Bumblebees at work, dotted with pollen.
Crabchick/Flickr
Bees offer insights into many scientific questions, from cooperating in close quarters to strategies for finding food.
Close up of a citrus swallowtail butterfly.
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There are 900,000 described species of insects in the world. Field guides help us make sense of them.
Artist’s rendering of the Chicxulub asteroid entering Earth’s atmosphere 66 million years ago, triggering events that caused a mass extermination.
Roger Harris/Science Photo library via Getty Images
Cockroaches have been on Earth far longer than humans and may outlast us. Here are a few reasons why.
A fly regurgitating digestive juices.
Carlos Ruiz
A fly does some of its digesting outside its body before it even eats any food.
Emerald ash borer larva cut these feeding galleries on the trunk of a dead ash tree in Michigan.
corfoto via Getty Images
Biological control strategies curb pests using other species that attack the invader. A biologist explains why it can take more than a decade to develop an effective biological control program.
Surveying moth caterpillars Douglas Boyes.
The increasing prevalence of white LED streetlamps spells worrying population declines for insects like moths.
In seven years, the lanternfly has spread from Berks County, northwest of Philadelphia, to large areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and both south and north.
Penn State/E. Swackhamer
The spotted lanternfly, native to Asia, is spreading fast since arriving in the United States seven years ago. An entomologist explains why this is a big problem.
Campers at the “Mosquitoes & Me” summer camp in Des Moines, Iowa, learn about mosquito science through hands-on outdoor activities.
Katherine R. Bruna
A hands-on approach to learning about bugs can help students from urban communities take an interest in science.
Bachkova Natalia/Shutterstock
We value bees for the jobs they do for the environment and us – why is the same not true of wasps?
An insect-friendly wildflower swath at California State University, Fullerton’s arboretum.
TDLucas5000/Flickr
Looking for a new gardening challenge? Turning your yard into an insect-friendly oasis could mean less work and more nature to enjoy.
Periodical cicada in Washington, D.C., May 2017.
Katha Schulz/Flickr
One of the largest groups of 17-year cicadas, Brood X, last emerged from underground in 2004. The next generation will arrive starting in April.
Only 10%-20% of cacao flowers are pollinated.
carlosgaw/E+ via Getty Images
Entomologists wonder if the insects currently pollinating farmed cacao are the right ones for the task.
Multiple queens ensure colonies have a steady output of workers.
Ryan Reihart
The spread of tawny crazy ants may be driven, in part, by their need for calcium. The calcium-rich limestone bedrock of the lower U.S. Midwest may provide ideal conditions for populations to explode.
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Learn how cicadas, the world’s loudest insects, create their cacophony, and why people in ancient Greece and ancient China admired them.
The European firebug was first discovered in North America in Utah in 2008 and has quickly expanded its range.
(Shutterstock)
Entomologists worried about invasive pests have thousands of curious community scientists posting their findings online — and identifying new species.
When they suck your blood they can leave behind the parasite that causes sleeping sickness.
Patrick Robert/Sygma via Getty Images
This insect’s unique reproductive biology could lead to new ways to control the species in the environment – and prevent the deadly sleeping sickness it spreads to people.
Swarms of locusts are seen on a tree in a residential area in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta on June 12, 2020.
BANARAS KHAN/AFP via Getty Images
Gene drive guarantees that a trait will be passed to the next generation. But should society use this tool to control insect populations?
Asian giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia japonica ) drinking sap from tree bark in Japan.
Alpsdake/Wikipedia
Are ‘murder hornets’ from Asia invading North America? A Japanese entomologist who’s been stung by one and lived to tell the tale explains what’s true about these predatory insects.
A Rosalia longicorn – the chosen insect of 2019 in Hungary by the Hungarian Entomological Society.
EPA-EFE/Peter Komka
The largest study of insect declines to date gives us the best indication of how species all over the world are faring.
These grasshoppers, like many insects around the world, are declining.
Dave Rintoul
Insect populations are falling as what they eat becomes more like iceberg lettuce and less like kale.