"....from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved...."

Parasitic fungus doses cicadas with psilocybin and makes their butts fall off.

Locust: The Opera



Based on the book. Apologia and libretto excerpt here.

Hey, as an opera subject, locusts beat the hell out of Steve Jobs!

Markia hystrix, the Lichen Katydid - this particular one's apparently in Costa Rica:

"An Inordinate Fondness for Wasps" is a damn good title.

Here is the paper itself.

>We challenge the oft-repeated claim that the beetles (Coleoptera) are the most species-rich order of animals. Instead, we assert that another order of insects, the Hymenoptera, are more speciose, due in large part to the massively diverse but relatively poorly known parasitoid wasps.

Functioning mechanical gears found in insects

Dr. Seuss illustrates Anopheles mosquitoes