NEWSWORTHY
Global 'catastrophic collapse' of insects threatening pollination and food chains: study
Nearly half of all insect species worldwide are in rapid decline and a third could disappear altogether, according to a study warning of dire consequences for crop pollination and natural food chains. "Unless we change our way of producing food, insects as a whole will ...
Bug business: Cockroaches corralled by the millions in China to crunch waste
In the near pitch-dark, you can hear them before you see them — millions of cockroaches scuttling and fluttering across stacks of wooden boards as they devour food scraps by the ton in a novel form of urban waste disposal. The air is warm and ...
Fancy some roasted crickets for a light snack? Look no further than in the local supermarket aisles. Sainsbury's has become the first British supermarket chain to stock edible insects in a bid to boost sustainable food sources that produce fewer greenhouse gases. "Insect snacks should no ...
Greek spiders spinning giant webs, enjoying smorgasbord of insects brought on by summer heat
It's not quite the World Wide Web — but the spiders of Aitoliko in Greece have made a good start. Spurred into overdrive by an explosion in the populations of insects they eat, thousands of little spiders in the western Greek town have shrouded coastal ...
Bugs struggle amid Japan's record summer heat
Specialists in Hyogo believe populations of mosquitoes and beetles have suffered this year as the moist environments where their young thrive have dried up in the heat wave.
Kids cheer on their bugs at the Kabutomushi Sumo Competition
The National Kabutomushi Sumo Tournament, where rhinoceros beetles are made to fight on tree branches instead of sumo rings, was held recently in Yamagata Prefecture.
Research into reverse-sex genitalia deserved award
In caves in Brazil there lives a tiny insect with the most extraordinary story. It feeds on bat droppings and chews on the dead carcasses of fallen bats. When it copulates, it does so slowly — a single sexual act takes up to 70 ...
Nagoya teen brings 100 paper insects to life at an art exhibit
With just a pair of scissors and plain drawing paper, Shinichiro Ishikawa, a 15-year-old high school student from Nagoya, can quickly create lifelike cutouts of insects such as a pink mantis poised to take down its prey or a yellow swallowtail butterfly with its ...
Red fire ants were found late last week in a container yard at the port of Kobe after some first turned up in a container that had passed through the port last month, the Environment Ministry said. Red fire ants are native to South America, ...
Ramen flavored with insects attracts thrillseekers in Tokyo
Within about four hours, the Ramen Nagi restaurant had sold out of the 100 bowls of "insect tsukemen" noodles it had prepared for Sunday's single-day event. The noodles were topped with about a dozen small crickets and mealworms, which customers then dipped into soups flavored ...
Japan's coveted cherry blossoms and other ecosystems threatened by alien species
Spring has come — the season when cherry blossoms bloom nationwide. But ecologists warn that Japan's most popular sites for hanami (cherry blossom-viewing) might disappear in the next couple of decades. This is because red-necked longhorn beetles, a species foreign to the country, are eating the ...
