Insects

In the Galleries - Juan William Chavez CLOSES January 20 at Laumeier

Next on the Farmer's Plague Menu: Red Imported Fire Ants

Just when you started to think we'd survived the worst of the summer, along comes a new threat. First it was intense heat, then withering drought, now it's fire ants. Great. I guess seven days of raining blood comes later this month then.Because of the aforementioned heat and drought, Missouri's far ... More >>

Missouri Reintroduces Endangered Burying Beetle, the Most Metal Insect of All

​The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Saint Louis Zoo plan to reintroduce the Burying Beetle to the Wah'kon-Tah Prairie in the near future, reestablishing the insect as a vital part of Missouri's ecosystem for the first time since the 1970s. Obviously, beetles aren't as glamorous a creature ... More >>

Zombies Latest Explanation for Colony Collapse Disorder

​Everything from pesticides to cell-phone towers has been posited as the cause of colony collapse disorder, which since 2006 has dramatically reduced the population of honeybees, whose pollination is vital to the agricultural system.(Riverfront Times has been following this story from almost the b ... More >>

Just Think of Them as Land Shrimp: Bugs on the Table

​This week's feature story in our sister paper SF Weekly takes a look at entomophagy. No, that's not the legal term for an unspeakably lewd act. Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects, a food staple in some cultures. As author Peter Jamison discovers, a few dedicated bug-chompers want more ... More >>

Cicada Ice Cream Tops the List of Buggy Treats

Wikimedia CommonsCicadas: the perfect crunchy counterpart to creamy ice cream.​ Cicada mania continues! Last week we discussed ways to cook cicadas. With all the talk, ice cream keeps coming up as the favorite. Or most intriguing. Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia and their large colle ... More >>

Cicada Ice Cream No Longer for Sale in Columbia

You know you wanna eat me.​Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia, Missouri, sold out of its first batch of cicada ice cream last week before it officially went on sale. Alas, the first batch was also last. This week the city's health department advised the ice cream retailer to hold off on a sec ... More >>

Cicada Cuisine: Six Ways to Cook the Critters

Wikimedia CommonsYummy cicadas​ Sick of cicadas? You can lower their population by eating them. Oh, come on. People all over the world eat insects without getting grossed out. With rising food prices, the U.S. shouldn't be so quick to poo-poo cheap sources of protein. And considering all the ... More >>

Why There Are No Cicadas In Your Backyard

Image viaWhy aren't they at your house? It's not you, it's them. Well, it's also you. ​STL has gone cuh-razy for cicadas, now that the 13-year periodical brood has come out in force. But this big ol' cicada party ain't raging everywhere -- only in certain pockets. What gives? It's actually a quest ... More >>

Cicadageddon Is Officially Underway

flickr.com/photos/coturnixBzzzzzzzzz Run for your lives!!! Becuase there are cicadas. ​HOLY EFFING SH$T WE GOTS CICADAS! Every thirteen years, they emerge to buzz out their 120-decibel love songs, and this year is gonna be off the chain, according to various news sources: The Associated Press said ... More >>

Ptarmigan Uses Actual Tree Limbs, Bugs and a Tortoise on New Album: Listen

​Columbia dream pop outfit Ptarmigan has been relatively quiet over the past couple years; front man Peter Marting spent four months of that working in the Peruvian rainforest. And the album the band just released, Forest Darling, became a massive undertaking involving field recordings from at ... More >>

Freak Swarm of Bees Blocks Traffic in Springfield

Image viaWhatchoo doin', crazy bees?​And so it came to pass....A giant swarm of bees converged on a Springfield curb Thursday before the evening rush hour, causing one section of road to be shut down, according to the Springfield Police Department. "It was a large, large swarm; there were several ... More >>

Ra Ra Riot

9 p.m. Tuesday, March 15. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.

Kind of Blue

JJ Grey & Mofro

8 p.m. Saturday, February 5. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard.

Tyson Foods Visionary Dies.

Donald J. Tyson, who turned his father's Arkansas chicken business into one of the largest meat producers in the world, died yesterday. He was 80 years old. The New York Times has his obituary, featuring the story of Tyson Foods' massive growth under Mr. Tyson. He retired in 1994, but not before fin ... More >>

Smithfield Pork Exposed by Humane Society, Boycotted by Bittman

Paula Deen may love Smithfield Foods pork products, but Mark Bittman's not a fan. Neither is the Humane Society of America, who released a report on inhumane conditions at Smithfield's large pig farms. Bittman took to his website yesterday to call for a boycott, and issued a plea to stop supporting ... More >>

Gnats Entertainment: Webster theater students have their way with The Insect Play

Illegal

Read a penetrating chapter from former Phoenix New Times investigative reporter Terry Greene Sterling's book: ILLEGAL: Life and Death in Arizona's Immigration War Zone

Get the Big Fly Swatter

Bat With White Nose Syndrome Finally Spotted in Missouri, Caves To Close

Image viaHoly debilitating fungus, batman.​The weird and fatal white fungus first discovered on bats four years ago in New York has finally infected MO.It's not lethal to humans, but here's what it does to bats, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation: [it] causes infected bats to awa ... More >>

Bee Season: Determine What Stung You By How Much it Hurts

flickr.com/photos/pho-togA bee stinger lodged in human flesh.​A happy thought to sustain you during the last few warm days of the year, before winter squeezes us all in its icy fist:When a tiny buzzing member of the insect order Hymenoptera decides to plunge its stinger into your tender flesh, qui ... More >>

Foul-Stinking Flower Blooms at UMSL!!

Photo by Nicholas PhillipsA sort-of bloomingThe corpse flower at UMSL hath bloomed!!! (Well, it opened up slightly.)But the Daily RFT can assure you: on Sunday, it did smell like a rotting corpse. And it did remind us of death. I.e., your death. My death. The death that awaits each of us, always. Bu ... More >>

And They Shall Descend Forth From The Skies

www.purplemartin.orgSome say I'm purple. I say I'm Martin.After a long schlep from South America, the first adult male Purple Martins should be alighting in Forest Park any day now. You might be interested in this species of songbird (Progne subis) for the following reasons:1) If humans don't prepar ... More >>

Zinners and Zaints

All are welcome

Unreal puts "Jorts & Mandals Day" initiative on the back burner, weighs in on Saint Louis Fashion Week

Dried Weaver Ants With Eggs

Weaver ants are a tad dry for Malcolm’s discriminating palate, but the Democratic presidential primary provides plenty to chew on.

Jin Yang Silkworm Pupa

This week: Silkworm pupa out the Jin Yang.

Play Now, Pay Later?

Kitchen Nightmares: Dillons

Buzzkill

See all those little suckers? Did you know that they're an invasive species and a linchpin of modern agriculture? That they're dying off by the million and no one's sure why?

Josef K

Entomology (Domino)

Ant Wussy

Get out the magnifying glass. It's time to burn a game.

Bug in the Ointment

Off-Ramp's new production leads to copious head-scratching

Entomological Emeril

David Gordon cooks creepy-crawlies

Robo-heroes

FIRST Robotics heralds new scientists

Yowie

Cryptooology (Skin Graft Records)

Best Zoo Animal

Giant anteater

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Week of June 23, 2004

The Grasshopper

Kirk's American Bistro, 512 N. Euclid Avenue, 314-361-1456

Sandpit of Dreams

There's no place like Queeny Park

A Bug in Your Ear

The call of Ring, Cicada is persuasive indeed

Sparklehorse

It's a Wonderful Life (EMD/Capitol)

Life in the Bughouse

The Insectarium's keepers are mad about their charges

Best Rural Department Store

Buchheit

Best Place to Take Out-of-Town Visitors to Gross Them Out

St. Louis Zoo Insectarium

Arachnophilia

Eight-legged beasties take over the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House

PETER AND THE WOLF

Why Missouri Botanical Garden's Peter Raven, world-renowned environmentalist, courts Monsanto's favor, boosts its biotech and takes its money

News of the Weird

The Eyes Have It