Arthro-Pod

 Hello friends, and welcome back to Arthro-Pod! Today's episode is a look at a phenomenon many entomologists will encounter, even if they aren't ready to, known as delusory parasitosis. Also referred to as delusions of infestation and Ekbom's syndrome, this situation involves a person believing that their body and home are infested with some sort of biting or stinging pest, despite there being no evidence that is true. We're all predisposed to interpret certain signals as being caused by an insect or mite trying to crawl on us or bite us and unfortunately, sometimes this can further manifest as delusory parasitosis. Sufferers are often desperate for help and entomologists are often helpless to provide assistance. Today we wanted to outline some of the background of delusory parasitosis and talk about how entomologists can help, while also protecting themselves. 

Show Notes

Hinkle, N.C. 2000. Delusory parasitosis. American Entomologist

https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/46/1/17/2389588

Hinkle, N.C. 2010. Ekbom Syndrome: the challenge of “invisible

Hinkle, N.C. 2011. Ekbom Syndrome: a delusional condition of “bugs

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21344286/

Szepietowski, J.C., Salomon, J., Hrehorów, E., Pacan, P.,

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17373971/

 Questions? Comments? 

Hello bug lovers! We hope you have had a wonderful 2023 and are looking forward to 2024. To wrap our season for the year, we wanted to do something fun and make a bit of a news round up focused on arthropods (and some adjacent critters) and see what people were saying about our creepy crawly friends. We'll go from worm rain all the way through malaria and how to kill wasps with gas! We hope you'll tune in and that you'll join us again next year. 

Show notes 

Worm rain

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N35P20W/

Yellow legged hornets

https://www.wtoc.com/2023/12/28/yellow-legged-hornet-arrives-2023/

Mormon crickets

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/crushed-crickets-are-blanketing-nevada-roads-with-slime-180982415/

Malaria in the US

https://time.com/6291002/locally-acquired-malaria-cases-usa/

Invasives on the move

https://news.yahoo.com/heres-expanded-box-tree-moth-164342473.html

https://news.yahoo.com/heres-expanded-box-tree-moth-164342473.html

Wasps and gasoline

https://www.countryliving.com/home-maintenance/cleaning/a44563522/tiktok-trend-gasoline-wasp-nest-extremely-unsafe/

 Welcome back bug lovers and ho ho ho, happy holidays! On today's show we're diving into Christmas trees! When these trees are being grown, there are some pests that might make their way onto the leaves and twigs, so we're talking about their biology and management. However, most of our calls that involve trees are in regard to insects that have been accidentally brought inside with live trees that are now walking all over the presents so we touch on that too. Finally, Jonathan fished up some folklore revolving around arthropods and Christmas. Tune in to hear all about it!

Christmas tree pests, indoor and out: 

https://www.canr.msu.edu/christmas_trees/pest-management/

https://christmastrees.ces.ncsu.edu/christmastrees-pest-management-in-christmas-trees/

https://extension.psu.edu/insects-on-real-christmas-trees

https://kentuckypestnews.wordpress.com/2023/12/12/does-your-christmas-tree-have-bugs/

Christmas wasp: 

https://fdacsdpi.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/all-about-the-folklore-of-christmas-insects/

http://greydogtales.com/blog/folklore-origins-christmas-wasp/

Christmas spider:

https://agrilife.org/urban-ipm/2018/12/21/the-legend-of-the-christmas-spider/ 

Hello bug lovers! Recently, there has been a lot of clamor about the discovery of bed bug issues in Paris, France. It's been interesting to watch a resurgence in questions and concerns with bed bugs pop up because of this and to hear people pondering what this means for events such as Paris Fashion Week and the 2024 Olympics. In this episode, Jody and Jonathan sit down to talk bed bug facts, discuss why this news has panicked so many people, and the every day adversity of dealing with bed bugs. 

Resources about Bed Bugs 

https://lancaster.unl.edu/bedbugs 

Recorded Webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVUOa0xieb4     

Jody was interviewed by Deutsche Welle Television about the bed bug problems in France: YouTube link: France: Bedbugs send shivers through Paris | DW News - YouTube

Hello bug lovers! Today, we're proud to publish a podcast recorded, edited, and produced by our friends at the podcast Bugs Need Heroes!! We met with them on their show back a little while back and had a blast talking about cockroaches, super heroes, and -most importantly- Danny Devito. They were kind enough to provide the audio to the show so we could also post it to our podcast feed. You should absolutely check out their show, https://www.bugsneedheroes.com/home, where you can hear Kelly, Amanda, and Derek build buggy super heroes out of all out favorite multi-legged friends. 

In lieu of our usual show notes, I thought I would use the notes prepared by Derek of Bugs Need Heroes! 

https://www.bugsneedheroes.com/episodes/the-trash-man 

Derek’s Field Notes

Common Name: Cockroaches! 

Order: Blattodea; termites were formerly Isoptera. 

Family: We

Species of Note:

• The Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa), a common pet

• The Central American giant cave cockroach (Blaberus giganteus), large and in charge

• The German cockroach (Blattella germanica), an unwanted guest

• The Oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis) sometimes euphemistically called "the waterbug"

• The Pennsylvania wood cockroach (Parcoblatta pensylvanica), an occasional visitor

• Pacific dampwood termite (Zootermopsis angusticollis), the cockroach Amanda didn't know she knew

Life Cycle: 

Cockroaches

Distribution:

Cockroaches

Super Powers:

• Can eat almost anything, but may exhibit strong flavor preferences!

• Flight

• Superspeed

• Climbing

• Cosmopolitan

• Can squeeze into tight places and resistant to crushing

• Resistant to radiation

• Butt antennae

Links to check out:

The Always Sunny In Philadelphia scene that was referenced during the recording.

National Geographic: Amazing Video Reveals Why Roaches Are So Hard to Squish

An interesting breakdown of the infamous Liefeld Captain America drawing.

Sugar traps force cockroaches to adapt new sex 'gifts'

References: 

Bennett,

Questions? Comments? 

Welcome to spooky season bug lovers! To celebrate, the Arthro-Pod crew sat down and watched the 1986 film, "The Fly" starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis and directed by the master of body horror, David Cronenberg. A word of warning, this one might not be suitable for all ages as we do talk about some graphic horror movie tropes and other sensitive topics. 

Tune in though if you would like to hear a discussion on the entomological aspects of "The Fly" and why the idea of becoming an insect terrifies us so much. We also touch on scientific ethics and other themes incubating within the Brundlefly. 

• https://collider.com/david-cronenberg-the-fly-body-horror/ 
• https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/31/the-fly-96-minutes-of-grotesque-vomit-soaked-bedlam-and-david-cronenbergs-best-film
• https://cinephiliabeyond.org/fly/

Hello bug lovers! Today, we're guided by Mike Skvarla into a deep dive on West Nile virus. A mosquito borne illness, West Nile is something the Arthro-Pod crew has learned a lot about over the course of their lives and careers. In fact, one of them even tested positive for it after trying to give blood... Mike was inspired by Episode 1031 of the

Questions? Comments? 

Howdy bug lovers! Last episode, we started our discussion of insect locomotion by getting up close and personal with insect legs. Today, we'll be a little more airborne as we discuss insect wings. Insects are the only invertebrates with the power of flight and there have long been questions about the origin of insect wings in the evolutionary record. Tune in to hear about the multiple theories on the origin of wings, how wings help with insect identification, and just how bugs take flight. 

Show notes

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/244541v1 

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/how-insect-wings-evolved-legs-ancestral-crustacean 

https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook/unearthing-the-evolutionary-origins-of-insect-wings-69845 

https://ag.arizona.edu/classes/ento596c/topic/session4.html

https://www.amentsoc.org/insects/fact-files/wings.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_wing

https://cronodon.com/BioTech/Insect_locomotion.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_flight

Questions? Comments? 

Howdy bug lovers! Over the next two episodes, the Arthro-Pod gang is going to be talking about insect locomotion, how they move through the world. In part one today, we're covering insect legs from hip to toe or rather coxa to tarsi. Tune in to learn about insect leg anatomy, the different types of legs and their function, and how legs were evolved in the insects. 

Show notes

https://cronodon.com/BioTech/Insect_locomotion.html

https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/arthropod-leg

https://genent.cals.ncsu.edu/bug-bytes/thorax/legs/,

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.20.427514v2.full

Questions? Comments? 

We continue our deep dive into alpha-gal red meat allergy today by taking a closer look at Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, the carbohydrate at the center of this issue, and the ticks that carry it. To help us unpack such a complicated situation, we have two special guests, Dr. Paulina Maldonado-Ruiz and Dr. Yoonseong Park, both currently at Kansas State University. Join us to learn more about the origins of alpha-gal red meat allergy, the research into how ticks carry it, and what the future may hold for this allergy. 

To find more about the research covered in today's show please consult our guest's websites-

Dr. Maldonado-Ruiz

Dr. Park

Questions? Comments?