Looking for something really different to give your loved one this Valentine’s Day? How about a roach?

How better to express your appreciation for that special someone than to name one of the Bronx Zoo’s 58,000 Madagascar hissing cockroach after them? Best of all, when you purchase this everlasting gift, you’ll help support the Wildlife Conservation Society and its five parks in New York City.

Ok, so technically, it might not be the most romantic gift, but it’s certainly something that won’t soon be forgotten, which is more than you can say about a dozed roses.

Link Via The Mary Sue

Antdude, if you’ve been waiting for an article to be specifically dedicated to only you, here you go. Of course, even those of you who aren’t insect/human hybrids will be sure to enjoy io9′s fascinating article featuring 10 frightening facts about ants. For example, did you know:

Ants have already survived a mass extinction event
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event is thought to have occurred approximately 65 million years ago following an absolutely massive impact event. Widely regarded as the downfall of the dinosaurs (and, incidentally, the rise of mammals), the years following the KT-extinction event are actually believed to have been a time of incredibly rapid speciation and worldwide expansion for ants, marking what researchers Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson call “a rise to ecological dominance.”

Really, there’s a good chance ants will outlive humans as well.

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We tend to think of insects as creepy and crawly, but not so much cute. But there are some bugs that are simply precious…maybe not as much as a puppy or kitty, but definitely cute nonetheless. If you dig on six-legged cutie pies, then don’t miss this great article featuring some of the most photogenic invertebrates around.

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Ant farms are cool in and of themselves, but that doesn’t mean their designs can’t be improved on to look even more fascinating. WebEcoist has a great collection of some of the coolest ant farms around. From flags of different nations to the Clone Trooper farm, these toys make me want to go buy my own ant farm.

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You know how when you cut a worm in half you’ll get two worms and how mice love cheese? If you said yes, then actually you don’t know much about these creatures. Cracked recently took a look at common animal myths that are actually totally bogus. How many of these did you still believe before you read the article?

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“I’m all for it,” says Keith Brouillard, owner of Raleigh, N.C.’s Carolina Forestry, a consulting group that helps manage timber land for private owners. “Kudzu is a nuisance and almost impossible to get rid of.” The vine is virtually impervious to herbicides, chain saws and even fire. Its roots can weigh 300 pounds and run 12 feet deep.

But the bug is also chewing up soybean stalks, reducing some yields recently by as much as a quarter, according to entomologists at the University of Georgia.

“Disappearing kudzu is a cultural problem,” says John Shelton Reed, a sociologist and essayist on Southern life. “But disappearing soybeans is an economic problem.”

Researchers are looking for ways to protect soybean crops from Megacopta cribraria while still searching for a species that will kill kudzu and leave crops alone. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: University of Georgia at Griffin)

Recreating this method means finding materials that can not only detect the presence of an insect but also close on it quickly. At Seoul National University in South Korea, Seung-Won Kim and colleagues have done this using shape memory materials. These switch between two stable shapes when subjected to force, heat or an electric current.

The team used two different materials – a clamshell-shaped piece of carbon fibre that acts as the leaves, connected by a shape-memory metal spring. The weight of an insect on the spring makes it contract sharply, pulling the leaves together and enveloping the prey. Opening the trap once more is just a matter of applying a current to the spring.

Mohsen Shahinpoor at the University of Maine in Orono took a different approach. His robot flytrap uses artificial muscles made of polymer membranes coated with gold electrodes. A current travelling through the membrane makes it bend in one direction – and when the polarity is reversed it moves the other way.

Bending the material also produces a voltage, which Shahinpoor has utilised to create sensors. When a bug lands, the tiny voltage it generates triggers a larger power source to apply opposite charges to the leaves, making them attract one another and closing the trap (Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, DOI: 10.1088/1748-3182/6/4/046004).

“We should be able to benefit enormously from these flytrap technologies,” says Ioannis Ieropoulos of the Bristol Robotics Lab in the UK. He and colleagues previously developed Ecobot, a robot that can digest insects, food scraps and sewage to power itself. Ecobot uses bacteria to break down a fly’s exoskeleton in a reaction that liberates electrons into a circuit, generating electricity.

It’s an interesting premise, the bug-eating robot. I’d personally never thought of feeding a machine anything other than electricity (or sunlight for the solar-powered variety).

If you built a robot, which fuel source would you design it to run on?

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This ad shows how efficient Snapdragon processors are by inferring that they can be powered by insects. And if you care about cruelty to bugs, you should know that the actual circus acts are special effects, a well-done combination of CGI and image collage. Which is less expensive than actually procuring bugs this big! -Thanks, Dustin Willson!

This photo shows a replica of Bocydium globulare, the Brazilian Treehopper. It’s a real insect -scout’s honor! See more pictures of this treehopper and other bizarre bugs at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

(Image credit: Alfred Keller for Berlin’s Naturkundemuseum)

If you’re one of those people who think insects aren’t pretty, particularly big ones like the praying mantis, well then, you’d better take a look at this great BuzzFeed article that’s sure to change your mind.

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I know just as well as anyone else how easy it is to hate rats, mosquitoes and wasps, but like many other pests, these creatures are entirely necessary for our survival and for the ecosystems we call home. This great Cracked article explains why.

Warning: Some  of the language is NSFW.

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Are you tired of your coworkers stealing your lunch? You need the Lunch Bugs Sandwich Bags from the NeatoShop.  If the fly bag doesn’t stop them in their tracks the cockroach bag sure will!

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Kitchen Stuff!

UK artist Tom Hardwidge makes intricate steampunk insect sculptures he calls Arthrobots from recycled materials, including deactivated ammunition and watch parts. Some of these delicate artworks are for sale!

Link | Artist’s site -Thanks, John!

Image via Thomas G. Moertel [Wikipedia]

Beetles are one of the most common types of animals in the world. There are already 350,000 known species, but scientists believe there could be up to 8 million more. New beetle species are discovered at an amazing rate of about one per hour. With so many different types of beetles, it’s hardly surprising there are around 750,000 trillion beetles on earth!

The secret to the beetle’s success is its ability to adapt to almost any environment. They can fly, swim and burrow and different species can survive on anything from tobacco to bonemeal to carpet to strychnine to fiber insulators on cables. The also survive in all types of habitats. One species, the zonocopris gibbicolis survives exclusively on the feces of land snails, living in the best possible place to get that meal –inside the snail’s shell.

As if their diets and living quarters weren’t weird enough, some beetles also have seriously strange breeding habits. The flour beetle (seen above) has sperm that attaches to the members of other beetles that breed with the same female. The sperm has a long shelf life and can then go on to fertilize the eggs of other female beetles. In fact, the female flour beetle has a one in eight chance of being fertilized by a male she never even encountered before.

Image via ©Entomart [Wikipedia]

The blister beetle spreads its larvae with the help of digger bees (pictured above) in what is called a honeytrap. The larvae cling together and form the shape of a female digger bee while emitting bee pheromones. A male digger bee will then approach the trap and attempt to mate with it, giving the larvae a chance to cling onto his chest hairs and hitch a ride to an actual mate. When they get the chance, the larvae then grab on to the female bee and catch a ride to the inside of the hive where they can feed on young bees and honey.

Don’t think for a second that bees are always the innocent victims of beetles though. The stingless bee (pictured below) takes revenge on invading beetles not by striking them down, but by mummifying their bodies in large amounts of resin, mud and wax. The beetle then slowly suffocates before shriveling up like a mummy corpse.

Image via Muhammad Mahdi Karim [Wikipedia]

Bees are fascinating creatures aside from their fighting skills. Outside of humans, bees have the most sophisticated communication systems in the animal kingdom. They can tell each other exactly how to get to a food source and how good the food is using a series of different movements. This method of communication is known as the “waggle dance.” Humans can actually translate the waggle dance and scientists can actually track down a specific flower that one bee mentions to another while under observation.

Bees also have fairly good memories. They can remember human faces in laboratory tests –of course, they were given nectar every time they were shown a certain face, so they really just thought the face was a weird type of flower .

The ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians believed the insects were sacred, thanks in part to their ability to provide humans with honey. Bees are the only animal to provide us with a food source that isn’t milk or meat. Honey is the only food that will never go bad. Archeologists have even eaten honey that was buried in three-thousand year-old tombs of the Pharaohs.

Of course, while humans love honey, it’s not the only food source that bees are responsible for. The insects pollinate many of our fruit and vegetable crops –over $19 billion worth in the U.S. alone.

Unfortunately, that means we depend on bees for the majority of our fruits and veggies. With colony collapse disorder rates increasing all the time while scientists argue about the cause, the entire bee population –and our food supply is at risk. If the colony collapse disorder manages to eradicate the entire bee population, we’ll not only be eating a lot less food in general, we’ll have to start eating a lot more beans, corn, tomatoes and beets.

Because beets are incredibly nutritious and pollinated by the wind, they are one of the staple crops that scientists believe we would be forced to eat regularly if bee colonies completely collapse. But that’s not the only thing to make these veggies special.

Image via Quadell [Wikipedia]

While we tend to think about the red-bulbed beetroots when we hear the word “beet,” there are actually many varieties of beets including the sugar beet and Swiss chard. Beets were first cultivated around 4,000 BC and have been grown across Europe and Asia for thousands of years. During its early history, the most commonly grown beets were the leafy varieties, but after spinach cultivation began, interest turned to the beetroot and sugar beets.

If you think that you don’t eat beets, you’re probably wrong. Not only is 30% of all sugar manufactured made from sugar beets rather than sugar canes, many commercial food products use beetroots for coloring and as a natural sweetener. Of course, if you love beets and eat too many, you’ll most certainly realize it –your urine will turn pink.

Image via Darkone [Wikipedia]

While beets may not be at the mercy of bees for pollination, they can still be victimized by other insects –particularly beetles. Those bee-hating blister beetles mentioned above (and pictured directly above) have a soft spot for potatoes, but their second favorite food is beets. While these beetles can destroy whole crops of beets, anyone who finds them on their veggies is well advised not to remove the bugs by hand –they’re named blister beetles after the injuries they give humans. The beetles secrete a chemical called a vesicant that causes swelling, blisters and burning sensations. The injuries often turn black, leave scars and become infected.

What do you guys think about the beetles, bees and beets connection? Are there any other strange connections you’d like to see explored in more detail?

Sources: The Book of Animal Ignorance, Scientific American, Google Books, Wikipedia #1, #2, #3

As the economy sputters, everyone’s looking for new ways to save on food. So, we’ve collected a whole bunch of no-budget meal ideas for those of you daring enough to scrimp.

1. Tree Bark

A classic meal of human desperation, tree bark has become a must-have meal during periods of scarcity. But you don’t have to eat it al dente the way termites and beavers do. Inhabitants of the Lapland in Finland, for example, are known to make bread with ground tree bark during cruel winter months, and several Native American groups use tree bark as a dietary supplement. In fact, the Adirondack Mountains derive their name from a derisive term for the Algonquin Indians that means “tree eaters”.

Not all bark is equally edible, so you’ll have to experiment with your neighborhood flora. Some popular favorites include aspen, birch, willow, maple, and pine -trees common in cities and forests alike. So sharpen your teeth and dig in!

How to Prepare

For the choicest strips of bark, be sure to go for the nutritious, tender inner layer known as the cambium. (Eating the outer bark would be no more pleasant than chomping into your bookshelf.) If some resin or gum oozes out as you pry off the main course, be sure to lap it up for quick energy. Here are a few fun ways to serve tree bark:

Raw. Shred finely and chew thoroughly.

Slice it into strips and boil it to make a rustic pasta. Top with sap, dandelion greens, or insect parts (see entry #2). Alternatively, you can add the noodles to a stew.

Dry and grind into flour. The ground bark is pretty versatile and can be mixed with water into a breakfast gruel, baked into bread, added to soup for extra body, or even guzzled straight like a Pixy Stick.

2. Bugs

With more than 10 quintillion of these creepy crawlies infesting the planet, bugs are a virtually limitless source of protein and flavor. Bug eating exists in nearly every culture; in fact, approximately 10 percent of the protein consumed around the world comes from bugs! There are grasshopper tacos, steamed ant eggs, and even fried tarantulas. In the United States, the FDA permits a limited number of insect parts in commercial foods, such as five fly maggots per pound of pizza sauce. While most of our big eating in this country is unintentional, it doesn’t have to be.

How to Prepare

In general, avoid brightly colored bugs, which tend to be poisonous, and always be sure to remove any shells, wings, or other textural offenses. Also, cook them before eating to kill off the inevitable parasites. Beyond that, each bug has its own qualities to consider. Here are a few of the more traditional cooking methods.

Crickets and grasshoppers: First, pluck off the barbed legs, because they can chafe your digestive tract. Then, roast the body for a snack that’s both crunchy and nutritious.

Ants: Boil for six minutes to neutralize the formic acid of the stingers. After that, inhale them by the handful.

Caterpillars: They can give you a mouthful of tiny hairs, like licking a kiwi, so bite off the heads and then squeeze the insides into a pot. Boil and serve warm.

Worms: The dirt from the insides must be removed before they can be eaten. This can be done by starving them for one day, or squeezing out the dirt by hand.

3. Leather

Transforming your wardrobe into your pantry is simple. Shoes, jackets, and biker pants make meals both fashionable and filling. In fact, in every era, leather has been enjoyed by the starving masses. Indomitable explorers, stranded pirates, famine-stricken peasants, and even emaciated prisoners have downed a shoe or two. Just two years ago, when Chinese miners in Beijing were trapped underground for nearly a week, they survived on nothing but pieces of paper and a leather belt.

How to Prepare

Before cooking, rinse and dice the (preferably undyed) leather, then pound the pieces between stones to tenderize. For a satisfying soup, you can boil the leather until relatively tender, then add seasonings such as dried worms and nettles. Leather can also be chopped up and roasted to make nutritious chips. And remember to drink plenty of water; leather’s generally as dry as a bone.

4. Dirt

No matter how bad the economy gets, there will always be enough dirt to go around. Soil can provide essential minerals. Think of it as a no-budget replacement for your expensive multivitamin supplements. In fact, dirt eating, known as geophagy, is so prevalent in some parts of the world that scientists and anthropologists think that nutritional deficits may bring on the craving. Even in the modern United States, reports persist that poor and rural Southerners still indulge in select soils by the spoonful, a custom that may have been brought over from West Africa.

How to Prepare

The secret to good dirt eating is simply to choose wisely. Soil that is rich in clay tastes the best, and it can be enhanced by adding salt and vinegar. When you find a good source, save some in a plastic bag so you can snack on it all day long. Of course, if you’re looking to enjoy the original mud pie, garnishing the meal with a few worms never hurts.

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The No-Budget Diner’s Guide was written by David Clark and appeared in the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.

Don’t forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog today for more!

Found at the Epic Mickey booth at the 2010 E3 Expo in Los Angeles. (Apparently, Epic Mickey is a new wii game from Warren Spector, the famous video game designer – I’m most familiar with his Wing Commander series, which I’m sure told you about when I quit playing video games!).

When you see it, you’ll … be mildly amused

Ever wish that itsy bitsy crab you had for dinner were bigger, so that you could eat more of one instead of ordering another dish? Why not order a coconut crab, a Tasmanian giant crab or a Japanese spider crab? Who knows, with 13 ft of crab to deal with, you might not even be able to finish it all!

(Also available: escargot So big, you can’t even wrap your hands around it.)

This article over at Cracked also features jellyfish, spiders, worms and other creepy crawlies you would love to see magnified.

Puppies, kittens, infants: All adorable. And do you know why? Because they’re tiny. If you start to magnify these things, then you wind up with the substantially less cute wolves, jaguars and teenagers.

Yes, if there’s one thing nature teaches us, it’s that what may start out as an adorable little animal friend can quickly turn into a Lovecraftian horror when its itty-bitty wittle mouth gets big enough to start eating your face. And when the little versions are already a little bit creepy, the big versions are the stuff nightmares are made of.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Silver.

This disturbing thing that sort of resembles a rolly polly is set to go on display in England for the first time ever. These rare Isopods live deep in the ocean in extremely cold temperatures, but for some reason, fishermen in the Atlantic discovered 9 of them in their lobster nets. They’re ugly, but sure are interesting to learn about.

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I’m not particularly scared of bugs or spiders, but this thing gives me the heebie jeebies. Assassin spiders have really long necks, so they can attack from a distance, which they do by impaling their prey with the barbed ends of their jaws. Creepy. Sounds like a total horror movie to me, but at two millimeters long, they are completely harmless to humans.

Link via Dark Roasted Blend