Insects & Science

What do grasshoppers eat? It might be easier to ask what they don't eat. Although grasshoppers are classified as herbivores (plant eaters), they are not that choosy about which plants are in their...

If you have a problem with pests, like roaches or mice, you may not need an exterminator. Spend a day thoroughly inspecting your house for cracks and holes that rodents might be using to penetrate...

Mealworms are frequently used as a high-protein food item for pets such as reptiles, small mammals, and birds. Mealworms can also be a valuable education tool for teachers who wish to explain the...

If you have an avian or reptilian pet, you might not have to run down to the feed store every week to get food. Many reptiles and birds can live off of mealworms, which are small, but rich in...

The fishing spider, also known as the dock spider, is a member of the Dolomedes genus. It is similar to other spiders in that it is carnivorous, but instead of hunting on the ground or relying on...

Maggots are an excellent bait to use for fishing. Fish of all different species will bite at this bait. They have been known to attract anything from a half-pound minnow to 50-pound carp. The best...

A bug zapper is more formally known as an electrical discharge insect control system and is a common tool for killing insects outdoors. In order to be effective, these devices must attract insects...

Homemade worm bins can be made out of any shallow container, from an older dresser drawer to a salvaged bathtub or lumber and plywood. If you are looking for the very easiest construction for your...

Rearing butterflies and watching them transform from a caterpillar into their final product--an adult butterfly--is an enjoyable experience for families and classrooms alike. Ideally, you should...

Praying mantises are a diverse group of insects that make excellent, low-maintenance pets. Many people do not consider insects when choosing pets, but mantises can be fascinating additions to any...

The Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) is a destructive exotic species that has recently been introduced to the United States from China. Though the infestation of Asian longhorned...

Different types of bugs have access to your home, no matter how hard you try to keep them out. These insects have the ability to be destructive, as in the case of termites and carpenter ants....

The Karner blue is a butterfly found in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Its main predators are spiders and insects.

The mason wasp (Monobia quadridens) is stunning in appearance and less harmful than other varieties of wasps, bees, hornets and yellow jackets. The mason wasp--also known as the potter wasp--is so...

People might feel anxiety around flying insects that sting and might tend to group all flying and stinging creatures together under a generic group. Wasps and hornets differ significantly from...

Though their common name might suggest otherwise, the "cricket spiders" found in houses are not spiders at all. These crickets, more correctly called camel crickets or cave crickets, often are...

Rendering beeswax from honeycomb is not difficult, but it can be a sticky job and care must be taken in handling hot wax. The process of wax extraction from comb involves only a few simple...

Approximately 80 percent of all animal species are insects, according to Clemson University. Entomology is the scientific field of study devoted to species of insects.

Raising honeybees in an apiary has a number of benefits, including the ability to harvest honey, honeycomb and wax. You can extract beeswax from honeycomb when you harvest the honey, since you...

Building a honey bee box is a relatively simple carpentry project, but does require the use of some standard woodworking equipment and tools. Having a bee hive on your property can be an...

Any number of insect pests has the ability to invade your home and set up shop, establishing themselves in the walls, attic, basement, closets and other places. To identify these indoor bugs you...

Identify which types of pesky household insects are invading your home prior to contacting the exterminator. Most home-invasive insects are easily distinguished from each other. If not,...

Butterflies have a way of capturing our attention because they are such colorful and beautiful creatures. Butterflies go through a metamorphosis, changing from an egg to a larva, to a chrysalis to...

Building your own ant farm can be a fun and educational experience about how insects live and build their own societies. It is inexpensive and easy to build your own ant farm and care for them by...

Building a worm house is a fun and creative project the whole family can enjoy. Worm houses can show how that worms eat and then aerate the soil to aid in their digestion. A worm house project...

Before a honeybee can pollinate a flower, it must first be attracted to that flower. Using colors (typically yellow, blue, or some mixture of the two) to draw the bees in, flowers also attract...

Today you will learn a very interesting how to that is fun to do with your kids or even at a party. It is fairly easy to do and really neat. It would even work for a school project.

Ant farms provide a great learning tool for all ages and help children get excited about insects. Ant farms allow you to observe the ants as they work, eat and reproduce. The intricate social...

A mixture of sugar water and detergent is commonly used to trap insects. The sugar attracts the bugs, and the detergent creates a sinking water trap for the insects.

When you're a successful vermiculturalist, or worm-grower, invariably you begin to get more worms than you can handle. At the point when the nightcrawlers are nice and fat, you can harvest some...

Often the stuff of phobias and nightmares, poisonous (or, more correctly, venomous) spiders are seen as a major threat to many people. But not all spiders are venomous, and those that are rarely...

A homemade butterfly cage can be an exciting project for children and adults alike for observing the life cycle of butterflies. While you can order pop-up mesh butterfly cages online or from some...

Nightcrawlers are one of the largest breeds of earthworms. Whether you are raising them as pets, to feed other pets, to use as bait for fishing or to sell, raising and breeding nightcrawlers is...

Nightcrawlers, more commonly known as earthworms, live underground and often are used as fishing bait or for composting. You can gather them from your backyard by using electricity. The...

Killer wasps are very large insects that feed on cicadas and the nectar of plants. They store food for their young in underground tunnels where the young live and feed until emerging in July or...

Hummingbird hawk moths are bird-like insects often mistaken for hummingbirds, thus their name. They are as colorful as birds, so people often like to attract them to their gardens as they do birds.

The purple spotted swallowtail is a colorful member of the Papilionidae family. Because of this butterfly's bright coloration and geographic isolation, it long has been prized by collectors and...

Zebra swallowtails are relatively large butterflies known for their distinctive "zebra" patterning. Swallowtails inhabit low, moist woodland areas as well as open fields near rivers and streams.

"Stink bug" is the name given to insects of the Pentatomidae family, one of the families falling under the suborder of Heteroptera, or "true bugs." Stink bugs derive their less than flattering...

Carpenter bees do not live in hives, but rather they are solitary insects. The female bores holes into rough, unfinished wood to lay her eggs. Holes can be as shallow as six inches and as deep as...

The honeybee and carpenter bee differ in appearance. They also differ in behavior, particularly in dealing with their young. As a result, carpenter bees produce less honey than honeybees.

The carpenter bee and bumblebee are hard to tell apart. That is because there are varieties of carpenter bees with yellow and black hairy bodies, similar to bumblebees. However, the two have some...

Fruit flies are 1/8-inch long flying insects that appear most frequently in late summer and early fall. They like to live and eat off ripened, rotting and fermenting fruit, and vegetables. When...

Since the beginning of time, insects have plagued humankind. We have battled with flies, roaches, termites and even blood-sucking fleas in our homes and workplaces. Knowing how to indentify pest...

Wood ticks are the American dog tick and the Rocky Mountain wood tick. They are similar in appearance, and they are both responsible for transmission of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) to...

Many homeowners face what can seem like an assault by large bees during the spring and summer months. These are likely to be carpenter bees, a species of bee that lives in wood surfaces, from the...

The entire life cycle of a butterfly is a series of puzzling and unlikely events. From egg to mature adult, this solitary insect performs a complete four-staged metamorphosis. Scientists are...

As a child, I used to watch a lot of these adorable tent caterpillars turn into moths. It's not that difficult, either, to raise tent caterpillars. I mostly learned how from trial and error. There...

Forensic entomology is the study of insects in legal cases. Usually forensic entomology is associated with how insects feed on dead bodies, but the science may also be used in civil cases, such as...

Bees gather pollen from flowers and use it to make honey. It enables them to survive cold winters and create future generations of queens, workers and soldiers. Pollen is vital for bee survival,...