Whats Brown and Sticky? No that's disgusting, i'm talking about stick insects. The article i am reviewing below is all about a newly discovered genus of stick insects. So read it, "stick" at it or ill give you "stick" about it.

An enigmatic new stick insect from the Philippine Islands by Marco Gottardo and Philipp Heller.

The abstract of the article focuses mainly on the new features that this genus of stick insect exhibit. Many features are described briefely here to make the difference clear. The genus is called Conlephasma. After just reading the abstract i found out quite a lot about this genus. The most interesting thing i think is the fact that they are ground dwelling insects. This is very cool, imagine walking along and all of a sudden a stick walks across your shoe - Awesome!!! They are also flightless so what i wonder is why they weren't found sooner! To add to all that they have very distinct and vivid colours, they look amazing - see picture below.

The article talks about the Phillippine archipelago, this is where the new stick insects were discovered. It is the second hottest biodiversity hotspot on earth. The type specimens were preserved and pinned in many collections around Europe.

Within the discussion of the article there are several main sections describing different aspects of the species. The first section describes male morphology. The main things i should point out is that they are considerably small in size, bright orange in colour and the head is longer than it is wide. The next section describes female morphology. The main difference being that they are considerably larger and broader than males and they are a bright olive green colour. The egg morphology is described in the next section. They are dark brown in colour and are about 4mm long.

The entire article is written and structured very well. It is very detailed and very easy to read. It sums up by stating the uniqueness of the newly discovered genus.

The reference for this article:

Marco Gottardo, Philipp Heller, An enigmatic new stick insect from the Philippine Islands (Insecta: Phasmatodea), Comptes Rendus Biologies, Volume 335, Issue 9, September 2012, Pages 594-601.

The article can be read at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069112001643

I think that article was:

For more about stick insects visit:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/stick-insect/

Bad beehaviour; Entomology by general onefile:

The bumble bee has always fascinated me and that is why i have chosen to write my first article about a paper about bumble bee behaviour. Not only do i find it fascinating, it may be arguable that it once or still is a NZ icon:

Bad beehaviour; Entomology by general onefile:

Well i chose this article for a very specific reason; the name has a pun in it and i love puns. Although to be honest that was my first intention, this article was very interesting as well and that's really why i plan to talk about it. This article focuses on the behaviour of bumble bees; specifically their nectar robbing behaviour. It talks about experiments that were done to determine whether the nectar robbing behaviour is innate (inherited) or learned.

The article starts off by saying that most people (Including myself actually) think of the bumble bee as a charming little creature that's slightly absurd. But it also discusses the bumble from a plants point of view; Flowering plants (if they could think) must only think of them as annoying little thieves.

It then talks all about nectar robbery. Let me explain in lay man’s terms; honey bees and wasps collect nectar in flowers then fly off once they are done. Bumble bees on the other hand, do a little bit more damage, in some cases when a bumble bee is unable to collect the nectar it must drill a hole in the side of the flower to collect it. This is why they are bad from a plants point of view.

Scientists used to believe that learned behaviour only occurred in vertebrates. In this article they performed experiments to see if nectar robbing is learned. A team monitored bumble bees in 13 different meadows and watched a bumble bee until it had visited 20 flowers. They noticed that all the bumble bees drilled the hole on the left side of the flower. After a period of dormancy, and new bumble bees were born, the older bees continued to drill holes on the left side and the younger bees learned this behaviour from the other bees.

The article concluded that nectar robbing is a learned behaviour and not innate.The bees have, in other words, created a simple culture. It is a criminal culture, admittedly. But no one ever said that nature was pretty.

Reference: "Bad beehaviour; Entomology." The Economist 27 Apr. 2013: 75(US). General OneFile. Web. 8 May 2013.

This article can be read at 

http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lincoln.ac.nz/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA327557116&v=2.1&u=lincoln1&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w

For more information on bumble bees, i recommend this site: 

www.bumblebee.org

For more information on nectar robbing i recommend this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectar_robbing

Here's a video of nectar robbing to see what i'm talking about:

Blogging... What's all the "Buzz" about

Well to be honest, i never would have predicted that i would be writing a blog, but actually what a great idea! Not only can this be a great procrastination tool, but also i can talk about what i enjoy and learn at the same time. I made this blog for a course assignment in ENTO304 at Lincoln University, the assignment is to review three articles from 2012/2013 and post them as a blog entry. So my goal is to find really "ento-resting" articles and tell you what i think. So comment and ask questions, let me know what you think, and i will certainly do the same.

My first review will be up soon it will be about the bumble bee. I have always found them "ento-resting"!!!