how long the summers are compared to winters. They don’t feed in the ground or anything like that, they sleep for the first winter in preparation for their pupation which occurs the following summer, and if they don’t finish in time before the weather gets cold again then it takes another winter. 

That’s not Bob... that builder is a... Bee!? (Carpenter Bees)

This week we are looking at a unique solitary bee that exclusively makes its homes in wood! Carpenter bees are some of the largest bees on the planet, but that's not what makes them so unique. 
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This week's artists: HM Surf, Ghostrifter Official, and S N U G. 
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome to episode 37 of Insects for Fun! Where we dive into an insect themed topic every Tuesday. This week we’ll be looking at Bear Bees. 
 
Carpenter bees are species of bees within the genus Xylocopa and there are around 500 of them! They often get confused with bumble bees, because both tend to be very large, but a good rule of thumb is that carpenter bees have a shiny bum and by that I mean their abdomen is not usually covered in dense hairs the way bumble bees are. Most carpenter bees are black too, but this is not always the case! Here in Japan we have a really cute carpenter bee known as a Kumabachi which literally translates to bear bee and they can be found hovering still in the air around trees of interest. The thorax on these bees are covered in dense orangey-yellow hairs with a black head and abdomen so when you see them hovering they look like they’re wearing a yellow vest.
 
Carpenter bees can be found worldwide and all of them make burrows in trees or other hard wood surfaces, which can be troublesome if you happen to be in the field of woodworking, but these bees are actually pretty docile and won’t attack you unless you REALLY provoke them (insert mocking cartoon sound). Another thing is that the males don’t have stingers, but this is the case for all male bees and wasps. What’s different though is that male carpenter bees like to patrol an area where a female is nesting, and they will fly up to anything moving within its territory. These bees are all bark and no bite though, so you can simply walk away and they’ll move on. The females have stingers but they’re mostly concerned with making their nesting hole, and won’t be actively chasing you or flying around the same way males are. Now I happen to have a lot of carpenter bees at the high school I teach at in Japan, and I always see the males hovering around in the public garden. I also happen to enjoy the outdoors and walk through that garden, and sometimes I do get dive bombed by male carpenter bees. They straight up stare you down and then zoom at you. I haven’t actually stood still to see if they’ll hit me or not though..
 
Male bees will also have aerial battles which can sometimes result in them tumbling to the ground until one of them finally gives up and flies away. 
 
Carpenter bees are solitary, and as a result they don’t have a hive mentality at all. In fact females oftentimes will be living alone in a small chamber carved out of wood. Sometimes female bees will live in the same shelter, but it's usually not communal. Basically if there is limited availability for housing in a location then multiple female carpenter bees will make holes near each other while still remaining separate. Think of this as like a log motel or something like that where they all have their own rooms or halls if the tree or location has multiple suitable sites. Recent research has actually shown us that sometimes female carpenter bees will work together under the rule of one female, and this head of the house female will not only provide food for her young but also to the other females that are helping her with her nest. This isn’t out of charity though, the bees are simply next in line waiting to take over the nesting site when the head of the house dies or moves on.
 
Now let's talk about what they use for housing along with what the inside of a nest looks like because it's not your average bee home. In the spring female carpenter bees will begin scavenging for wooden structures like benches, railings, sign posts, decks, stumps, logs, basically anything with nice soft wood. This is why the males will be guarding territories they think a female will like. Once a female has mated she begins boring a hole into whatever piece of wood she’s found acceptable. She does this using her strong mandibles, and not long after she creates a near perfect hole, but she doesn’t eat the wood. In fact she leaves the dust behind in a pile, which is how you can be sure it's a carpenter bee and not something else. Once she’s around an inch into the wood she makes a right turn and creates a tubelike gallery stretching down the length of the wood. It is in this tube that she creates walled off cells for individual eggs. Each cell is left with food known as bee bread for when the eggs hatch. This bread is essentially a combination of pollen, nectar and special secretions from the female bee. She has to work her way backwards in order to make walls that separate each individual cell and there can be up to 13 cells per gallery, with the furthest from the entrance hatching first. 
 
Carpenter bees take around 1 month or a little more to fully develop and eggs are typically laid in July, which means you can expect to see new Carpenter bees in August. This is at least the standard case for areas with four seasons, but warmer climates can see carpenter bees all year round. 
 
The adults actually hibernate in new or old homes during the winter and become active once the snow is gone and or the weather gets warm enough for flowers to bloom. Carpenter bees as mentioned earlier do not actually eat wood, and they happen to be good pollinators for shallow flowering plants like sun flowers, eggplant, tomatoes and other fruiting plants. This is due to their short proboscis, but sometimes these bees perform something known as nectar robbing. This happens when a carpenter bee cuts a hole in the side of a flower to steal its nectar without pollinating. You might think this is really bad for the flowers, but it would seem that this act doesn’t actually negatively impact pollination rates. Sometimes it actually encourages smaller bees to crawl into the flower and pollinate it much more directly. 
 
Now some of you might have had experience with carpenter bees, and maybe some of you think these bees will destroy your home or other wooden exteriors the same way a termite will, but the truth is the damage caused by these bees is primarily aesthetic unless you happen to be in area where few natural resources are available and many bees repeatedly use your wooden structures over the years. Wood will naturally rot faster if many holes are bored into it, but there are some things you can do to protect your home or other wooden structures. 
 
Now obviously the best protection happens before a hole is made and you can do this by simply painting the wood or staining it. However if you prefer a more natural look then you could also annually coat your wood with almond oil which is a natural deterrent to the bees. You can also use untreated pine or cedar lumber to lure the female bees away from other nesting sites, and this of course can be set up as simple or elaborate as you want. The bees themselves are not aggressive so if you don’t mind them around and want to support your local native bee community then this is always a nice idea.
 
If you’re in a position where the bees have already started making a home and it poses a threat on infrastructure then you should contact the local authority in pest management.
  

Ahoy Halobates! (Oceanic Water Skaters)

This week we are looking into the only bugs to make their home on the open ocean! How do they do it? Some things we know for sure, while others still remain a mystery... 
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This week's artists: HM Surf, Richard Smithson, and no one's perfect. 
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome to episode 36 of Insects for Fun! This week we are looking into a group of bugs that made their home in the sea and it’s pretty interesting… 
 
Our journey today takes place out on the open ocean. The waters are calm and we’re miles away from any shoreline. Finally, a place where no bugs can reach me is what you think until you notice something small skating on the surface... meet the oceanic water strider known as halobates. This genus of water strider consists of around 40 species but  5 have evolved to live out on open waters completely independent from land, and these 5 can be found in approximately 50% of the open oceans around the world, but are predominately found in warmer waters within the pacific and indian ocean. There is one species found within the Atlantic but its range is limited near the equator. 
 
The genus halobates belongs to the insect family gerridae which are commonly referred to as (insert stupid music) water skaters, water skeeters, water scooters, water skimmers, water bugs, pond skaters, and or water skippers. Now there should be no one who doesn’t have an idea as to what I’m talking about (I hope). I’ll have a separate episode covering the freshwater variety but halobates were too interesting to pass up so easily. 
 
You might be asking yourself (Patrick Star: whats so great about) 
And I’m gonna tell you right now. Halobates are the only group of bugs to successfully live in the open seas away from land for the entirety of their lives. 
 
Water striders are true bugs which means they don’t have a larval stage, and Halobates are no exception. These bugs reproduce on the open sea and lay their eggs on floating debris. What’s interesting is that because sometimes there is so little floating debris, one piece can be used over and over by many different females with eggs literally layered on top of each other. 
In fact, an empty milk jug was found floating off the coast of Costa Rica and had around 70,000 eggs consisting of 15 layers. That’s insane! The eggs are quite small though being less than 1mm and shaped like a grain of rice. 
 
These bugs go through 5 molts before reaching the adult stage and have no known seasonality. They do prefer warmer waters though which speeds up their growing time. The eggs of these guys usually hatch within 10 days and then it takes another week or two for each molt until reaching adulthood.
 
Halobates like other bugs are fluid feeders which means they live off sucking up nutritious liquids from other marine animals including each other when the going gets tough. As for the major food sources we aren’t sure, but they have been recorded eating zooplankton, dead jellyfish, fish eggs, and other floating organic material. These oceanic bugs can also store triglycerides or waxy fat as reserves, which is not something the coastal variety does and this helps buffer them when food is scarce. The coastal halobates have a much easier time getting food because they prey upon bugs that fall into the waters from land, and these ones also lay their eggs on rocks and other natural structures that hug the water’s edge. 
 
Both varieties have bodies that are half the length of your traditional freshwater skaters but their legs are around the same length. This actually helps with skating across the ocean with greater speed and gives them a really good jumping height. These bugs also have very fine hairs shaped like mushrooms which trap air and act as a life vest when the bugs get pushed underwater. They can also use this trapped air as a safety reserve for breathing if they really need it. You might be picturing the bugs grabbing bubbles of air but it's important to note that bugs do not have lungs and they can simply absorb oxygen through their bodies, which makes having fine oxygen-holding hairs really convenient. Another nice adaption would be the ability to produce a waxy material that they coat all over themselves to make them even more hydrophobic. Apparently, these bugs are always grooming themselves when not moving and applying this waxy coat to their bodies which keeps them able to effortlessly skate across the open ocean. They almost hover from their hydrophobic properties with as little as 5% of their legs touching the surface of the water, and rain or waves can’t wet them down either. 
Something I found interesting about the open ocean species is that because they aren’t tethered to any form of land they’re always roaming and changing locations which makes them difficult to track on the open sea. Some days you might see thousands and the next day they’re gone. It reminds me of the mass outbreak phenomenon in Pokemon. 
 
The predators of these bugs seem to be sea birds, turtles, and some fish species but sea birds were definitely the main predator, especially small sea birds which feed by skimming the surface. One sea bird in particular might actually be targeting the bugs and that would be the blue-gray noddy with one bird having over 330 Halobates found within a regurgitated sample. 
 
Much is still left to be known about these bugs because they don’t seem to do so hot in captivity… It’s currently theorized that these bugs must need some kind of surface film that can’t be reproduced in a lab environment because they will eat fruit flies but that doesn’t seem to keep them going.

The strange relationship between Gossamer Butterflies and Ants

On this week's episode we are diving into the topic of "Myrmecopholi" in Butterflies. Specifically talking about the Lycaenid butterflies and how they manage to have ants tend to their every need. 
 
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This week's featured artists: Ghostrifter Official, Blue Wednesday, Sleepermane, and Artificial. Music 
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome back to episode 35 of insects for fun! I’m your host Mitchel Logan and today we will be looking at a very interesting relationship between two unlikely species. 
 
In the insect world, there is a family of butterflies known as Lycaenidae which has around 6,000 species. It’s actually the second largest family next to Nymphalidae but the butterflies themselves are not so large. Commonly referred to as Gossamer wing butterflies, Lycaenids are very small with a wingspan often under 5cm. I guess gossamer in this case would mean delicate or dainty because of how small the butterflies are. 
 
These butterflies can be found across the globe and are divided into varying subfamilies that depend on where you are. In the United States for example we often see blues, coppers, and hairstreak lycaenids, but in more tropical places there is a greater variety. These common names refer to the appearance of their wings and I’m sure I don’t have to explain the difference between coppers and blues. Hairstreaks though get the name from the thin lines that are streaked across the underside of their wings. But I didn’t write up this episode to talk about all the small details regarding subfamilies because there is something far more interesting happening with around 70% of all the butterflies in this family, regardless of what their wings look like, and that would be their relationship with ants. 
 
Ants are usually predators when it comes to caterpillars and as we’ve learned in previous episodes of this podcast they can be quite formidable, especially against other insects, but the caterpillars of Lycaenid butterflies have evolved many intricate biological adaptations to bend ants wills in their favor. For example, many caterpillar for this family of butterflies have special pores on their skin called pore cupolas which are used to attract ants and tell them that the caterpillar is not prey but actually an ally. Others have nectar glands which ants can milk for honeydew. This is literally honey trapping for the gain of protective services by ants. Ants are extremely protective of their territories and resources, so much so that there are many species of ants in the rainforest that literally make a forest clearing by killing and removing all plants that could jeopardize the growth of special trees they rely on. Having these kinds of bodyguards is extremely handy when you’re a small vulnerable caterpillar. 
 
This ant-tending relationship between caterpillars and the ants is called myrmecophilous and translates to ant loving, and there are a few different ways in which these kinds of relations can occur. 
 
The first of these is known as facultative mutualism and this simply means the caterpillars don’t need the ants to survive, but they do make use of them while they’re around and form a beneficial alliance. 
 
The second is obligate mutualism which means the caterpillars require the help of ants in order to survive and make it to the butterfly stage. These kinds of interactions are not always mutualistic though. In fact there are quite a few species of lycaenid butterflies whose caterpillars act as a parasite and live off the ants' resources with no benefit to the ants at all and this is done in a number of ways. The one common factor between all these is that the caterpillar always tricks the ants into thinking it's one of them or even brain washing them with laced honeydew made from their bodies.  
 
Let’s first look at one of Great Britain's most rare butterfly species known as a Large Blue. Large blue butterflies actually did go extinct on the island and had to be reintroduced from mainland Europe. Thankfully this reintroduction has been successful and the populations are once again stable! Anyway, this butterfly’s caterpillars use both scents and sounds to trick ants into thinking that they are one of them. They don’t do this right away though! Typically speaking caterpillars within the large blue genus start out by feeding on their natural host plants until they reach their 4th instar or molt. At this point the caterpillar drops to the ground and emits a pheromone that tells ants of a specific species that it is one of them. The ants then carry this caterpillar into the nest where 1 of 2 things happens. Either the caterpillar gets fed by the ants as if it were a baby queen or the caterpillar takes a hard 180 and begins feeding on ant larvae. Survival rate is much higher as you’d expect in the species which feign being a larval queen and get fed by the ants as opposed to the caterpillars which eat the nest. 
 
The caterpillars which feign being a larval Queen are referred to as cuckoo caterpillars and they produce the sounds a genuine queen ant larvae would make which causes the ants to put the caterpillar in high priority and abandon genuine ants within the colony. However this tactic really is only useful for specific species. Let’s say for example one of these caterpillars gets taken in by a slightly different species. The chances of being predated by those ants highly increases simply because the mimicry isn’t perfect. Predatory caterpillars on the other hand are more versatile but have lower odds of survival when compared with a cuckoo species that made it into the correct nest. This is simply because predatory behavior is a lot more invasive in negative ways than pretending to be a Queen. What I find even more incredible about both of these caterpillars though is that even the pupae have glands which continue to tell the ant that it is one of them. Only once the butterfly ecloses does it need to hurry out of the nest because at that point the butterfly is out of the bag in this case. 
 
Now let's go to Australia and look at one of their rarest butterflies known as the Bathurst Copper or Purple Copper butterfly. This one, unlike the large blue, doesn't use the ants as a food source but actually has the ants protect them in exchange for special honeydew which the caterpillar excretes from a gland on its back. The caterpillar feeds on a host plant known as blackthorn and can only be found in a limited range at altitudes greater than 850m. The caterpillars are also rarely seen because the ants actually carry them into their nests during the day to protect them from predators and then at night the ants carry them out and on to their host plants where the caterpillar will resume feeding. Once the caterpillar is ready to pupate it once again returns to the ants nest where it stays dormant until it's ready to eclose months later. 

These moles can fly and swim!? (Mole Crickets)

This week we're digging into Mole Crickets! Their behaviors, tunnels, songs, and some cool cultural significance. 
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This weeks artists: HM Surf and  Blue Wednesday 
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome back to episode 34 of insects for fun! I’m your host as always, Mitchel Logan and today we’re talking about Mole Crickets, but before we get into that I have a quick PSA. I got messaged through the fb account asking where people can send me questions or topics they would like to learn about, and the answer is my email which is insectsfordummies@gmail.com. I really do welcome requests, and of course listener stories if you have any! Now let’s get back to the program.
Mole crickets are in the family Gryllotalpidae and there are approximately 107 species known today, but I’m sure there are more. These crickets are found all over the world and they are all well equipped for life underground. As you might expect, Mole crickets got their name because they spend a good majority of their life in a series of burrows all made for various purposes. In fact they start digging as soon as they hatch from their eggs because this is where their lives start! They don’t just act like a mole though, they are also built like a mole too with very strong forearms that are shaped like the paws of a mole. This is a great example of a biological term known as convergent evolution which simply means species from different origins have evolved similar traits because of a shared environment. In this case that environment would be life underground and as it turns out, wide forearms with short appendages make for a great digging tool! 
 
They don’t have legs built for jumping so you won’t see them jump much if ever. Unlike more traditional crickets, they’re whole body is built for pushing and moving through dirt, but many of them can fly and even swim which is honestly quite shocking. 
 
Adult mole crickets are typically between 1 and 2 inches long or 3 and 5cm. They have cylindrical bodies with an armored head and thorax which probably act like a miners hard helmet. also have two sets of wings, the forewings which are what you see immediately and the hind wings which are underneath but often are much longer than the forewings. I’ve never actually seen one fly before but I guess it usually happens with females after sunset or very early in the morning. I have seen them do short hops outside of their burrows though. These crickets are attracted to lights so if you live in an area that has them you can find them near well lit areas. They’re also pretty buoyant because they have small hairs covering their body which traps air, and they use their shovel-like forearms to paddle water.
Earlier I briefly mentioned the tunnel systems these crickets live in, but now I’m going to actually dig into that information (badum chuck). Mole crickets make a variety of tunnels depending on what it is they are doing at the time. For example, when a mole cricket is foraging for food they often make tunnels close to the surface of the soil and in softer substrates like sandy soil, you can clearly see the elevated trails left by them. 
 
If the males are looking to attract a female then they make a very different kind of tunnel which actually acts as a horn to amplify their songs. The entrance is much wider than a normal one and it narrows into a chamber referred to as a “bulb”. It’s kind of shaped like a bulb which is I guess why they name it that, but the function is to act as an acoustic room which amplifies its sound. Mole crickets actually don’t face the opening of their tunnels while calling for a mate, and the innermost end of the bulb is typically just a wall of dirt. If there are any additions to the structure they branch off from the mid section of the bulb. 
 
At least from what we know based on the European Mole Crickets. Some mole crickets even make two openings that both lead to one tunnel which is commonly seen in Tawny Mole crickets and African Mole crickets.
 
The tunnels these mole crickets make for singing work so well that you can actually hear mole crickets from 600 meters away. Each species of mole cricket has its own chirp but they tend to be one pitch which is then modulated at different speeds. Many mole crickets keep their song around 3khz but have different speeds for which its oscillated. I’ll play you an example now. (insert mole cricket song) these crickets actually rival cicadas for how loud they are. In my episode on Cicadas we learned that those bugs can sing at 90 decibels and it turns out they are not the only ones. A research article published about noise mechanics stated that the loudest mole cricket song in their study was recorded at 92 decibels and that was from 1m away. That’s louder than a lawnmower. If you’re near one you can actually feel the ground vibrate because of how powerful the song is. In the popular series Animal Crossing you can find mole crickets by following the song. It’s quite loud and gets louder the closer you get to it, at which point you have to dig a hole to find it.
Now depending on your beliefs or even your profession the mole cricket will have various meanings from huge pain to delicacy or even a weather forecaster. 
 
People who work on golf courses or outdoor sports fields in turf management think of mole crickets as a bane to their existence due to the nature of herbivorous mole crickets feeding on the root systems of turf grass. It’s not just about killing the grass, but also making the turf less flat which causes performance issues, especially on golf courses. These damages are often caused by invasive mole crickets which have managed to get around the world with the help of ships. In Florida for example there are three different invasive mole crickets that are responsible for a lot of destruction on turf grass and even the yards of residents, and one of them, called the southern mole cricket, is actually carnivorous and makes burrows in the ground to find worms, grubs, and other small critters hiding in the dirt.
If you happen to be in Thailand, Vietnam or the Philippines then you might find mole crickets to be a great source of vitamins and protein. Mole crickets make for various meals in these countries from being shallow fried or baked to stir fried. In Pampanga Philippines, mole crickets are a staple, the same way cheese is popular in Wisconsin and are used in a variety of dishes including a crispy snack to pair with beer. In the Philippines it's known as kamaru so if you see anything with that name then it's sure to have mole crickets. If you’re curious about the health benefits etc one of my first episodes on this podcast was about entomophagy and I go into all the details. 
In Latin America, mole crickets are believed to be both a sign of good luck, and a weather forecaster. If you find one in your house it’s perceived as a good omen and if you see them making many tunnels you should expect rain in the near future. I personally don’t quite understand the rain one because mole crickets will be digging regardless of the weather but who knows! What I do know is that increased moisture in the soil causes increased surface tunneling as found in a study done by North Carolina Universities department of Entomology.

The Stars That Fly Among Us! (Fireflies with Guest Speaker: Sarah Lower)

This week we are talking about Fireflies with Sarah Lower who is an associate professor at Bucknell University! 
Firefly Watch! - https://www.massaudubon.org/get-involved/community-science/firefly-watch
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Music Artists: Purrple Cat, Sátyr and Phlocalyst

Special Collaboration with Just Bugs!

This week we are reflecting on and talking about 6 different insects in pop culture with the two hosts from Just Bugs podcast! 
Support the show :) -> https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46499107
You can find Just Bugs on all your podcast platforms as well as Instagram! 
Link to their podcast: 
https://open.spotify.com/show/71bn95LDBMYraYqx1T3Gha?si=a114852136cd46ac
Link to their Insta: 
https://www.instagram.com/justbugspodcast/
 

That’s not an owl... right? (Owl Butterflies)

This week we are looking at Owl Butterflies, their behaviors, and why they got the name! 
 
IG: https://www.instagram.com/insects4fun/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100085443614825
Email: Insectsfordummies@gmail.com
 
This weeks artists: HM Surf, mønberg, no one's perfect, and sleepermane 
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome to episode 32 of Insects for Fun! I’m your host Mitchel Logan and this week we are taking a look at one of my favorite butterflies and the largest butterfly in the Americas, the Owl Butterfly.. 
 
Owl butterflies are 20 some odd species within the genus Caligo, and are found from Mexico down into South America, flying in both the rainforests and secondary forests. Secondary forest means that the forest has regrown after a cutting or clearing either from a natural or manmade process. 
 
The butterfly as stated in the intro for this episode is indeed the largest butterfly within the Americas and its got a wingspan ranging between 6.5-20cm depending on the species. Blue morphos can also get up to this size and share a similar coloring, often making the two confusing to distinguish between for a novis butterfly watcher. And yes butterfly watching is in fact a hobby much like bird watching and on the topic of birds, Owl butterflies get their name because of the very large conspicuous eye spot seen on both their outer hindwings as well as the patterning and coloration. The under/outward-facing wings really do resemble an owl, especially a horned owl. Pictures will of course be on the instagram page along with their caterpillars.
 
The inner/upper facing side of the wings vary heavily by the species with some being more black and monocolored than others, but they do often have blue which does not help at all for people who already have difficulty differentiating them from blue morphos, but! If you listen to this episode and check out the instagram page then you too can be confident the next time you encounter one of these butterflies! My favorite is Caligo atreus which sports bright blue and cream orange on the inner wings, and its outer wings look like they went through a warm vintage filter. 
 
The caterpillars for these butterflies are pretty monstrous as well, competing in size with the Hickory horned devil which we mentioned last episode, these caterpillars can reach a length of 15cm but their appearance is very different. So different in fact that the caterpillars for these look like hairy slugs. Yes, that is an oxymoron but there seriously is no better description. The tail end of this caterpillar is slimmer than the mid section and forks into two tails that look like eye stocks on a slug and the head is also narrow and flattens into the body. Something un-sluglike would be the tufts of fur that poke out of their back. Some species have longer tufts than others which look like a row of spikes going down where a spine would be. I’ve seen them in person while at a butterfly house in Montreal Canada and they really are huge and unlike any other caterpillar I’ve seen. 
 
Earlier I mentioned that the genus for this group of butterflies is called Caligo and there is a good reason for this. Caligo in Latin means darkness or the dimness of light and as it turns out, these butterflies are actually crepuscular which is just a fancy word for being active at Dawn and Dusk. Next time someone asks why you look so tired during the day just hit them with the I’m crepuscular and I’m sure they won't bring it up again. But honestly its really cool to see them flying around in the evening or dawn because the last thing you expect to find mid-flight is a giant butterfly.  During the day these butterflies like to perch under large foliage and rest. It’s a smart move because predators would have no trouble finding them in flight during the day. 
The butterflies feed in the evening hours on a variety of things from rotting fruit and animal dung to flowers from heliconia, fan palms in the family Cyclanthacea (also referred to as Panama hat palms), and Bananas, but Banana trees are not native to the neotropics. The primary diet is definitely rotting fruit though which is why you find so many of them clustered around bananas, mangos and other common fruits at butterfly gardens. It’s actually quite common to see them in exhibits that offer an indoor butterfly room along with Blue Morpho butterflies probably because they are some of the largest butterflies in the world and easy to raise.
 
The caterpillars feed on the same plants the adults fly to making them a pest on banana and plantain farms.
 
 So much so that it was apparently proposed to use parasitic wasps on farms in certain countries to lower their populations. Now I tried to find records of this but I wasn’t able to and to be honest, I feel like releasing parasitic wasps in a neotropical country would require a huge amount of testing to make sure the wasp wouldn’t affect native populations of other insects. Unless of course, it is a native wasp! But moving along to the topic of predators, owl butterflies actually have a semi erratic flight pattern as seen with blue morpho butterflies to help protect them from being targeted by birds, reptiles, and other predators. These butterflies don’t fly for long durations at a time and end up frequently pausing on trees and other hard surfaces which confuses animals that are trying to lock on. 
I’ve actually experienced this firsthand in the forests of Belize while walking down a path when an owl butterfly flew into view. I had a net ready but I could not keep track of its zig-zag flight and random pauses in the brush. Suffice to say it got away and I ended up in a pile of mud, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. 
 
Owl butterflies also partake in a behavior known as lekking which is when male butterflies stake out a territory and then compete with each other for the attention of a female.  
 
These butterflies usually line up along a forest edge or along a road and sit waiting for a female to fly by. 
 
 The males actually scent these territories using pheromones and will even fight off other males who fly into their lekking space. If a female flies into the territory of a male he will pursue her for a short while to see if she’s interested  And if she’s not, that’s just the way it goes and he will fly back to his perch. What’s odd is that the areas males choose to lek aren’t very strategic in terms of resources. Often times these locations don’t have anything in particular that would attract an owl butterfly. They usually aren’t even in an area the butterflies would normally inhabit either. It’s like these butterflies specifically choose areas where they stand out and can really show off what they have. The funny part is that males will often be relatively close to each other but not close enough to overlap their territories. It really feels like a show hall where females fly slowly down the line to choose which male they want.  
 
This usually happens at dusk or dawn with many observers claiming that the phenomenon only lasts until the sun makes it over or under the horizon depending on the time of day.  
 

The Hickory Horned Devil! (Citheronia regalis)

This week we are learning about a special giant silkmoth belonging to the subfamily of royal moths! These ones don't produce silken cocoons which are very uncharacteristic for a silkmoth. 
Support the show :) -> https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46499107
IG: https://www.instagram.com/insects4fun/
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Email: Insectsfordummies@gmail.com
 
This week's music artists: HM Surf, PurrpleCat, mell-ø, S N U G, and Sleepermane.
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome to Episode 31 of Insects for Fun! I’m your host Mitchel Logan and today we’ll be talking about a very cool Giant Silkmoth
 
The regal moth also known as the royal walnut moth or the hickory horned devil is a very large and beautiful moth in my favorite family of moths known as Saturniidae or the Giant Silkmoths. I’ve personally been raising Saturniids for the better half of a decade starting in my Senior Year of High School. If people are interested I might even sell eggs and cocoons for whatever I have at some point in the future, for subscribers of this podcast. 
 
Anyway! Today we are looking at only one of these beautiful creatures and one that I personally have never actually seen in real life. This moth is considered common in the southeastern states of the US and has become incredibly rare in states above New Jersey. I think its current range is actually south of Jersey west to Ohio and the edge of the great plains down into Eastern Texas but historically this moth could be found in New England as well. 
Unlike the other members of the Giant Silkmoth family this moth does not produce any silk! Usually, Saturniidae moths will weave silken cocoons which protect their pupae from outside forces, but this moth along with others in the subfamily Ceratocampinae actually bury into the ground before pupation. This feature makes them and all the other royal moths very difficult to find and tricky to raise. 
 
Before I continue I want to share with you a visual description because the regal moth or royal walnut moth, true to the name, is a very stunning creature. The body is red with yellow bands and the wings are grey with red lines going down them. There are also a few yellow ovals in between these red lines as if someone with a paintbrush decided to just dab some contrasting colors. This moth has the largest mass of any other moth above Mexico and has a wingspan of 9.5 to 15.5cm. The females are actually larger in this species which isn’t always the case with moths in this family. 
Earlier I mentioned how Hickory Horned Devils make pupae in the soil and you might have noticed I use the word Pupae when referring to moths and Chrysalis when talking about butterflies and this is because Moths and Butterflies have separate terms. Pupa and chrysalis mean the same thing, but the reason why Butterfly pupae are always referred to as chrysalids comes from coloration. Moth pupae are almost always a type of brown and look drab in comparison to the usual shiny and metallic butterfly pupae. The word chrysalis actually originates from the word chrysos which means gold and refers to this metallic sheen but we’re getting pretty off-topic so let's take it back (rewind affect).
 
The caterpillar of a Hickory Horned Devil is possibly one of the coolest-looking Giant Silkmoth caterpillars I’ve ever seen and there's a good reason why it got the name Hickory Horned Devil. The final instar of this caterpillar is a bluish-green color with 4 small black spiny appendages on each body segment, except for the tail and the first three segments including the head. Replacing these black spines at the front end are four large red and black-tipped devil like horns that protrude from the two segments directly behind the head of the caterpillar. It almost looks like a rams head but with four horns instead of two. The head and last body segment are both red in color and the thorax section has two large black dots where those large devil horns come out. Its six true legs are also red in color making this thing truly fearsome. Aside from looking super intense, these guys will also sometimes raise their heads and shake them to scare you, but this caterpillar can actually do no harm. To be honest it's one of the more docile ones. You can pet all the spikes and have them crawl all over you and you’ll be fine. Similar to many other menacing-looking animals it has to look that way if it wants to survive because otherwise it's got nothing.  
Another thing is that these caterpillars also happen to be one of the world’s largest, reaching a length up to 15cm. Yes it actually out sizes the caterpillar to the world’s largest moth by at least 2cm. I will of course be showing pictures of everything on the instagram page so I recommend people to follow that or the facebook page because I forward everything there as well. 
Hickory horned devils do indeed feed on hickory as a primary host plant, but they also feed on other plants such as walnut, butternut, persimmon, sumac and sweetgum, and the caterpillars primarily feed during the night when they’re still small and vulnerable. During the day these young caterpillars curl their bodies in the shape of a J to look like bird droppings. This actually works well for them because the coloration on their early instar/molts is black with a brown smudge. As they get larger and scarier they also get more active during the day and will be munching on leaves nonstop. 
Adult moths do not feed on anything at all. In fact, all Giant Silkmoths have no functional mouths once they reach adulthood and live purely off the fat they gained as a caterpillar.
Most Giant Silkmoths also go through a stage of hibernation known as Diapause in the entomology world, and the regal silkmoth actually hibernates in the winter underground as a pupa regardless of where it's raised, but the growing season might be shifted a bit depending on which part of the country or world you are in. 
I say world because you can actually breed these in other countries like the Netherlands for example. Many people love to raise giant silkmoths and its not uncommon at all for people to get insects from outside countries to raise for fun. Certain restrictions apply of course if there is an ecological concern but that will be listed by the supplier.  
Once the moths eclose from their pupae they get ready for flight in the case of a male or they get ready to use pheromones in the case of a female. As with all Giant Silk Moths, the female moth will not fly until after she’s mated and will actually hang where she eclosed and release a pheromone trail through her scent wand. It’s called a scent wand but it is not at all like a fairy wand or some other magic controlling stick. Think of it more like the mechanics of a highlighter pen, but when the tip of the pen is exposed to air it leaves a strong scent trail. The females moths can choose when to make themselves available by exposing their scent wand and it is in fact as quick as clicking a highlighter pen. The males have huge antennae for this very reason, because males are constantly on the move hoping to pick up a scent trail that will lead him to a mate. Females have much thinner antennae but usually have heavier bodies because of the hundreds of eggs they carry and they have the all powerful scent wand. 
 
Now there is another species of Horned Devil which is actually called the Pine Devil and this species of Regal moths feeds exclusively on pine trees and the color of the caterpillar actually matches the branches of the trees they feed on. This makes them different shades of brown with black markings but the body shape is essentially the same as the famous hickory horned devil. The moth is the same shape as well but the coloring is much more bland. It kind of looks like the walnut moth got left in the toaster too long or something like that, but you can see the images on the instagram and facebook page. 
 
If you are interested in Learning how to raise hickory horned devils I Highly recommend checking out Bart Coppens youtube video. He goes in-depth about how to raise these caterpillars among many other exotic giant silkmoths. I watched it to make sure it was legit and I’m happy to report he knows what he’s doing.  

Locusts vs Grasshoppers and a swarm the size of Japan!?

On this week's episode, we look at grasshoppers and locusts and why they're the same but also not! We also go into some crazy history about a locust species that holds the record for the largest swarm ever recorded and their mysterious disappearance. 
Support the show :) -> https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46499107
IG@ Insects4fun 
Facebook Page: Insects for Fun
Email: Insectsfordummies@gmail.com 
 
Today's artists: HM Surf, After Hours, and mell-ø 
 
Transcript: 
 
Welcome to Episode 30 of insects for dummies! I’m your host Mitchel Logan and today we are getting to the bottom of what separates a grasshopper from a locust (if there is anything) 
 
Okay, to start off let's first describe and define a grasshopper because some people might even be thinking of crickets or katydids. 
 
Grasshoppers are insects in the order Orthoptera which does indeed also house crickets and katydids, but! Grasshoppers are in a separate suborder known as caelifera which stands for chisel bearing and refers to their short ovipositors. Crickets and Katydid’s belong to the suborder Ensifera which stands for sword-bearing and as you might guess has everything to do with the length of their ovipositors because these ones really do resemble a sword. Another major difference is that grasshoppers are diurnal which simply means they are active during the day, and they sing by rubbing their legs against their wings, unlike crickets and katydids who make their songs by simply vibrating their wings together. 
 
Grasshoppers like all Orthoptera go through incomplete metamorphosis. They simply hatch from an egg and go through a series of molts with each one looking more and more like the adult. However! Some grasshopper species can do something incredible and this is where Locusts come in. You see, of the 11,000 some odd species of grasshoppers, 25 are able to do something truly extraordinary and that would be their ability to completely change their appearance and behavior into what we know as a locust. This Jekyll and Hyde type transformation results from a set of conditions being met with grasshoppers in the family Acrididae.
 
 If food becomes scarce and these grasshoppers are forced together in one area, their bodies start releasing serotonin from the extra stimulation. This release of neurotransmitters causes behavioral changes which can further escalate the change from a peaceful solitary animal to a voracious horde of flying field destroyers. This is an even more likely scenario if rains come and provide an abundance of new food to this heavily gathered area causing a further increase in the population.  Ordinarily, grasshoppers cannot fly very far, but once the genes start transcribing the code for a locust then their wings become more developed and their brain actually increases in size. This change allows them to take flight AND recognize others of the same species. Locusts have actually been clocked at flying 20 miles per hour or slightly over making them rival dragonflies for the fastest flying insect and they can maintain flight for extremely long distances. 
 
For example, desert locusts regularly make a nonstop trip across the red sea which is 300km. This transformation from grasshopper to locust can occur at both the adult stage or the nymph stage and can even be reversed! The color changes are incredible as well with extremely flashy primary colors like red and yellow. This coloration is a warning to predators but also a signal to other locusts which can help them band together forming even larger swarms.
 
These swarms are usually documented from Africa, but locusts could swarm in a variety of locations. Grasshoppers with this ability can be found in Asia, Australia, Europe, The Americas and the Caribbean. The most widely spread locust is the migratory locust known as Tocusta migratoria. This species of grasshopper/locust is found in Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand and its even featured in the popular video game Animal Crossing (insert bug catch music)
Locust swarms are also referred to as locust plagues due to the fact that they are incredibly destructive and can actually displace and force populations of people to leave an area. A locust swarm is not merely thousands of individuals or even hundreds of thousands. Locust swarms are usually around 40 to 80 million ravenous insects which can eat over 300 million pounds of food in one day. Yes, that’s 300, million and no I didn’t sit on the 0 key. A swarm the size of paris can eat as much as half the population of France in one day which is why these insects are a power to be feared by many people. This is especially problematic when the countries facing these insects are already struggling with natural disaster and inner conflict. 
 
At this point we’re all thinking okay but how on earth are you supposed to prevent that or prepare for something like that? The reality is trying to do anything about it once it's already started is extremely difficult especially once they have begun to fly. Nowadays people have been using biopesticides that incorporate a deadly naturally occurring fungus. We also do surveillance checks by looking at weather conditions along with aerial surveys in areas where locust swarms could potentially begin. If many grasshoppers are congregated in an area then pesticides are used to reduce the population before it can get to swarming levels. 
 
Other tactics are to lay down large bands of pesticide on the ground from the air in front of an oncoming quote unquote hopper band, which is a large army of flightless nymphs. Once these nymphs walk over the laid down pesticide the nymphs start absorbing the fungus and cannot continue. Other current pesticides involve the usage of chemicals which interact and inhibit insects but are nontoxic to humans. It wasn’t always this way though. People used to actually eat the locusts by collecting them and cooking them. To be honest it's an extremely smart and effective treatment because these guys have so much protein for their small bodies and it's all plant derived. The only issue is that this doesn’t prevent the start of a swarm and it also became unhealthy once people started using wide scale toxic pesticides in the 80s. If you live in an area that sometimes sees these swarms of locusts then I’m sure you’re familiar with how insane they can get, and I’d even love to hear about some stories if you have any! Just send me an email and if we get enough people willing to email in any wild experiences regarding insects I might be able to start doing listener stories episodes! That could be super cool. 
 
If you are living in the United States and thinking thank god we don’t have to worry about that, well there was a time when we actually did. Prior to the 1930s we had a grasshopper species known as the Rocky Mountain Grasshopper or Locust, and this was an incredibly destructive species that used to span the great planes into Canada and down into Texas through Montana, Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona, but was also as west as Washington, Oregon, and California. However, they would also move so far east as to actually cause farm damage in Vermont and Maine but these were only recorded in the mid to late 1700s. when swarms were being recorded for long after that until 1877 and the last living specimen was collected in 1903. The largest swarm ever recorded in the history of all insects happened in 1875 when the Rocky Mountain Locusts had such a large population boom that they literally eclipsed the sun, and formed a mass greater than the size of California and had over 12 trillion insects. Think about that for a second. This flying mass of hungry locusts was greater than the size of all of Japan and had over 12 trillion insects when we just calculated earlier that 80million translates to 300 million pounds of food in one day. So this literal giant dark cloud of locusts was able to eat an amount of food equal to 4.5 trillion pounds. One woman wrote about it in a children's autobiography stating that the cloud was hailing grasshoppers, the cloud was grasshoppers! Their bodies hid the sun and made darkness. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the air and they hit the ground and house with the sound of a hailstorm. 
 
Now, the really mysterious part of this whole thing comes from the fact that this species of locust completely vanished in the following 28 years. There were no more major swarms after the year 1880 and the last locust was collected in 1902. It’s hypothesized that the reason came from all the agricultural work that had been done through the great plains like plowing, and irrigation along with trampling from cattle. The fact is that this insect despite its immense swarms only had one small range of permanent residency in the rocky’s which also happened to be a good location for farming. At any rate, this grasshopper is no more, and the US has not seen a locust swarm since. But again, this is not the case for other countries like Africa which is now infamous for being plagued by a different species known as the desert locust. The most recent locust swarms lasted from 2019 to 2022 which started with a cyclone in 2018 that brought a lot of rain to the Arabian Peninsula. Those swarms grew and spread to various countries in the area over the span of the last 3 years, but thankfully it's finished and we currently don’t have another active swarm at the date of this recording. 
 
Locusts swarms have always been a bad omen in popular culture being associated with end times or extreme global disasters. It certainly predated the bible otherwise there wouldn’t be a famous biblical plague about them. Let’s just hope we don’t see more real-world applications as the weather continues to become more and more unpredictable…