Tag: insect

Locust swarms arrive in South Sudan, threatening more misery

JUBA, South Sudan (AFP) — Swarms of locusts which are wreaking havoc across East Africa have now arrived in South Sudan, the government said Tuesday, threatening more misery in one of the world’s most vulnerable nations. Billions of desert locusts, some in swarms the size of Moscow, have already chomped their way through Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda. Their breeding has been spurred by one of the wettest rainy seasons in […]

Global warming will make insects hungrier, eating up key crops: study

by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — Researchers have found a new way that global warming is bad for the planet: more hungry bugs. Rising temperatures will stimulate insects’ appetites — and make some prone to reproducing more quickly — spelling danger for key staples like wheat, corn and rice which feed billions of people, researchers said Thursday. And since these three crops account for 42 percent of the calories people […]

About 30,000 bees swarm on One Times Square ledge

NEW YORK, United States (Reuters) – Around 30,000 honey bees swarmed on a ledge at One Times Square, where the New Year’s Eve ball drop happens, in New York on Tuesday (June 27). Andrew Coté, a fourth generation beekeeper of andrewshoney.com, was called to the rescue and used a vacuum to suck up the bees. “The bees weren’t colonizing,” Coté said. “The bees were on a nearby hotel and they were probably not very well […]

Meet the tiny predator that can take title of Top Gun of the insect world

CAMBRIDGE, England, United Kingdom  (Reuters) — A small fly the size of a grain of rice could take the title of Top Gun of the insect world after Cambridge scientists identified its remarkable ability to detect and intercept its prey mid-air, changing direction mid-flight if necessary before sweeping around for the kill. The robber fly Holcocephala is relatively small  -  at 6 millimeters (mm) in length but can spot and catch prey more than half […]