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Science Friday > Archives > 1999 > April > April 2, 1999:

Hour Two: The Annual Spring Bugs Show

It's finally spring. That means a lot of you will be planning some outdoor activities. Gardening. Picnics. Camping. Hikes. And probably, in the course of your outdoor excursions, you'll come across a fair number of little, creeping, crawling, or flying insects. That's what this hour of Science Friday is about.

Image by Scott Bauer, USDA ARS

We'll be talking with insect experts who may be able to help you with questions from "What are all these ladybugs doing in my bedroom?" to "How do ants communicate with each other?" to "I found this really huge green crawly thing in the woods. Can I eat it?" We'll also try to figure out why people feel so strongly about bugs - why some are fascinated by them, while they give others the heebie-jeebies.

Plus - how do some ants manage to sneak into other ant nests unscathed? Chemical camouflage! We'll find out how one species of tropical ant may inadvertently give intruders into its nest a free pass to steal food ... if the raiders are persistent enough.

It's the annual spring bugs show - not bug too big, no question too small!

Listen to this program in RealAudio!

Guests:

Gilbert Waldbauer
Author, "The Birder's Bug Book"
Professor Emeritus, Entomology
University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign
Urbana, Illinois

Tom Turpin
Co-Founder, Purdue University Bug Bowl
Professor of Entomology
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana

Michael Breed
Professor, Environmental Population and Organismic Biology
University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado

Books/Articles Discussed or Mentioned:
"The Birder's Bug Book" by Gilbert Waldbauer. Harvard Univ. Press, 1998.

"The Eat-a-bug Cookbook" by David George Gordon

"That Gunk on Your Car: A Unique Guide to Insects of North America" by Mark E. Hostetler

Related Links:
Purdue University Bug Bowl Info
Biggest-fastest-oldest? U of Florida Insect Records!
The Ever-Handy Bug ID Key
Iowa State University Tasty Bug Recipes and general info

This segment produced by:
Jessa Netting and Tom Clarke
Web producer:
Charles Bergquist