Huge new wasp discovered in Sulawesi

Wasp has jaws bigger than its head
August 2011. The new species of wasp, discovered by Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is one of the world's largest wasps.

2.5 inches long
The jaw-dropping, shiny black wasp appears to be the "Komodo dragon" of the wasp family. It's huge. The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said. "Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male's front legs. I don't know how it can walk. The females are smaller but still larger than other members of their subfamily, Larrinae."

Front view of male wasp. (Photos by Andrew Richards, Bohart Museum of Entomology)

 Kimsey discovered the warrior wasp on the Mekongga Mountains in south-eastern Sulawesi on a recent biodiversity expedition funded by a five-year grant from the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program.

The insect-eating predator belongs to the genus Dalara and family Crabronidae. "I'm going to name it Garuda, after the national symbol of Indonesia," Kimsey said. Garuda, a powerful mythical warrior that's part human and part eagle, boasts a large wingspan, martial prowess and breakneck speed.
The first time I saw the wasp I knew it was something really unusual," said Kimsey, a noted wasp expert who oversees the Bohart Museum's global collection of seven million insect specimens, including 500,000 wasps. "I'm very familiar with members of the wasp family Crabronidae that it belongs to but had never seen anything like this species of Dalara. We don't know anything about the biology of these wasps. They are only known from Sulawesi."


Discovered 300 new species
In her entire career as entomologist, she's discovered close to 300 new species. But on three trips to Sulawesi, she's brought back to the Bohart Museum "hundreds, maybe thousands of new species."

"It will take years, maybe generations, to go through them all," Kimsey said. "I consider Sulawesi one of the world's top three islands for biodiversity - along with Australia and Madagascar."

Sulawesi
Sulawesi, a large Indonesian island located between Borneo and New Guinea, is known not only for its endemic biodiversity, but also its rainforest and its proximity (three degrees) to the equator. However development now threatens plant and animal life.

Lynn Kimsey said "The terrain was steep, slippery and overall, physically challenging. This part of Sulawesi gets about 400 inches of rain a year. We were told that Sulawesi has a dry and rainy season. But the only difference we could see between the dry and rainy season is that during the dry season, it rains only in the afternoon."

2 acre spider web
Kimsey expressed amazement at the biodiversity of the flora and fauna. "We saw a colonial spider web that stretched across two acres. The adult spiders were about two inches long. We saw evidence of wild cows, anoa, found only in Sulawesi, and found the first record in that region of a Sulawesi palm civet, a weasel-like predator."

Director of the Bohart Museum since 1989, Kimsey is an insect taxonomist, specializing in bees and wasps and insect diversity. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1989.

Collected a millions specimens
Over the last four years, the international team of scientists has collected about a million specimens. Among the new species are: 1 bat, 2 frogs, 2 lizards, 2 fish, a land crab and many insects.

Kimsey is a collaborator of a five-year $4 million grant awarded to UC Davis scientists in 2008 to study the biodiversity of fungi, bacteria, plants, insects and vertebrates on Sulawesi, all considered threatened by logging operations and mining developments. Much of the mountain was logged two decades ago and now there are plans for an open pit nickel mine, Kimsey said.

"There's talk of forming a biosphere reserve to preserve this," she said. "There are so many rare and endangered species on Sulawesi that the world may never see."

Fossil Forensics Reveals How Wasps Populated Rotting Dinosaur Eggs

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2011) — Exceptionally preserved fossils of insect cocoons have allowed researchers in Argentina to describe how wasps played an important role in food webs devoted to consuming rotting dinosaur eggs. The research is published in the scientific journal Palaeontology.

The approximately 70 million year old eggs, from gigantic titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs were discovered in 1989 in the Patagonia region of Argentina, well known for yielding fossils of sauropod dinosaur eggs and even embryonic dinosaurs. Only recently it was discovered that one of the broken eggs contained tiny sausage-shaped structures, 2-3cm long and 1cm wide. The structures closely resembled fossilised insect cocoons, and were most similar in size and shape to the cocoons of some species of modern wasp.

There are many records of fossilised dinosaur eggs, and even several records of fossil cocoons, but, as author Dr Jorge Genise of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales states "this is the first time that these cocoons are found closely associated with an egg." Such a study of organismal behaviour (e.g. burrows, footprints) is known as ichnology.

The results indicate "that wasps probably participated in the food web, mostly composed of scavenging insects, which developed on the rotten egg." The make-up of carrion communities -- spiders, beetles and other creatures populating rotting organic matter -- is more familiar to us from the screens of crime scene investigation documentaries.

The numbers and different types of creatures indicate the length of deposition and the time since death. In this particular CSI, it appears that the dinosaur egg was broken by force, and subsequent fractures in the egg shell allowed scavenging creatures to feed upon the contents. At egg sizes of around 20cm, this represents a sizable amount of yolk! Other creatures later appeared to feed not upon the egg contents, but on the initial scavengers themselves. The wasps represent the top of the food web, and could have been feeding on insects or spiders gorging on rotting egg contents.

These scavengers also played an important role in cleaning up nest sites. Palaeontologists believe that some dinosaurs revisited nest sites year after year to lay new clutches of eggs. Carrion communities were essential to removing decaying material in advance of new nesting seasons. This new discovery gives us an insight into the murky world of insect communities that thrived at the feet of gigantic dinosaurs.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110715135200.htm

Bees One of Many Pollinators Infected by Virus Implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder

ScienceDaily (Dec. 28, 2010) — Penn State researchers have found that native pollinators, like wild bees and wasps, are infected by the same viral diseases as honey bees and that these viruses are transmitted via pollen. This multi-institutional study provides new insights into viral infections in native pollinators, suggesting that viral diseases may be key factors impacting pollinator populations.


Their research published on December 22nd in PLoS ONE, an online open-access journal.


According to Diana Cox-Foster, co-author and professor of entomology at Penn State, pollinator populations have declined for various reasons, including ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which are emerging as a serious threat. "RNA viruses are suspected as major contributors to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD ), where honey bee colonies die with few or no bees left in the hives. Recent detection of these viral species in bumble bees and other native pollinators indicates a possible wider environmental spread of these viruses with potential broader impact," explains Cox-Foster.

The researchers studied viral distributions from pollen pellets of honey bees and other pollinators collected from flowering plants in Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois in the United States. "For the first time, RNA viruses such as deformed wing virus, sacbrood virus and black queen cell virus were detected in pollen pellets collected directly from forager bees," said Cox-Foster. "Pollen pellets from several uninfected forager bees were detected with virus, indicating that pollen itself may harbor viruses. The viruses in the pollen and honey stored in the hive were demonstrated to be infective, with the queen becoming infected and laying infected eggs after these virus-contaminated foods were given to virus-free colonies."

The detection of RNA viruses in other pollinators, including bumble bees, solitary bees and wasps, suggests that viruses might have a deeper impact on ecosystem health , given that these pollinators are essential to most plants for seed set and production of fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables. The findings are important to the public and scientific community worldwide, given pollinators' role in agriculture and the environment and recent declines in native pollinators.

The findings also raise biosecurity issues because pollen is currently being imported into many countries to feed honey bees used in agricultural pollination.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101222173037.htm

Bees One of Many Pollinators Infected by Virus Implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder

ScienceDaily (Dec. 28, 2010) — Penn State researchers have found that native pollinators, like wild bees and wasps, are infected by the same viral diseases as honey bees and that these viruses are transmitted via pollen. This multi-institutional study provides new insights into viral infections in native pollinators, suggesting that viral diseases may be key factors impacting pollinator populations.


Their research published on December 22nd in PLoS ONE, an online open-access journal.


According to Diana Cox-Foster, co-author and professor of entomology at Penn State, pollinator populations have declined for various reasons, including ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which are emerging as a serious threat. "RNA viruses are suspected as major contributors to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD ), where honey bee colonies die with few or no bees left in the hives. Recent detection of these viral species in bumble bees and other native pollinators indicates a possible wider environmental spread of these viruses with potential broader impact," explains Cox-Foster.

The researchers studied viral distributions from pollen pellets of honey bees and other pollinators collected from flowering plants in Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois in the United States. "For the first time, RNA viruses such as deformed wing virus, sacbrood virus and black queen cell virus were detected in pollen pellets collected directly from forager bees," said Cox-Foster. "Pollen pellets from several uninfected forager bees were detected with virus, indicating that pollen itself may harbor viruses. The viruses in the pollen and honey stored in the hive were demonstrated to be infective, with the queen becoming infected and laying infected eggs after these virus-contaminated foods were given to virus-free colonies."

The detection of RNA viruses in other pollinators, including bumble bees, solitary bees and wasps, suggests that viruses might have a deeper impact on ecosystem health , given that these pollinators are essential to most plants for seed set and production of fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables. The findings are important to the public and scientific community worldwide, given pollinators' role in agriculture and the environment and recent declines in native pollinators.

The findings also raise biosecurity issues because pollen is currently being imported into many countries to feed honey bees used in agricultural pollination.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101222173037.htm

Omani villagers counter wasp raids

Waves of red wasps attack people, plantations and beehives
By Staff
Published Friday, August 13, 2010

Massive swarms of wasps have raided an Omani village, prompting residents to mobilise their forces and launch a counter offensive, a local daily said Friday.

Successive waves of red wasps deployed in surrounding trees and mountains launched several attacks on residents, farms, palm trees and honey-producing beehives in Hailin village in Batina province on the Gulf of Oman.

Oman Daily said it sent a team to the village, where many of its residents have been stung by the wasps and parts of farms and bee hives have been damaged.

“Red wasps are very dangerous and are quite big….they usually swarm in this area during this period the year,” it quoted villager Zahir Al Jahouri as saying.

“We had lived in fear for several days before we decided to attack and destroy them…we formed groups to surround the trees and mountains and burn their concentrations…we have also announced cash rewards for children to encourage them to participate in this campaign…thank God the Almighty, we have made big success and destroyed many of their bases.”

http://www.emirates247.com/offbeat/this-is-life/omani-villagers-counter-wasp-raids-2010-08-13-1.278513

UK biggest wasp nest found

A pub landlord in Southampton has reportedly found the biggest ever wasp nest in the UK.The construction was 5ft 3in wide and 4ft 1in in height and is believed to have housed around half a million wasps, Sky News reports.Pest controller Sean Whelan said: "It really was a monster. Nests usually operate from March to September so they're very unlikely to get to be this size."The wasps disperse and bury themselves under about six inches of soil until March when they come out and then build the nest for the queen."He continued: "What we think may have happened this time is that, because of the cold winter, the pub kept its heating on so the wasps didn't realise it was time to move on."The size of it for the time of year was unprecedented. They just couldn't have made something this big, this quickly."Whelan had to squirt the wasp colony with an insecticide after using a pole to crack open the top of the oversize nest. "It was scary as hell but it is what I am trained for," he added.

http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=uk+biggest+wasp+nest+found&FORM=MSNTM3&ocid=today

UK's Biggest Wasps' Nest Found In Pub Roof

10:45am UK, Tuesday August 03, 2010

Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online

A pub in Southampton has laid claim to housing the biggest wasps' nest in Britain.

The stinging insects had built a home 5ft 3in wide, with the cone height from top to bottom of 4ft 1in.

"It really was a monster," said pest controller Sean Whelan, the unlucky man who was called in to deal with a construction that housed about half a million wasps.

"Nests usually operate from March to September so they're very unlikely to get to be this size," Mr Whelan told Sky News Online.

"The wasps disperse and bury themselves under about six inches of soil until March when they come out and then build the nest for the queen.

"What we think may have happened this time is that, because of the cold winter, the pub kept its heating on so the wasps didn't realise it was time to move on.

"The size of it for the time of year was unprecedented. They just couldn't have made something this big, this quickly."

Mr Whelan used a telescopic pole to crack open the top of the nest and then squirt the colony with a powerful insecticide.

"It was scary as hell but it is what I am trained for," he said.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Wasps-Nest-Found-In-Southampton-Pub-By-Pest-Controller-Sean-Whelan-Is-Biggest-In-Britain/Article/201008115675760?f=rss

Digger wasps protected by antibiotics

European beewolf carrying a honeybee towards its tunnel.
Captured in The New Forest, England. (Photo: Wikipedia)

DIG THIS: Digger wasp larvae are protected during their protracted hibernation period by antibiotics. A cocktail of nine different protective drugs covers the cocoons during their development, a German study has found. They are injected into the ceiling of the brood cells by the female of the species. Bacterial infection is a major threat to the digger wasp, or beewolf, which spends most of its life underground. The study appears in Nature Chemical Biology.

http://e-edition.metroherald.ie/2010/03/01/ - p15.

DNA of Pest-Killing Wasps Could Unlock Other Secrets

(Jan. 15) -- The science community is abuzz over the news that the entire genetic makeup of a highly valuable wasp has been determined via DNA sequencing.

Nasonia is the name given to three different species of pinhead-sized, parasitic wasps that act as a kind of natural pesticide: They sting -- and lay their eggs inside of -- only certain, crop-destroying pests, greatly reducing the need for artificial chemical treatments.

Such biological pest control has been practiced for thousands of years (the ancient Chinese used beneficial ants to protect their citrus trees), but modern science could take the practice to a new level. By understanding exactly which genes tell the Nasonia to attack the pests they do, scientists hope to heighten the wasps' pest-killing proficiency, breed them in mass, and synthesize their venom. Someday their DNA could even be used to develop drugs for combating human diseases.

Nasonia wasps are interesting to scientists on another level: Their species have been around for only several hundred thousand years, making them one of Earth's younger insect groups. During that time, Nasonia picked up genes from pox viruses and other bacteria. One of the next projects for researchers is to find out what purpose these additional genes serve for the wasp.

Three researchers from three universities were responsible for the sequencing success, which they Edward Winstead, former managing editor of The Genome News Network, reports that the 1000th genome was recently sequenced, to much celebration. Some of the more interesting among this number include:

Anopheles gambiae. This species of mosquito is responsible for the rampant spread of malaria in Africa and the 300 million to 500 million infections around the world annually. Unfortunately, this deadly bug has developed resistance to many pesticides, so sequencing of its genome is especially critical for developing effective methods of killing it or eliminating its disease-carrying properties. A working draft of the sequence was published in Science in 2004.

Canis familiaris. "Man's best friend" has also been one of his most loyal and helpful partners in many areas of scientific research (see Laika), and the field of genomics is no exception. The genomes of a standard poodle and a boxer were sequenced in 2003. The Broad Institute, a prominent genetic research center, notes: "The unique breeding history of dogs, with their extraordinary behavioral and physical diversity, offers the opportunity to find important genes underlying diseases shared between dogs and humans, such as cancer, diabetes and epilepsy."

Deinococcus radiodurans. Also known as the "Hulk of Microorganisms." Listed in Guinness World Records as the toughest bacterium on earth, D. radiodurans is resistant to extreme cold, vacuums, acid and levels of radiation that would destroy 99 percent of earth's other lifeforms. Radiation blasts shatter the bacteria's DNA, but it can reassemble itself. Scientists hope to use this bacteria to help colonize Mars and travel into deep space, protecting astronauts from cosmic radiation. The genome sequence of the bacteria, discovered in 1956 in a can of spoiled meat, was completed in 1999.

Tetraodon nigroviridis: The Green Spotted Puffer fish. Native to Southeast Asia, this fish is bred by humans to keep as a pet and used for sushi in some restaurants, although it can be poisonously fatal thanks to a "potent neurotoxin." What makes this animal more compelling to study than other fish is the fact that it contains the "smallest genome known to date in the vertebrates," sequenced in 2002. That is: Of all animals that have a backbone, the puffer has the least amount of DNA to explain its development, even though it contains many of the same genes as humans. Scientists have looked at them to see how evolution differs between mammals and fish.

And finally, Homo sapiens. A.k.a., well, us. The much-heralded Human Genome Project was actually two efforts to sequence our complete DNA profile. The collective sequencing effort took over 13 years, and the first drafts were completed in 2000. An updated, finalized version was released in 2003. The National Human Genome Research Institute described the milestone this way:

Having the essentially complete sequence of the human genome is similar to having all the pages of a manual needed to make the human body. The challenge to researchers and scientists now is to determine how to read the contents of all these pages and then understand how the parts work together and to discover the genetic basis for health and the pathology of human disease. In this respect, genome-based research will eventually enable medical science to develop highly effective diagnostic tools, to better understand the health needs of people based on their individual genetic make-ups, and to design new and highly effective treatments for disease.

In other words, for as far as gene science has come, it's only the beginning of what scientists hope to accomplish. But sequencing Nasonia is another big step forward.

http://www.sphere.com/science/article/dna-of-pest-killing-wasp-nasonia-could-unlock-other-genetic-secrets/19317696
(Submitted by T. Peter Park)

Wasps help spread the festive cheer

Click to enlarge

Metro Ireland, 11 November 2009, p8.

Wasps help spread the festive cheer

Click to enlarge

Metro Ireland, 11 November 2009, p8.