All articles tagged with #beetles
The Royal Entomological Society has announced the winners of its Insect Week photography awards. The winning entries include a spotted tiger beetle, an ashy mining bee, an Aphaenogaster iberica ant, a female wasp, a Bombus terrestris bumblebee, and a male orange tip butterfly.
Beetles can rehydrate themselves by drinking trace amounts of water floating in the air through their rectums. They can also reabsorb water from their poop, and their butts are surprisingly proficient at wringing moisture out of it, too. Researchers have discovered a gene called NHA1 that is essential to this process, which is new knowledge for us. The study can help develop more targeted methods to combat beetle species which destroy our food production, without killing other animals or harming humans and nature.
Scientists have discovered that beetles can absorb water through their rectums and convert it into fluid, which is then absorbed into their bodies. This is due to a gene known as NHA1, which is expressed 60 times more in the beetle's rectum compared to the rest of the animal. The insects can go their entire lives without drinking water through their mouths, thanks to their modified rectum and closely applied kidneys, which together make a multi-organ system that is highly specialized in extracting water from the food that they eat and from the air around them.