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How to Flush Out a Praying Mantis
So you want to capture an image of a praying mantis.
You have to find one first.
Sometimes it's a case of hide 'n seek--it hides, you seek.
Mantises, or mantids, are camouflaged. Many camouflaged (cryptic) insects are "sit-and-wait predators," write emeritus professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston of the University of California, Davis, in the fourth edition of their popular textbook, The Insects, An Outline of Entomology, published by Wiley-Blackwell.
"(Crypyic insects)...may be defensive, being directed against highly visual predators such as birds, rather than evolved to mislead invertebrate prey," they write. "Cryptic predators modeled on a feature that is of no interest to the prey (such as tree bark, lichen, a twig or even a stone) can be distinguished from those that model on a feature of some significance to prey, such as a flower that acts as an insect attractant."
But we inadvertently discovered there's at least one good way to flush out a praying mantis--water your garden. It will hurriedly emerge.
This praying mantis (below), lurking on a tomato plant, apparently didn't like the burst of water that disturbed its stakeout.
It licked the water droplets from its forelegs--legs specialized to seize prey--and then flew to a nearby tree.
Praying mantis on a watered tomato plant. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Praying mantis licks water from its forelegs, specialized to seize prey. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Praying mantis rests on a tomato vine prior to flying to a nearby tree. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This Bug's for You
Last weekend we spotted a San Francisco-bound car sporting a bumper sticker that read simply:
"I brake for bugs."
Indeed.
Bugs rule. Bugs are cool. Bugs are definitely worth stopping for (especially if it's the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis which houses seven million specimens).
Lot of brakin' going on.
Which brings us to what the Royal Entomological Society, United Kingdom, did.
The society invited 23 distinguished entomologists and entomologists-in-training to write a daily blog about bugs during National Insect Week. The blogs are online--and let's hope this really catches on.
Two of the distinguished entomologists are from the University of California: professor Peter "Pete" Cranston of the UC Davis campus and professor Thomas "Tom" Miller of the UC Riverside campus.
They're "bug bloggers" extraordinaire.
Cranston, recently awarded an honorary membership in the Royal Entomological Society, teaches teaches systematic entomology and biodiversity at UC Davis and serves as the co-editor of the Royal Entomological Society’s journal Systematic Entomology. His research interests include the systematics, ecology and biogeography of aquatic insects, particularly the Chironomidae (non-biting midges).
His blog bio indicates: "In his childhood years in the West Midlands of the UK in the 1950s, he was allowed, even encouraged, to roam the countryside with friends and siblings, and he developed a fascination with aquatic wildlife--birds, mammals and the larger insects. His formal education built on these interests, thanks to the support of a high-school biology teacher who encouraged him to undertake fieldwork projects."
Cranston went on to earn his bachelor's degree in biology at the University of London. For his doctorate, also obtained from the University of London, he studied the development stages (larvae and pupae) of the dominant group of aquatic flies--the chironomid midges.
If you're an entomology student, you probably have a copy of the popular textbook, The Insects: An Outline of Entomology, written by Cranston and Penny Gullan, also an entomology professor at UC Davis.
As for Tom Miller, he teaches insect physiology, insect toxicology and first-year biology at UC Riverside. He earned his doctorate in entomology at UC Riverside in 1967. He then served a year as a research associate at the University of Illinois and a year as a NATO postdoctoral fellow at Glasgow University before joining the UC Riverside faculty in 1969.
Miller's research interests: the structure and function of the insect circulatory system; the mode of action of insecticides; insect neuromuscular physiology; physiology, toxicology and behavior of pink bollworm in cotton fields; transgenic insects; applied symbiosis for crop protection; and biopesticides for crop protection.
Miller received the coveted Gregor J. Mendel Medal for Research in Biological Sciences in 2003 from the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Take a look at their blogs. You'll find them fascinating. Here's the direct link to Cranston's blog. Here's the direct link to Miller's blog.
They, no doubt, brake for bugs.
Peter Cranston
Thomas Miller
Long Awaited: The Insects
That would be the fourth edition of The Insects: An Outline of Entomology, the newly published work of professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston (at right) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
"The gold standard of entomology textbooks" will be available in the United States beginning in early March but publisher Wiley-Blackwell has already released it in the United Kingdom.
The 584-page textbook offers a comprehensive insight into the wonderful world of insects. Well, some are wonderful! Your favorites--honey bees and ladybugs--are in there, along with the nasty pests such as those blood-sucking mosquitoes and sand flies, insects that transmit diseases.
"Much of the book is organized around major biological themes - living on the ground, in water, on plants, in colonies, and as predators, parasites/parasitoids and prey,” the publisher says.
Gullan and Cranston, both systematic entomologists, teach and research insect identification, distribution, evolution and ecology.
(How do you say "bug" in Italian? In Mandarin Chinese? In Portuguese?)
Since the third edition came out five years ago, the authors have been busily updating it. In keeping with today's technology, they've added an accompanying Web site with downloadable illustrations and links to video clips.
Updates include the Africanized honey bee and colony collapse disorder in the sphere of the apiary; the use of bed nets and the resurgence of bed bugs; dengue fever and West Nile virus in relation to human health; and case studies in emergent plant pests, including the emerald ash borer that is destroying North American landscape trees. Artist Karina H. McInnes has added new drawings.
Writer Abigail Tucker mentioned the Gullan-Cranston textbook in her "Bugs, Brains and Trivia" article in the Smithsonian (Nov. 17, 2008), featuring the Linnaean Games, a national insect trivia contest conducted at the Entomological Society of America meeting. In the Linnaean Games, teams of entomology students vie for top honors in a college-bowl-like competition.
It's much more popular in the scientific community than the TV show, "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader."
It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the Linnaean Games, just as it is easy to be fascinated by the millions of insects that are all around us.
Textbook Cover
Tongue-Tied
Blue merle mini-Australian shepherds have one.
So do honey bees.
What? A tongue.
For a puppy, the tongue can symbolize pure happiness. For a worker honey bee: a solid work ethic.
It's easy to take a photo of a happy puppy with her tongue hanging out, but not so easy to capture an image of a honey bee nectaring a flower--unless you have a macro lens, a quick trigger finger and a state of endurance called patience.
To be technically correct, entomologists refer to the honey bee "tongue" as "mouthparts." That would be the tubelike organ that enables them to nectar flowers and serve as nursemaids and undertakers and the like.
If you want technicality, be sure to read the excellent textbook The Insects, an Outline of Entomology, written by UC Davis entomologists Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston.
"The mouthparts of bees are of a chewing and lapping type," they write. 'Lapping is a mode of feeding in which liquid or semi-liquid food adhering to a protrusible organ, or 'tongue,' is transferred from substrate to mouth. in the honey bee, Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera Apidae), the elongate and fused labial glossae form a hairy tongue, which is surrounded by the maxillary galeae and the labial palps to form a tubular proboscis containing a food canal. In feeding, the tongue is dipped into the nectar or honey, which adheres to the hairs, and then is retracted so that adhering liquid is carried into the space between the galeae and labial palps. This back-and-forth glossal movement occurs repeatedly. Movement of liquid to the mouth apparently results from the action of the cibarial pump, facilitated by each retraction of the tongue pushing liquid up the food canal."
Wait! There's more.
"The maxillary laciniae and palps are rudimentary and the paraglossae embrace the base of the tongue, directing salvia from the dorsal salivary orifice around into a ventral channel from whence it is transported to the flabellum, a small lobe at the glossal tip; saliva may dissolve solid or semi-solid sugar. The sclerotized, spoon-shaped mandibles lie at the base of the proboscis and have a variety of functions, including the manipulation of wax and plant resins for nest construction, the feeding of larvae and the queen, grooming, fighting and the removal of nest debris including dead bees.
And you thought the mouthparts of a bee were simple? Not at all.
Be sure to read this again. There will be a test tomorrow.
Happy puppy
Industrious honey bee
Down Under and on Deadline
They're Down Under and on deadline.
Entomology professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston of the University of California, Davis, are finishing the fourth edition of their popular textbook, The Insects: An Outline of Entomology.
They're not in
Their textbook is a veritable Who's Who and What's What of the study of insects. One reviewer wrote: "This established textbook continues to provide a comprehensive and stimulating introduction to insects, a group of animals that represent over half of the planet's biological diversity. It commences with a review of the significance of insects, their immense diversity and their patterns of distribution. Insects influence all of our activities, and in seeking to understand their success, the key features of insect anatomy, physiology, behaviour, ecology, phylogeny and evolution are identified by the authors."
Their book was also mentioned in a recent Smithsonian article featuring the Linnaean Games, a national insect trivia contest conducted at the annual Entomological Society of America meeting. In the Linnaean Games, teams of entomology students vie for top honors in a college-bowl-like competition.
Gullan and Cranston are noted systematic entomologists; they teach and research insect identification, distribution, evolution and ecology.
Writer Abigail Tucker of the Smithsonian described the Gullan-Cranston book as "classic" in her article, "Bugs, Brains and Trivia," about the Linnaean Games:
"To prepare, teams from universities across the country practice weekly, poring over classic texts like P.J. Gullan and P.S. Cranston’s The Insects, memorizing banks of recorded questions from previous games and reading journals to keep up to date with the latest in pesticide chemistry. They bone up on social entomology, medical entomology, ecology and the dreaded systematics, which includes insect phylogeny and evolution. They also work on speed and reflexes, slapping at the buzzer like they’d swat a vicious mosquito."
Douglas Williams and Penny Gullan
Peter Cranston
