Arthro-Pod

Latest Episodes:

Arthro-Pod EP 170: Tour of the State Insects Dec 18, 2024

Show notes

The individual states that make up the United States of America often choose state symbols that represent different facets of their agriculture, their traditions, their cuisine, and their people. In fact, most states have even dipped into the entomological world to choose insect symbols such as state insects, state butterflies, or state agricultural insects. In this episode, the Arthro-Pod gang parses through the mix of chosen insects and points out which ones are amazing and which ones could stand to be improved. Suffice to say, we try to get rid of all the honey bee picks. Tune in to find out if your home state (if you're American) is lauded or booed and hear some proposals for the two holdout states of Iowa and Michigan.

Show Notes

Wikipedia list of state insects

Thought Co Article on choices and history

Questions? Comments?

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Arthro-Pod EP 169: Arthro-Pod Watches ”Arachnophobia” Nov 19, 2024

Show notes

Welcome back bug lovers! We apologize for the delay in new content but some technical difficulties have been felt. Everything is back on track now and we'll be posting frequently to end 2024! Tune in to this belated Halloween celebration where we dive into the 1990 film, "Arachnophobia". Prep yourself for some bizarre spider behavior, as well as John Goodman hamming it up as a fascinating practitioner of the pest control arts.

Questions? Comments?

Follow Mike on Bluesky @NapoleonicEnto
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Arthro-Pod EP 168 The Great Insect Fair at Penn State Sep 30, 2024

Show notes

Join Michael Skvarla of Penn State Entomology for a tour around the annual Great Insect Fair.

Questions? Comments?

Follow the show on Twitter @Arthro_Podshow Follow the hosts on Twitter @bugmanjon, @JodyBugsmeUNL, and @MSkvarla36 and Bluesky @NapoleonicEnto
Get the show through Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcatching app!If you can spare a moment, we appreciate when you subscribe to the show on those apps or when you take time to leave a review!
Subscribe to our feed on Feedburner!

Arthro-Pod EP 167: What’s New with Spotted Lanternfly with Dr. Julie Urban Sep 16, 2024

Show notes

Spotted lanternfly is one of the most dashing and prominent invasive species in the United States. This colorful planthopper is known for feeding on tree of heaven (another invasive species...) and grapes amongst quite a few others. Though they are likely best known for being being big and colorful and for going to bathroom all over everything. Join the Arthro-Pod gang as they sit down with Dr. Julie Urban of Penn State to talk all about what has happened with SLF since she last joined us in 2021!

Show Notes

https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly

https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly-frequently-asked-questions

https://cals.cornell.edu/new-york-state-integrated-pest-management/outreach-education/whats-bugging-you/spotted-lanternfly/spotted-lanternfly-reported-distribution-map

https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly-management-guide

Questions? Comments?

Arthro-Pod EP 165 Pheromones and Fireflies with Dr. Sarah Lower Sep 03, 2024

Show notes

On today's episode, Michael is flying solo when he interviews Dr. Sarah Lower of Bucknell University. Dr. Lower is an expert on the evolution of signaling in the fireflies, one of the more popular group of insects we have here on Earth. Usually when people think of this flashy group, they visualize their ability to light up. Tune in to hear Dr. Lower talk about how not all fireflies are illuminated and her work with a pheromone for Lampyridae.

If you want to learn more about Dr. Lower's work, check out her lab website.

Questions? Comments?

Arthro-Pod EP 166: Scratching the Oak Itch Mite itch Aug 28, 2024

Show notes

Hello bug lovers and welcome to another episode of Arthro-Pod! Today, we're going to the world of mites, specifically, we will talking all about the pyemotes itch mite. This teeny tiny biting pest has been making a splash in the news recently, with lots of people in Chicago and other Illinois city's complaining about their painful nibbles. We'll talk all about the seemingly mysterious origins of the oak leaf itch mite, how entomologists in the US were first introduced to it, and why it's making headlines in 2024. Tune in, we don't bit even if the mites do!

Itch mites in action, photo by Steve Jacobs, Penn State.

Show Notes

Mike talked about elm zig zag sawfly in our Catching up part of the podcast. If you want to learn more about the pest there is an upcoming webinar presented by Penn State University.

FREE Webinar on Sept 9: Frontiers in Forest Health: Elm Zigzag Sawfly

Link to Register: https://extension.psu.edu/frontiers-in-forest-health-elm-zigzag-sawfly

If you want to read more about the non-native forest pest and see some good images, check out the article by Dr. David Coyle from Entomology Today in 2023

https://entomologytoday.org/2023/07/20/here-we-go-again-meet-the-elm-zigzag-sawfly-another-non-native-forest-pest/

Oak itch mites in the news

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/national-news/mystery-bug-bites-in-chicago-area-may-be-connected-to-cicadas/

Oak Itch Mites References

Cloyd, R. A. 2019. Oak leaf itch mite. K-State Research and Extension. MF2806. https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/download/oak-leaf-itch-mite_MF2806
Broce, A. B., Zurek, L., Kalisch, J. A., Brown, R., Keith, D. L., Gordon, D., Goedeke, J. Welbourn, C., Moser, J., Ochoa, R., Azziz-Baumgartner, E., Yip, F., and Weber, J. 2006. Pyemotes herfsi (Acari: Pyemotidae), a mite new to North America as the cause of bite outbreaks. 43(3): 610-3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16739423/
Glosner, S. E., and Kang, E. 2008. Pyemotes, the mysterious itch mite. U.S. Pharmacist. 33(5): 59-64. https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/pyemotes-the-mysterious-itch-mite
Grob, M., Dorn, K., and Lautenschlager, S. 1998. Getreidekrätze Eine kleine Epidemie durch Pyemotes spezies Eine kleine Epidemie durch Pyemotes spezies. Hautarzt. 49(11):838-43. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s001050050835
Jacobs, S. 2015. Oak leaf itch mite. PennState Extension. https://extension.psu.edu/oak-leaf-itch-mite
Keith, D. L., Kalish, J. A., and Broce, A. R. 2005. Pyemotes itch Mites. UNL Extension NF05-653. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/extensionhist/1737/
Krantz, G. W. and Walter, D. E. (editors). 2009. A Manual of Acarology (3rd ed.) Texas Tech University Press. Pp. 78, 79, 314, 315.
Kritsky, G. 2021. One for the books: The 2021 emergence of the periodical cicada Brood X. American Entomologist, 67(4):40-46. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmab059
Talley, J. 2015. Finally found: Oak leaf itch mite. Oklahoma State University Extension Pest e-alerts. https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/332675/oksa_pestealerts_v14n44.pdf?sequence=1
Zaborski, E. R. 2007. Outbreak of human pruritic dermatitis in Chicago, Illinois caused by an itch mite, Pyemotes herfsi (Oudemans, 1946) (Acarina: Heterostigmata: Pyemotidae). https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/18258

The life and times of an itch mite, credit to Broce et al. 2006

Arthro-Pod EP 164: Mothman versus Arthro-Pod Aug 01, 2024

Show notes

Greetings from the void, bug lovers! Today's episode is a bit different in flavor... Michael and Jonathan met up this month for a dual family vacation and they are in search of the mythical Mothman! Join them as the delve into the world of cryptozoology and ask the question, why aren't there more insect cryptids? Check out the show notes to hear from John Acorn, entomology luminary, on this exact topic. Then, listen as they recount the tale of Mothman, who or what was he? Why were people in Point Pleasant, WV seeing him and what does he mean to a couple of entomologists with podcast gear? All this and more in this paranormal Arthro-Pod!

*One word of warning! At the end of our discussion on Mothman, there is a strange issue with the audio that warps our voices. This was not intentional on our part. Perhaps we had disgruntled him and he took it out on our podcast gear!*

The first indication we were in Mothman territory.
Walking to the Mothman Museum, we encountered a Man in Black.
"Welcome to the museum"
View inside the main room of the Mothman Museum.

The museum has an impressive number of newspaper clippings about the Mothman sightings. I'm honestly surprised about how much coverage it got at the time.
Paraphernalia from the Mothman Prophesies movie.
Your intrepid hosts.
Sticker graffiti we saw outside of the Mothman Museum. Goatman is a fair distance away from his home range in Prince George County, Maryland.
This mayfly we saw on a window outside of the Mothman Museum was the only insect involved in this episode.

Show notes

John Acorn on entomology and cryptozoology

The fandom wiki focused on "cryptids"

Darwin's hawkmoth

Questions? Comments?

Arthro-Pod EP 163: A Dip into Strepsiptera Jul 19, 2024

Show notes

Today's episode is a twisted one! After meeting one of our listeners a while back, there was a request for a deep dive into the world of strepsiptera, aka the twisted wing parasites. This order of insects may not be a big one, but they do hold a lot of surprises. Mike leads Jody and Jonathan through a tour of their biology, taxonomy, and why they are so useful for students who are in an insect collection course. Tune in!

Questions? Comments?

Arthro-Pod EP 162: The Insect Head Jun 28, 2024

Show notes

Hello bug lovers! On today's episode of Arthro-Pod, the gang will be taking you on a journey through the first section of an insect's body, the head. This magnificent center for information gathering and processing has many wonderful adaptations of internal and external anatomy that it's truly a marvel to dissect and consider. Tune in to hear all about how the insect head came to be, what important processes occur in the head, and how fun it is to have your esophagus run through the middle of your brain!

Show notes

Joro spider: https://jorowatch.org/
Link to 1975 Head Problem Paper
Antennae
Compound eyes
How bees see flowers: https://photographyoftheinvisibleworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/simulated-bee-vision-ii.html
Treehopper heads: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/treehoppers-bizarre-wondrous-helmets-use-wing-genes-grow-180973713/

Questions? Comments?

Arthro-Pod EP 161: Insect Decline with Dr. Eliza Grames Jun 14, 2024

Show notes

Hello bug lovers and welcome back to Arthro-Pod! On today's show, the gang sits down with Dr. Eliza Grames of Binghamton University to talk about insects in decline. Terms like "insect apocalypse" are used in the media often and people have been asking Extension professionals about the gradual disappearance of things like fireflies and monarchs, Eliza helps to unpack what we know is happening with bug populations across the world. Plus, learn how scientists dissect huge stacks of data to better understand these declines and what fewer bugs might mean for things like birds. Tune in for all of it!

Show notes

https://elizagrames.github.io/

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023989118

Questions? Comments?

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