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Full title: The stuff of nightmares! Insect that looks like a wasp but crawls like a praying mantis is captured devouring a fly (after ripping off its prey's legs) If you have a fear of creepy crawlies, you may want to approach with caution. A YouTube user has captured a mantidfly, which looks like a wasp but has the front legs, sharp jaws and bulging eyes of a praying mantis, tucking into a small fly. The video shows the active hunter feasting on the fly's body, which it holds in its front legs and nibbles on like a human stripping...

Been living in the Bay Area (San Jose) since 1967 and have never seen one of these beetles until the last week or so. The pic is deceiving but this thing is pretty good sized. Sounds like a mini 747 when it flies. Also, has a bad ass shiny green color almost looks like it was green anodized.

The future is here and this is not a butterfly on your wall, as Israeli drones are getting tiny. Their latest project – a butterfly-shaped drone weighing just 20 grams - the smallest in its range so far – can gather intelligence inside buildings. ­The new miniscule surveillance device can take color pictures and is capable of a vertical take-off and hover flight, just like a helicopter, reports the daily Israel Hayom. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) says this may come in handy in ground clashes, when a soldier would merely take it out of a pocket and send behind the...

New Zealand's giant weta is the heaviest insect in the world and this one is the largest ever recorded.

Detailed fossilized insect remains preserved in amber for over 23 million years (AFP/HO) Peru researchers make rare ancient insect find (AFP) – 3 hours ago LIMA — Researchers in Peru said Tuesday they have discovered the remains of ancient insects and sunflower seeds trapped inside amber dating from the Miocene epoch, some 23 million years ago. The rare find was made in the remote mountainous jungle region near Peru's northern border with Ecuador, paleontologist Klaus Honninger told AFP. "These new discoveries are very important, because the insects and sunflower seeds confirm the type of climate that existed during the Miocene...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- California officials have released thousands of insects in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to combat an invasive weed that has clogged the waterway. The state Department of Food and Agriculture let more than 5,000 water hyacinth plant hoppers go at several locations in San Joaquin and Sacramento counties this month. Officials hope the insects, which are native to South America, will establish self-sustaining colonies and begin chomping down on water hyacinth. The invasive plant forms a dense carpet on the surface of waterways, impeding boat access and clogging water intake systems.

An invasive kudzu-eating bug that swept across Georgia last year has now been detected in Alabama. Though you might be tempted to celebrate the arrival of a bug that eats The Vine That Ate the South, this kudzu bug stinks. Both literally and figuratively. When temperatures drop, the pea-sized bugs -- also known as the lablab bug or the globular stink bug -- invades homes in hordes. When threatened or crushed, they emit a foul odor. University of Georgia entomology Professor Wayne A. Gardner said he's found them 30 stories high, coating the window sills of Atlanta condo high rises,...

But no one knows how the bugs breathe underwater. Several new caterpillar species are equally at home on land or underwater, making them the first truly amphibious insects, scientists say. The amphibious caterpillars—found only in Hawaii's fast-moving freshwater streams—belong to the moth genus Hyposmocoma, a group that includes more than 400 species. The 14 newfound species are never seen far from water. But unlike purely aquatic caterpillars, these species can behave the same in water or on land for indefinite periods of time. "When you put these guys in water, they run around and eat. You take them out, and...

After months of grueling tests, a species of horned dung beetle takes the title for world's strongest insect. The beetle, called Onthophagus taurus, was found to be able to pull a whopping 1,141 times its own body weight, which is the equivalent of a 150-pound (70 kilogram) person lifting six full double-decker buses. While the study researcher knows of a mite that can take on a hair more, that organism is an arachnid, not an insect. The finding, published in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, does more than elevate the beetle's status, as...

Not exactly sure what I can post since it is from Bloomberg but if you go the site one of the lead articles is the EPA threatening coal mining in Applachia over a insect. What the Spotted Owl did to the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest this bug will do to coal mining.

Monarch butterflies have fascinated biologists for a long time. A 3,000-mile road trip in even the most comfortable car would prove daunting to many humans, but these beautiful insects can migrate that same distance every year from Canada to a specific grove of fir trees in Mexico each fall. The next generation of monarchs can then travel back to Canada in the spring. Scientists are investigating the tools that these tiny flying creatures use to achieve this feat. One leading monarch researcher has discovered an important reason why the butterflies’ antennae are vital for successful navigation...

Every year, millions of dragonflies fly thousands of kilometres across the sea from southern India to Africa. So says a biologist in the Maldives, who claims to have discovered the longest migration of any insect. If confirmed, the mass exodus would be the first known insect migration across open ocean water. It would also dwarf the famous trip taken each year by Monarch butterflies, which fly just half the distance across the Americas.

Bug-Gate is bad, folks, really bad. But I remain convinced that the only way we’ll ever bring this “dark and painful chapter in our history” to a close is to face the horror of if full on. Only then can we heal as a nation. So steel yourself for what comes next:

Insects can spread disease and destroy crops with devastating speed. Do not underestimate their potential as weapons. Insects are one of the cheapest and most destructive weapons available to terrorists today, and one of the most widely ignored: they are easy to sneak across borders, reproduce quickly and can spread disease and destroy crops with devastating speed. A great strategic lesson of 9/11 has been overlooked. Terrorists need only a little ingenuity, not sophisticated weapons, to cause enormous damage... Insects are the box-cutters of biological warfare - cheap, simple and wickedly effective. Am I being an alarmist? I wish I...

What kind of insect is this? (The background is the close up of a chaise lounge pad)

Insects with modified body structures and embedded micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) have survived to adulthood in a US Defense Advanced Reseach Projects Agency (DARPA) programme. DARPA wants to develop inexpensive micro air vehicles to find weapons and explosives inside buildings or caves. Mechanical and fluidic microsystems would allow remote control, could extend insect life, and provide for gas, audio and even imaging sensors. In the latest work a Manduca moth had its thorax truncated to reduce its mass and had a MEMS component added where abdominal segments would have been, during the larval stage. Images taken by x-ray of insects with...

A bizarre relationship between a gecko and a sap-sucking insect has been caught on camera for the first time. The day gecko, which lives in the forests of Madagascar, has been recorded begging a bug for its dinner. The lizard repeatedly nods its head at the insect, called a plant hopper, until it flicks over small balls of honeydew for the gecko to dine upon. It is not yet understood why the insect so willingly offers up honeydew at the lizard's behest. Some believe that the presence of the hungry geckos may keep other predators away from the insect. The...

Insect Attack May Have Finished Off Dinosaurs ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2008) — Asteroid impacts or massive volcanic flows might have occurred around the time dinosaurs became extinct, but a new argument is that the mightiest creatures the world has ever known may have been brought down by a tiny, much less dramatic force -- biting, disease-carrying insects.Tick found in Burmese amber. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University) An important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs, experts say, could have been the rise and evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers. And the evidence...

Spanish scientists have discovered a new invertebrate insect in certain caves of Castellon province, which they have baptized Gollumjapyx Smeagol in honour of JRR Tolkien who created the character in his 'The Lord of The Rings' trilogy. The new animal is of exterior origin, but has adapted to permanent living inside caves. The new invertebrate has all the properties of a subterranean insect: its skin has no pigment, and it has extraordinarily large antennae, six feet and measures two centimeters in length. According to Vicente Ortuño, the first examples of this new species were found some 25 years ago, but...

FORT MITCHELL, Ala. - Brian Province and Don Simmons have made money killing critters for a long time. When they got a call last month about an unusually large yellow jacket nest at 53 McLendon Road in Fort Mitchell, Ala., they expected something roughly the size of a license plate -- the biggest they had ever seen. What they found was a gray, papier-mâché-like mass the size of a car hood attached to the bottom of Annie Garvin's mobile home. That nest is only a few feet from a fig tree in her backyard. Garvin's mobile home -- one of...