Entomology

State entomologists have narrowed their investigation of mysterious stick-like insects that were distributed to schools in southeast Los Angeles County last fall. A week after receiving four of the bugs from a Walnut agricultural association, state experts announced Thursday that the so-called walking sticks are foreign to the United States, and must therefore be classified as minor pests. But the state remains stymied in its efforts to figure out what kind of bug it is.

Desert locusts are normally solitary individuals who eke out a meager subsistence while avoiding others of their species. But when food sources become abundant, such as after a rain, they transform into ravening packs of billions of insects that can strip a landscape bare. The key to the transformation, researchers said Friday, is the brain chemical serotonin, the chemical that in humans modulates anger, aggression, mood, appetite, sexuality and a host of other behaviors.

Not to offend, but this is about maggots and the good things they do. You see, maggots help solve crimes. To the faint of heart or weak of stomach, fear not. Graphic description is not the intent here. It is only to give the writhing, squishy larvae their due, for maggots, which evolve into the common fly, are one of the chief tools in a relatively new brand of sleuthing called forensic entomology. It is a field that is growing.

A tiny fossil that was discovered in the 1920s and then largely ignored has been identified as the oldest known insect, scientists report. The discovery pushes back the origins of Earth's most prolific life form about 20 million years. The new analysis of the 400-million-year-old specimen also suggests that it may have had wings, hinting that winged insects -- and insects in general -- arose much earlier than had been presumed.

Language, literature, religion and music have been so profoundly influenced by insects that a biologist is developing a new field of study strictly devoted to the cultural contributions of bugs. "Bugs frighten and fascinate people," said Charles Hogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. "Almost no aspect of our culture is untouched by these creatures."

Michael Rust spent another busy day figuring out what new weapons to use, planning the latest combative strategies in the never-ending war. "It's a worldwide battle against the same destructive forces in Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York City and Southern California. Look at these reports--same thing in Bulgaria, Poland, East Germany," sighed Rust, shuffling through papers.

Call him the Ant Man of Altadena. Also the Wasp Man, Beetle Man and Fly Man. Just watch as Robert H. Crandall--head down, rear up, arms bent and tucked to his sides--crouches his medium-sized frame into the attack pose of a deer fly. "They can bite you but good," said Crandall, 75, whose fascination with insects and crawling things dates from his childhood--and an actual, memorable bite.

While other gumshoes strap on their 9-millimeter pistols when called to a murder scene, Jim Webb packs his butterfly net. * Upon arrival, he may not even notice the shell casings, blood splotches or murder weapon and steps right over the corpse itself. "I'm not a real cadaver fan," Webb says. "I'm just interested in the bugs." The only forensic entomologist in Orange County, Webb is part biologist and part detective.

A tiny fossil that was discovered in the 1920s and then largely ignored has been identified as the oldest known insect, scientists report. The discovery pushes back the origins of Earth's most prolific life form about 20 million years. The new analysis of the 400-million-year-old specimen also suggests that it may have had wings, hinting that winged insects -- and insects in general -- arose much earlier than had been presumed.

The scribbled telephone message was brief, but it spoke volumes to San Diego insect expert David Faulkner. "Murder," it said, listing a Ventura County criminal investigator as the caller. "Has larvae preserved. Would like to talk to you about looking at them." Within days, Faulkner was investigating the murder of 34-year-old Jean Ellen Eubanks, an unemployed construction worker found dead under a pile of rocks north of Ojai.

Rick Vetter is desperately searching for yellow jackets. He hunts Southern California's foothills and flatlands, its urban and suburban neighborhoods. He scours theme parks, schools and zoos. At a Riverside park, Vetter listened for the yellow jacket's low buzz. He scooped a ball of raw chicken onto a plastic lid, set it on the ground and, within a minute, six of the stinging insects flew around the meat.

A chemical cocktail on ants' bodies tells other worker ants whether to go out foraging for food, according to researchers from Stanford University. Workers of the red harvester ant, which live in the desert, only go out foraging if other workers have safely returned from a preliminary patrol outside the nest.

"There are many paths to the truth," Zakaria Erzinclioglu, Britain's leading forensic entomologist, was fond of saying. For Erzinclioglu, who helped solve more than 200 murders over the last quarter-century, the path to the truth was paved with flies and maggots. Erzinclioglu, whose application of insect biology to the investigation of crimes earned him an international reputation, died Sept. 26 of a heart attack in England, although his death was not immediately reported in the London press.

Brazilian dinosaur ants and Mafia-style gangs have a lot in common, according to British researchers. Both live in tight-knit groups with dominant leaders who use strong-arm tactics to control their opponents and give the "kiss of death" to rivals who challenge their authority, according to entomologist Francis Ratnieks of the University of Sheffield. Dinosaur ants, which can grow to 1.6 inches long, live in small colonies with only one breeding ant, known as the "mother ant."

This is a story about a bug, a bird and a tree. The bug is a tiny caterpillar, the western spruce budworm, eating its way through eastern Washington forests. The tree is the Douglas fir, the budworm's favorite meal. The bird is the northern spotted owl, a federally protected species that frequents the same forests the budworms are devouring. Put them together and you get another story--a story about how hard it is to correct the damage when humans tamper with Mother Nature.

As if closing the doors on a tomb full of scarabs, UC Riverside began sealing off a new high-tech bug lab Friday, the only such facility in California and a key weapon in a campaign to protect Western crops from pests and the world from disease-carrying insects. After offering the public a final glimpse of the $15-million, 28,000-square-foot insectary and quarantine, university officials will carefully shield it from the outside world--not for the sake of secrecy, but security.

Ron Taylor didn't ask for fame then or now. The appearances on the Johnny Carson show, "To Tell the Truth" and the front-page headlines in the late '60s were not his idea. He was simply a researcher in the UC Irvine entomology department when his long and unusual Odyssey began with a Rotarian who wanted him to say a few words on any topic at a club luncheon. Searching for an interesting subject, Taylor latched onto a file he compiled in graduate school on eating bugs.

The long-held notion that the tasty viceroy butterfly escapes being eaten by birds by mimicking the coloration of foul-tasting monarch and queen butterflies has been overturned by two Florida biologists who tested the century-old belief experimentally. They report in today's edition of the British journal Nature that they tore the wings off all three types of butterflies and fed their bodies to red-winged blackbirds for a novel taste test.

Like all tales of the macabre, this one begins innocently enough. Just a boy and his butterfly net. As a child, Brian Brown chased brightly colored insects near his home in Toronto. Little did he know that he would one day stand eyeball-to-compound-eyeball with the dark side of nature. And love it. These days, as a mild-mannered but world-renowned entomologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Brown dedicates his professional life to unearthing the secrets of Diptera:Phoridae.

The latest wave of European immigrants to invade Missouri may upset some people, but scientists say European Hornets actually benefit the ecosystem. The European Hornet is the largest of the vespid wasps in North America, growing to 1.5 inches. Vespid wasps live in colonies. The European Hornet is the only wasp that is brown with yellow markings, says Richard Houseman, entomologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia.