Author: insectrescons@gmail.com

Beetles, of course!  These are tiny (1-6 mm long), black-brown, elongate-oblong beetles that resemble click beetles (Elateridae). See photos here: http://bugguide.net/node/view/14532.  The family is not at all diverse, 152 species known in the world, and poorly known.  We know they are usually founded in decaying trees, where they may be eating mold.  They even have mycetomes…

Dr. Barbara Hayford and Dr. Kelly Dillard, Professors at the Wayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska, have expanded the core canvasses of the past exhibition with scientific illustrations by Sara Taliaferro, Lawrence, KS (including many of larvae I study, for my manuscripts) and Tierney Brosius of Augustana College, Illinois. Thus we have a third U.S. iteration of the…

Every four years, the entomology community gathers for the world meeting, the International Congress of Entomology, which is held in different locations around the world.  I was last at ICE in Brisbane, Australia in 2004, a great excuse to roam OZ with my beetle girlfriend, Ainsley Seago. We started in Melbourne collecting beetles with Nick…

Earlier this year, we took our daughter for her birthday to Disney World. Five parks in six days was a whirlwind, especially so since my husband and I had not grown up on a Disney menu and this was our first visit. But Epcot (=Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) was interesting for this science nerd.…

Pollinators provide a key ecosystem role by transporting pollen from one flower to another.  They are important to plants! As a consequence, relationships between plants and their pollinators can be very close, evolved over long periods of time and showing morphological and behavioral adaptations to each other. The study of pollination is called anthecology. Pollinators…

Leslie Mertz at EntomologyToday contacted me in May 2016 about my research. After a few email exchanges, she wrote up this nice interview with me: From Turtle Shell to Poop Umbrella, This Is One Unusual Group of Beetles

A great part of the growing world human population has no reliable access to sufficient, affordable nutritious food. Among the many options proposed to increase food security, insects are a candidate that can satisfy the requirements of sufficiency, reliability, and nutrition. Insects are eaten in many parts of the world, e.g., suri palm beetles in…

My inquiry into the use of cochineal as a natural dye by Andean dyers and weavers touches on multiple issues, including human diet, health, and even into organic chemistry which I abandoned long ago. I register the concern of my vegetarian friends over the “vegetarian” status of foods. For example, the company Starbucks had to…

The regular family Sunday visit to our outstanding local public library yielded more than books. An exhibition of drawings caught my attention, “Treemendous Trees.”  The art project with area artists, the book (available on Amazon) and the exhibition were motivated by Maureen Carroll’s desire to identify regional trees. It is really difficult identifying trees, especially…

The 6th volume of Research on Chrysomelidae appeared this month, part of a series that was the brainchild of Dr. Pierre Jolivet in Paris. These volumes bring together diverse topics and researchers from all corners of the globe and have proven over and over to be useful resources on knowledge about leaf beetles.  Our community…