This year’s Bama Bug Fest will be crawling your way April 22-24! Bug Enthusiasts will be able to participate in video live chats with experts, make crafts, and visit in-person exhibits at Alabama Museum of Natural History, Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum, and Tuscaloosa Public Library! For more details, visit: https://bamabugfest.org/
Most of the trillions from May’s Brood X swarm will arise and fly and feed — and be fed on — in their monthlong above-ground life along the East Coast, from North Carolina to Indiana to New Jersey, possibly in parts of Georgia.
On March 17, 2021, Dr. John Abbott (Director of Museum Research & Collections) was interviewed by WBRC to discuss cicadas!
With their jewel-toned bodies and glass-like wings, dragonflies have a story to tell scientists that starts with the origins of flight, millions of years ago, and continues to the health of freshwater habitats today.
Read More from Alabama entomologist part of international dragonfly database project
A large molecular study has confirmed what was thought for a while: some isolated groups with at most a handful of species each are so unique that they have no close living relatives remaining. Five new families were named and two were revived.
Read More from ‘Living Fossil’ Damselflies Get Their Own Families!
In the coming months, one of the largest broods of periodical cicadas to emerge in U.S. history will arise after a 17-year period underground. Dr. John Abbott, an entomologist and the director of research and collections for University of Alabama Museums who has studied cicadas since childhood, says they’re not a sign of the apocalypse. READ MORE
Tiny holes in three fossil clams reveal that by 75 million years ago, ancient octopuses were deviously drilling into their prey. The find pushes evidence of this behavior back 25 million years, scientists reported in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society last month.
Read More from Predatory octopuses were drilling into clamshells at least 75 million years ago
Predation is an evolutionary force shaping sea floor communities, with the record of drilling predation being particularly useful to study predatory behavior on short and long timescales. Most predatory drill holes are caused by gastropods, but octopods within Octopodoidea also produce characteristic drill holes, yet remain severely understudied in deep time.
Octopodoidea are a highly versatile and diverse group of marine predators comprising > 200 species today, but their diversity and ecology in deep time are virtually unknown. Because these soft-bodied cephalopods have a low preservation potential, only a single body fossil species has been documented.
Read More from Octopodoidea as predators near the end of the Mesozoic Marine Revolution
New research unveiled the earliest evidence of octopus predation in the fossil record. The evidence consists of tiny holes drilled in the clams they preyed upon during the Cretaceous period about 75 million years ago.
Read More from Evidence of Predation by Octopuses Pushed Back By 25 Million Years