My Science School

Extraordinary fungus farmers

You've probably seen pamphlets on how to grow mushrooms at home and make money. Not surprisingly, many of us wonder if it would even work out. But leafcutter ants have no such qualms - they've been master fungus farmers for centuries. If you've seen a leafcutter ant carrying a piece of leaf you assume that it's going to be food. But these leaves are taken to a garden space and used as fertilizers on a fungal farm tenderly cared for by the ants. Some ants even lick the growing fungi to spread a type of bacteria that kill other competing fungi, thus acting as a pesticide. If this isn't advanced farming, what is?

Tireless invaders

Pine processionary caterpillars bear an uncanny similarity to Genghis Khan and his army. While Genghis Khan invaded cities, these caterpillars target pine forests. Hardly 2 cms in length when they emerge out of their cocoons, these caterpillars are blessed with super strong mandibles capable of chewing pine needles soon after birth. But that's just the beginning - - as they grow, they form a single line army and invade pine trees. They march bravely even at sub-zero temperatures and destroy massive coniferous forests in a very short time!

Choosing summer retreats

Do you dream of warm, sandy beaches in the winter and snowy slopes during the sultry summers? Guess what? Locusts love such getaways, too. You may travel solo or with a small group of friends or family, but locusts do it differently. When they migrate together, what a sight it is! Referred to appropriately as the 'gregarious phase', millions of locusts fly together in a mighty swarm that intimidates creatures big and small. They can ravage crops and forests leaving behind a sorry mess. They travel for very long distances, sometimes from northwest Africa all the way to Britain or even to the Caribbean if they fancy a vacation!

A taste for electronics

What was once the home of fire ants is now owned by tawny crazy ants that invade houses with a kind of determination that is plain scary! There was a time when people hated fire ants but they are nothing when compared these ants. Fire ants built mounds in backyards and hardly bothered you unless you stepped on their home. These crazy ants have been driving people mad. This is particularly because of the interest they show in electronic equipment. They have been spotted forming bridges between electrical contact points and causing short circuits!

Simple brain, amazing focus

Dragonflies possess one amazing quality that many of us struggle with. Did you know that dragonflies can focus on a target and filter out other useless information? This process is known as 'selective attention'. Imagine how useful it would be if we could do that. If only dragonflies could write a book on focus and concentration... now that would be a bestseller!

Picture Credit : Google

It would take 1.2 million mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the adult human body of blood! In the Arctic, Canadian researchers who bared their arms, legs, and torsos reported as many as 9,000 bites per minute from swarming, newly hatched mosquitoes. At that rate, an individual could lose half his blood in two hours!

A condition called hypovolemic shock sets in after you lose about 20% of your blood, and it leads to major organ failures because your heart loses the pressure necessary to circulate blood.

Another thing to consider is the amount of skin a human has for the mosquitoes to bite. An average person has about 1.75 square meters of skin. That means you'd need almost 6,300 Asian tiger mosquitoes feeding on each square centimeter of skin on your body

So unless they set up an orderly queuing system to get at your skin, there's little to no risk of having your blood drained by mosquitoes, let alone encountering a swarm of millions. But mosquitoes are not necessarily the most profilic bloodsuckers.

Credit :  Insider 

Picture Credit : Google

The Asian giant hornet is the largest hornet species in the world. Native to Southeast Asia and China, they can grow up to 2 inches long. As their sting can kill people, they are also called murder hornets. Considered an invasive pest, they pose a threat to the honeybee population.

The hornets like to create their nests by digging tunnels underground or using tunnels already dug by other animals. Their main sources of food are other larger insects, tree sap, and honey. Similar to the previously mentioned wasp species, Asian giant hornets also have a large stinger that contains a potent venom. If they sting something they usually release large amounts of venom, which can be lethal to humans if it occurs several times repeatedly. This is the reason why these wasps are often called murder hornets. Several Asian giant hornets were also spotted in the Pacific Northwest of North America, which caused mass panic because of how dangerous they can be. However, there were only several sightings and it is unclear whether more will continue to appear. 

Asian Giant hornet are social wasps that build a new nest yearly underground in abandoned rodent burrows or sometimes in dead, hollow trunks or the roots of trees. Nests can house over 300 insects. 

Similar to other social bees and wasps, the Asian giant hornet colonies are made up of one queen and non-reproductive female workers. In the springtime, queens will emerge from overwintering to feed and search for a suitable nesting site. She will build a nest, forage, lay eggs, and care for the young.

Once about 40 workers have reached adulthood, they take over foraging and caring for the colony, while the queen remains in the nest and lays eggs. At the end of summer, the queen will produce reproductive males and next year's queen.

In the fall the males will leave the nest and wait outside the nest entrance for the new queen to emerge. When she emerges, males will ambush and mate with her. After mating, she will look for a place to overwinter until next spring.

Picture Credit : Google

Have you heard of the "ant death spiral? It's a phenomenon wherein army ants circle round and round until they die of exhaustion. Army ants communicate using pheromones or chemical scents. When they fail to follow the scent trail left by other ants, they will break from the crowd and go around in circles.

Army ants — unlike most other ant species — are blind. They also lack permanent nesting sites. Instead of living at a single site, army ant colonies are constantly on the march en masse looking for food. As the first ant in line travels it leaves behind a pheromone trail that other ants sniff out and follow. When this system works well, it allows foraging parties lead larger groups back to food. When it doesn't work, the ants follow these pheromone trails as they flow back into each other, ending up in an endless loop that they follow to their doom. If the circle isn't broken for some reason, they will probably never escape.

Although there are more than 200 species of army ants living on both sides of the globe, genetic evidence indicates that they may all have common ancestors and have kept their evolutionary advantages and disadvantages for more than 100 million years. 

Credit : Treehugger 

Picture Credit : Google

The tarantula hawk, a kind of large parasitic wasp, paralyses a tarantula spider with its sting and then lays an egg into the spider so that when the egg hatches the larva will have enough food to feed on for weeks together. Its sting is considered to be one of the most powerful insect stings on Earth.

In most cases, tarantula hawks won’t sting unless you bother them first. They’re similar to wasps in that they are incredibly bold, but it would take stepping on one or picking one up for you to receive a sting.

If you do get stung, you’ve had some bad luck, as the sting of the tarantula hawk wasp is rumored to be one of the most intense, painful stings of all insects. Because their stingers are so large, very few animals eat them, and as a result, they have few natural predators.

Luckily, the sting is not dangerous, unless you are unfortunate enough to develop an allergic reaction. The area where you are stung may remain red for up to a week, but the pain from most stings subsides within just a few minutes.

To treat the sting, make sure you wash the site with antibacterial soap and warm water. This will reduce the likelihood of an infection. You can apply a cold compress, ice, or topical cortisone or antihistamine to relieve the pain, itch, and swelling.

Credit : Rest Easy Pest Control 

Picture Credit : Google