Interesting story

A new species of mantid discovered in Brazil.  The how of the discovery is as interesting as the fact that it was discovered.

End times

The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are “essential” for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.

[...]

The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanisation and climate change are also significant factors.

[...]

The 2.5% rate of annual loss over the last 25-30 years is “shocking”, Sánchez-Bayo told the Guardian: “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.”

One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects. “If this food source is taken away, all these animals starve to death,” he said. Such cascading effects have already been seen in Puerto Rico, where a recent study revealed a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years.

[...]

Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit. For example, the number of widespread butterfly species fell by 58% on farmed land in England between 2000 and 2009.

[...]

Bees have also been seriously affected, with only half of the bumblebee species found in Oklahoma in the US in 1949 being present in 2013. The number of honeybee colonies in the US was 6 million in 1947, but 3.5 million have been lost since.

[...]

Sánchez-Bayo said the unusually strong language used in the review was not alarmist. “We wanted to really wake people up” and the reviewers and editor agreed, he said. “When you consider 80% of biomass of insects has disappeared in 25-30 years, it is a big concern.”

[...]

Matt Shardlow, at the conservation charity Buglife, said: “It is gravely sobering to see this collation of evidence that demonstrates the pitiful state of the world’s insect populations. It is increasingly obvious that the planet’s ecology is breaking and there is a need for an intense and global effort to halt and reverse these dreadful trends.” In his opinion, the review slightly overemphasises the role of pesticides and underplays global warming, though other unstudied factors such as light pollution might prove to be significant.

[...]

Sánchez-Bayo said he had recently witnessed an insect crash himself. A recent family holiday involved a 400-mile (700km) drive across rural Australia, but he had not once had to clean the windscreen, he said. “Years ago you had to do this constantly.”

  The Guardian

I've noticed that out here in rural Midwest, myself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Sigh

I always check what stories Raw Story is reporting on their website, but I often find something to sigh about.  True, they're a young bunch of people, and they pull stories from everywhere and often have obscure political stories that don't get much play in other places.  I use the source as a headline collector.  But I do wish they would at least get an editor with some better skills.  Today, it's this story (which has an even larger picture on the page devoted to the story):

 

So, okay, maybe these guys have never lived anywhere that had crickets.  Or katydids - because that term is also used in the Agence France-Presse story they're posting.  A little sloppy in itself, because, while katydids and crickets are at least in the same family, they're not the same insect.  But a shield bug?  It's only distantly related to a cricket. Guys, that's what Google is for.  And don't just go to the images search, because Google puts up pictures that appear on a page with the term you're looking for - the images aren't necessarily that of what your searching.

Yes, I have more than the normal person's passing interest in insects, and recognized immediately what many others might not, but come on.  This should have been easy.


THIS JUST IN:

The Raw Story guys apparently just picked up the Agence France-Presse article along with the picture it had (which lets them off the hook, I suppose):



What's this world coming to?   Sigh.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And, if you're not strangely attracted to insects, but merely curious now about how closely related the shield bug is to the cricket, here's a little chart.  They're both insects.  That's about it.  (And if you want to be thought of as annoyingly nerdish, when someone calls a spider an insect, you can correct him, and let him know it's an arthropod.) This is the scientific classification layout for everything in the natural world.  (Humans are in the same kingdom as insects and part ways at the phylum level.  And actually, there are several steps above kingdom and subclasses in each step, but that's waaaaay too nerdy, even for me.)  When you come to the fourth step (Order), crickets and shield bugs part ways. Shield bugs (sometimes called stinkbugs, if that's what came to your mind when you saw the picture) belong to the order Pentatomidae, and crickets to the order Orthoptera. 

No, I don't keep that information in my head - I can barely keep my name and address there - I had to look up the orders for crickets and shield bugs.  Once upon a time, I did have to know them all and be able to identify what order any insect I saw belonged to.  Imagine how useless I am going to be in another couple of years, and they talk about raising the retirement age.