No one in particular has asked this question yet, though I have received a lot of emails from people asking how to control different insect pests in their homes. I figured some of you might be curious as to what I battle and how.

My own woes come from flies and those darn lady bird beetles that I am sure many of you wage war against in your own homes.

They have been EVERY WHERE in my house lately, driving me nuts, which is hard to do for someone who loves bugs. At first, I had just been ignoring them and letting them be. But it has gotten out of hand now…Im stepping on them, they are in the cat’s water bowl, UGH! Too much…

The one thing that almost anyone can tell you about insect behavior is that insects are attracted to light. For that reason, I went out and bought sticky traps that you place on your windows.

And what do you know…they work great! And, they only cost about a buck or so for a pack of 4. How do you beat that?

William asks:

My Friend and I were curious as to why bugs were getting smaller as time goes on. His theory was that the bugs required more oxygen as they pull it directly into their pores and that since the purity of oxygen has changed, they have gotten smaller as a result. I obviously disagree saying that standard evolution shows we get smaller and smarter as time progresses. Let me know what you think.

I had a post in the very beginning of this website that briefly touched on this question. There were several comments from different readers who offered other theories.

The reason I posted this question was to reopen the discussion for people to comment on. That way, you are not just getting my opinion, but hopefully others too.

Gosh, been a little busy as of late, so haven’t had the chance for an update. I am anxiously awaiting spring’s arrival, but unfortunately mother nature hates me and dumped 5 inches of snow on us last night. UGH! The deer are getting a little anxious about this too, I think. Food for them has been scarce since its been buried by the darn white stuff.

Migrating birds started coming back. A ton of red tail have made their way through…

..and the Common Grackles have been ravaging my bird feeder. Although a lot of people tend not to like grackles, I actually have a fondness for them that I can’t really explain.

And lastly, I found a nice little silverfish (Thysanura) that let me take its photo.

Silverfish are a wingless insect that get their name from the scale-like appearance on their body. They are one of the most primitive insect orders that date back some 300 million years.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for spring migration to really start. This little guy showed up in my backyard this past week.

There is one thing that drives me crazy when it comes to my plants and thats finding stupid scale insects on them. I found the little buggers on one of my ferns today

As an entomologist, and one with a nice new camera, scale insects aren’t that bad because for one, they don’t move on you when trying to take a photo, and for two, they are actually kind of cool.

They secrete a wax coat for defense. Females don’t have wings and actually keep a lot of their juvenile external morphology (the fancy word for this is neoteny). Males do have wings, but only one pair, which is more like the Diptera (true flies). And males only live for about a day or so, only living long enough to mate.

…now if only I could tell if she thought it was good or not.

What a difference a real macro lens can make! A year ago I photographed snow fleas. My former graduate adviser recently asked me for some good snow flea photos and now that I have my fancy Nikon and lenses I decided to take the challenge.

They are a dark blue color, and the flash really makes a difference in the color projected in the photos. They are a tiny springtail (1-2mm) that can often be found in the snow. They have an organ called a furcula that “springs” or catapults them in the air…which obviously adds some difficulty in trying to get close to them for a photograph. You can really see the furcula well in the second photo, its the structure sticking up near the posterior end.

For more information on snow fleas see this wikipedia page.

I’m not the only one who thought spring was right around the corner until this latest winter storm hit…

I was out in the woods today for work and found this little fella still alive, literally “chillin” on a tree, despite the foot of snow that was just dumped on us. Its not really ‘collecting jar season’ yet, but when an entomologist wants a bug bad enough they manage to make anything into a jar. For me, I dumped a whole pack of tic tacs out in the snow so that I could bring home this lacewing for a photo op. I’m a nerd, but I think it was worth it.

Lacewings are comprised of the family Chrysopidae in the order Neuroptera. The larvae are crazy-aggressive and feed on other insects. In fact, they are often reared for the biological control of mites, aphids, and other crop pests. The adults vibrate on the substrate for courtship communication.