The painful bites of female march flies can ruin your day at the beach. When we’re not there, they bite wallabies, birds, and even reptiles.
- Director of the Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO
Insects are vital to sustaining life on Earth – and their numbers are falling fast. So consider ditching the fly spray and see what you can do to help.
Bush flies and blowflies all vomit on their food, but other flies are a little more polite at the dinner table and don’t vomit at all.
Australian taxonomy resources number around 70 million specimens, valued at over AU$5 billion. That’s big science.
Cockroaches and termites are closely related, and both pay their offspring a lot of attention – so much so in the latter’s case that the kids stay all their lives to help keep the nest clean and tidy.
While the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting an increase in the average temperature this summer, entomologists are forecasting an increase in insect activity.
At least 100,000 insects are among the many Australian species still to be formally identified. That’s a problem for any biosecurity experts who need to be able to spot potentially invasive bugs.
Our homes harbour hundreds of species of insects and their relatives.
Bees, wasps and ants – a group known as Hymenoptera – can claim the title of deadliest insects. How did they evolve to be so painful?
Scientists in Japan have discovered a new species of wasp that induces a zombie-like state in spiders in order to manipulate them into protecting the wasp’s own offspring.
Could climate change cause mosquito-borne diseases to spread? While this an extremely important health question, the answer is far from simple.
Insects are largely hidden from view or maligned unfairly, but they make a tremendous contribution to the Australian economy.
The time and date of the origin of insects and their pattern of evolution and survival over millions of years is revealed in a new study, published today in Science magazine. Insect relationships have…
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