Caribbean Crane Fly Malaysian Crane Fly Flightless Crane Fly Sulawesi Crane Fly
Amazing Beetle Leopard Crayfish ACLA Meeting
BUG FACTS
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Lady Bird Beetles are Really Japanese.-
People all |
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Scorpions Alive And Well
In Pennsylvania.- Although confirmed records
of scorpions in Pennsylvania seem to be missing, Carnegie Museum
entomologists have recently confirmed the natural occurrence
of one species in the state, Vaejovis carolinianus. A
specimen was taken in Washington County near Meadowlands and is
a species often found in rocky hillside habitats from Kentucky and
Tennessee to the Carolinas and Georgia. This record may be the northernmost
record for this species.
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 Strange
Beetles Found near Local Slag Dump.- Coleopterists at Carnegie Museum have recently reported finding two species of ground
beetle adjacent to slag dumps at Nine Mile Run, just east of the
Squirrel Hill Tunnel on the Parkway. In a survey of these highly
disturbed habitats, specialist Robert Davidson found 135 different
species of ground beetles, many of them common, but amongst them were
two species never before recorded from Pennsylvania. A single specimen of Acupalpus nanellus
was captured in 1998 and constitute a Pennsylvania state record although
it is already well-known from Wisconsin to Nova Scotia. Two specimens
of the tiny Paratachys oblitus were also taken in 1998, and
although common further east it was not previously recorded from Pennsylvania.
These discoveries generate optimism for the condition of local
natural habitats because things must not be too bad if record beetles
can be found near the slag piles in Pittsburgh's backyard!
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 Giant
Caterpillar Scares Children But Can't Hurt a Fly.- The largest
moth species in Pennsylvania, or at least the one with heaviest
body weight, is the regal moth, Citheronia regalis. It's
larvae is truly huge, the size of a large cigar, with orange and
blue coloration. It has large spiny horns just behind the head,
and when touched will rear up and bristle these in the face of an
intruder or curious child. It's all a bluff, as the horns are soft
and about the only thing this huge caterpillar might do is give
you a nip with its powerful teeth. The species has been slowly
becoming much less common, in part due to the distraction of female
moths by electric lights outdoors, and in part due to being
heavily parasitized by a fly that was intentionally introduced
as a pest control agent many years ago.
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 Pennsylvania
Moth New to Science.- Entomologists at Carnegie Museum have
discovered a species of moth in the mountain just west of Tyrone,
Pennsylvania, that was previously unknown to science. The new
species has since been found in the Allegheny National Forest, in
various places in West Virginia, and elsewhere in the northeast. It
flies only from late March to earliest May and is a delicate buffy
pink in color. The species is easily confused with other named species
that fly from mid-May to mid-June in the same habitats. Many species
of local insects are overlooked in this way because they look like
other species that are common and widespread. |
Fluorescent Pink Katydid Not A Hoax.-
Every year in Pennsylvania mountains a few people are fortunate enough
to see an amazing thing, a normally green katydid that is brilliant
pink, eyes, antennae, legs, everything. This unusual insects is actually
a rare variety of one of our common katydids that are normally
green all over. The bright pink condition is beautiful and startling
to behold, and is caused by a genetically determined condition
called erythrism. The pink katydids act just like green ones,
and if we are lucky, they will continue to prosper as a special
Pennsylvania oddity that most of us will never see alive!
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