Insects News

Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.

The insects of the EU and US are the best studied in the world, and it is here that a strengthening case can be made for an alarming insect abundance decline.

Recent surveys hint at an insect apocalypse. But are insects at risk globally? Mongabay talks with 24 scientists on 6 continents to find out in an exclusive new series.

It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…

Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…

Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…

All you need to find out how many dung beetles survive in a damaged rainforest is a plastic cup, a length of string, a plate, a piece of muslin ……

Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.…

The puma family took biologist Mark Elbroch by surprise. They were supposed to be a ways off. But here they were, year-old kittens, bungling the final moments of a baby…

Scientists have long wondered why zebras wear striped coats — none other than Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin are known to have debated the question well over a century…

Attitudes toward grasshoppers and other leggy insects were immortalized in popular culture with Disney Pixar’s 1998 animated hit “A Bug’s Life.” “They come, they eat, they leave,” a main character…

KILIFI COUNTY, Kenya — If 51-year-old Hillary Thoya were to choose a lucky number, it would surely be 5,000. That’s the amount, in Kenyan shillings, the logger and carpenter turned…

On today’s episode, we talk with Mongabay contributor Martha Pskowski, who recently traveled to central Mexico to report on threats to monarch butterflies in their overwintering grounds. Listen here:  …

Engineered by insect intelligence, the hive was a convoluted mesh of waxy secretions and labyrinthine cavities. Worker bees streamed through its recesses. Bulbous pods brimmed with fresh honey. It was…

Many pollinator insect species like bees, butterflies, and hoverflies are on the decline, due in large part to habitat destruction driven by conversion of land to agricultural fields and urbanization.…

Normally we only hear about the problems and risks of biological control, the use of one introduced organism to manage another. But one inconspicuous insect has accomplished miracles across tropical…

Fewer and fewer monarch butterflies are reaching their overwintering grounds in Mexico every year, and new research might shed light on why. The mountains of central Mexico represent such critical…

ZITÁCUARO, Mexico - “As long as the butterflies keep coming, we’ll still have work here,” says Javier Ambrocio, looking out over the Sierra Chincua Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. A cold breeze…

A king penguin standing out starkly from the crowd took the top prize in the British Ecological Society’s “Capturing Ecology” photo competition this year. Chris Oosthuizen of South Africa’s University…

“It’s easy to quantify if insects are dead,” said Harvard post-doctoral fellow James Crall, lead author of the recent study “Neonicotinoid exposure disrupts bumblebee nest behavior, social networks, and thermoregulation.”…

In the thorny-scrub forests of northeastern Brazil, some 200 million conical termite mounds rise from the ground. The densely packed piles, visible on Google Earth, are not only large — about…

Rising temperatures seem to have made a southern African park less hospitable to the tsetse fly (Glossina spp.), the carrier of a dangerous disease-causing microorganism, new research shows. Named for…

Since the arrival of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) caterpillar in West Africa in early 2016, true to its name, it has been marching quickly and mercilessly through the continent,…

With around half the world’s forest cover cleared or otherwise degraded at some point in the recent past, the new forests that pop up to replace them – called secondary…

Insects already eat between 5 and 20 percent of the most important grain crops produced around the world — and new research finds that they could be responsible for even…

Climate change could shift the appetites of Arctic spiders, leading to the slower release of carbon from the thawing tundra, according to new research led by biologist Amanda Koltz of…

Biologist David Mackay got a surprise when he began studying the birds visiting fig trees in his native Australia: While he expected to see plenty of species coming to eat…

Scientists in Belgium have used 36 years of footage from an annual bicycle race to pinpoint the time each year when leaves and flowers appeared on trees and shrubs, allowing…

Tropical forests are key defenders in the fight against climate change. They lock down around 25 percent of the world’s carbon in their canopies, trunks and soils, a function so…

Scientists have long suspected a relationship between deforestation and some infectious diseases. For instance, the 2014 Ebola crisis has been linked to logging that may have put workers and their…