Tuesday, 12 January 2010
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News
A new species of cricket has been caught on camera - and its bizarre behaviour has surprised scientists.
Far from living up to the cricket's plant-destroying reputation, this species lends a helping hand to flora by acting as a pollinator.
Scientists say this is the first time a cricket has been spotted pollinating a flower - in this case, an orchid.
A study of the nocturnal insect, which was found on the island of Reunion, has been published in the Annals of Botany.
The creature has yet to be given a scientific name, but it belongs to the Glomeremus genus of crickets, which are also known as raspy crickets.
The insect was spotted by researchers who were attempting to find out how a species of orchid called Angraecum cadetii was being pollinated.
This green-white flower is closely related to the comet orchid, which is found in Madagascar.
Naturalist Charles Darwin predicted that because the comet orchid has an incredibly long nectar spur (the part of the plant that holds the sweet nectar), it would be pollinated by an insect with an equally long tongue.
It was later found that the nocturnal hawk moth with a proboscis measuring approximately 35cm (14in) in length was the pollinator.
However on Reunion, which is situated in the Indian Ocean, hawk moths are very rare and the Angraecum cadetii orchid has a shorter nectar spur than its Madagascan relative, so scientists suspected something else was pollinating it.
To solve this mystery, scientists trained a night-vision camera on the flower.
Claire Micheneau, from the University of Reunion, who carried out the research with the UK's Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), Kew, and the University of Strasbourg, France, told BBC News: "We were very surprised when we saw a cricket.
"Crickets usually eat flowers, not pollinate them."
The film shows a wingless cricket, which measures about 2-3cm (0.8-1.2in) in length and has extremely long antennae.
It crawls onto the flower and pokes its head in to the nectar spur to drink up the sweet liquid before leaving with lumps of pollen attached to its head and visiting other flowers on the orchid.
Dr Micheneau said: "This is the first time that we have seen flowers being regularly pollinated by a cricket."
The team added that the cricket seemed to be the only pollinator present on the flower and that it was extremely effective at doing the job, possibly thanks to the fact that the size of its head matched the size of the nectar opening on the orchid.
'Sophisticated' cricket
Further analysis of the cricket revealed that the species was new to science.
Professor Mark Chase, director of the Jodrell Laboratory at RBG Kew, said: "It really is a completely bizarre thing for a cricket to do and it is strange for an orchid to become adapted to that kind of pollinator."
The team added that the cricket was also unusual in other ways.
Professor Chase explained: "They do some fairly sophisticated things by cricket standards.
"Most crickets just stop eating and find a place to hide away during the daytime and it's usually a different place every time. But this one finds its way back to its own specific nest.
"And that is a key thing for being able to re-locate the orchids, because they go back to those several times, and it is that capacity to keep track of where they are in their environment that allows them to do this sort of navigation."
The research team is now looking at how the relationship may have come about.
Professor Chase said: "Orchids rarely co-evolve with their pollinators, mostly it is a case of the orchid adapting to an insect or animal that already exists that may visit flowers of other plants, and the orchids sort of tap into that."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8391540.stm
(Submitted by Tim Chapman)
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Friday, 8 January 2010
Disturbing spread of invasive bees
STEVE GRAY
January 8, 2010 - 6:13AM
A bee that has caused untold harm overseas is causing grave concern after it was found on the rich Atherton Tableland west of Cairns in far north Queensland.
Two swarms of Asian honey bees have been located on the Tableland, the latest near Lake Eacham.
It is not the bees themselves that are causing great concern, but the fact they can host the varroa mite.
These mites attack European honey bees and the hives sicken and eventually die.
No country has yet been able to eradicate these honey bees or the mites once they've become established.
Quarantine authorities managed to contain and destroy an incursion of Asian honey bees into Darwin in 1998.
Asian honey bees were first detected at the port of Cairns in May, 2007 and while none of the 41 colonies located and destroyed thus far have carried the mite, it may only be a matter of time before varroa mites invade the continent.
Australia is considered the last bastion against the mite which has devastated commercial honey production in the United States and Papua New Guinea.
Biosecurity Queensland's Asian honey bee eradication co-ordinator Charlotte Greer said while Cairns was home to few bee hives, there were many on the Atherton Tableland, adding to the risk the exotic bees could bring.
While the risk from the varroa mite to Australia's $75 million honey and beeswax industry is obvious, it pales into insignificance against bees' value in pollinating plants, estimated to be between $4 billion and $6 billion, according to a House of Representatives report.
Ms Greer said authorities were nonplussed that swarms were appearing on the Atherton Tableland up to 50 kilometres from the coastal areas around Cairns.
A swarm was found near Mareeba in August and another was spotted by an alert local at Lake Eacham this week.
"It's so far away from everything, that's the shock to us," Ms Greer said.
"We're just scratching our heads as to how the bloody hell it got there, but we're very keen to find out."
She said an "uninformed hobbyist" may have inadvertently moved the bees or a swarm may have escaped from a shipping container during transport.
Far north Queenslanders are being asked to check their properties for signs of the invaders.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/disturbing-spread-of-invasive-bees-20100108-lx3k.html
(Submitted by Matt Cardier)
January 8, 2010 - 6:13AM
A bee that has caused untold harm overseas is causing grave concern after it was found on the rich Atherton Tableland west of Cairns in far north Queensland.
Two swarms of Asian honey bees have been located on the Tableland, the latest near Lake Eacham.
It is not the bees themselves that are causing great concern, but the fact they can host the varroa mite.
These mites attack European honey bees and the hives sicken and eventually die.
No country has yet been able to eradicate these honey bees or the mites once they've become established.
Quarantine authorities managed to contain and destroy an incursion of Asian honey bees into Darwin in 1998.
Asian honey bees were first detected at the port of Cairns in May, 2007 and while none of the 41 colonies located and destroyed thus far have carried the mite, it may only be a matter of time before varroa mites invade the continent.
Australia is considered the last bastion against the mite which has devastated commercial honey production in the United States and Papua New Guinea.
Biosecurity Queensland's Asian honey bee eradication co-ordinator Charlotte Greer said while Cairns was home to few bee hives, there were many on the Atherton Tableland, adding to the risk the exotic bees could bring.
While the risk from the varroa mite to Australia's $75 million honey and beeswax industry is obvious, it pales into insignificance against bees' value in pollinating plants, estimated to be between $4 billion and $6 billion, according to a House of Representatives report.
Ms Greer said authorities were nonplussed that swarms were appearing on the Atherton Tableland up to 50 kilometres from the coastal areas around Cairns.
A swarm was found near Mareeba in August and another was spotted by an alert local at Lake Eacham this week.
"It's so far away from everything, that's the shock to us," Ms Greer said.
"We're just scratching our heads as to how the bloody hell it got there, but we're very keen to find out."
She said an "uninformed hobbyist" may have inadvertently moved the bees or a swarm may have escaped from a shipping container during transport.
Far north Queenslanders are being asked to check their properties for signs of the invaders.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/disturbing-spread-of-invasive-bees-20100108-lx3k.html
(Submitted by Matt Cardier)
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Zoological Survey stall a huge draw
Staff Reporter
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Tarantula spider, kept in a sand-filled glass case, was centre of attention at the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) stall at the Pride of India Exhibition organised on the sidelines of the ongoing 97th Indian Science Congress.
Most visitors tapped and stroked the glass case trying to evoke some response while the exhibitors requested them to leave the creature in peace.
Tarantulas are found in tropical and desert regions and are mostly harmless to humans.
The spider was the only live specimen on display at the stall. Preserved exhibits of rare moths, dragonflies, butterflies, fish varieties and small reptiles endemic to the Western Ghats were drawing crowds. Preserved specimens of ‘atlas moth,’ the largest moth species in the country; the rare ‘pig nosed frog, also called ‘living fossil,’ etc were on display.
“It is called living fossil because molecular studies show that this species has not had any morphological changes since two million years. Which means that it has lived with the dinosaurs,” said K.P. Dinesh, zoological assistant at ZSI, Kozhikode.
The Giant Earth Worm, another species endemic to Nilambur in Kerala, is another interesting display. This worm can grow up to a metre in length.
Taxidermy of a large size anteater was another interesting sight at the stall which also had on display lively pictures of the flora and fauna from the Western Ghats.
http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/05/stories/2010010550530200.htm
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Tarantula spider, kept in a sand-filled glass case, was centre of attention at the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) stall at the Pride of India Exhibition organised on the sidelines of the ongoing 97th Indian Science Congress.
Most visitors tapped and stroked the glass case trying to evoke some response while the exhibitors requested them to leave the creature in peace.
Tarantulas are found in tropical and desert regions and are mostly harmless to humans.
The spider was the only live specimen on display at the stall. Preserved exhibits of rare moths, dragonflies, butterflies, fish varieties and small reptiles endemic to the Western Ghats were drawing crowds. Preserved specimens of ‘atlas moth,’ the largest moth species in the country; the rare ‘pig nosed frog, also called ‘living fossil,’ etc were on display.
“It is called living fossil because molecular studies show that this species has not had any morphological changes since two million years. Which means that it has lived with the dinosaurs,” said K.P. Dinesh, zoological assistant at ZSI, Kozhikode.
The Giant Earth Worm, another species endemic to Nilambur in Kerala, is another interesting display. This worm can grow up to a metre in length.
Taxidermy of a large size anteater was another interesting sight at the stall which also had on display lively pictures of the flora and fauna from the Western Ghats.
http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/05/stories/2010010550530200.htm
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