Chow-Yang Lee

Termites wreak havoc on California homes. A new species was just discovered.

tomwt — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 17:05:20 +0000

Termites wreak havoc on California homes. A new species was just discovered. tomwt Thu, 09/18/2025 - 10:05 More CNAS in the Media Ariana Bindman | SFGate September 17, 2025

SFGATE - Described by researchers as one of the most serious wood-destroying pests in the world, subterranean termites cause an estimated $32 billion in damage globally per year, and California is a battleground where both native and non-native species flourish. Now, unfortunately for squeamish homeowners, researchers at UC Riverside said there may be even more termite species than we initially realized.

In a July 2025 paper, UC Riverside entomologist Chow-Yang Lee and his team identified a new species of termite in California, Reticulitermes rusti, which has been detected from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego, Lee told SFGATE on Wednesday. He estimates that there are three other new species that have yet to be identified — and two of them, he said, are located in Northern California and near the Sierra Nevada.

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And then there were three: New termite species identified in California

tomwt — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 20:22:01 +0000

And then there were three: New termite species identified in California tomwt Fri, 09/05/2025 - 13:22 More CNAS in the Media Andrew Porterfield | Entomology Today September 05, 2025

ENTOMOLOGY TODAY - In southern California, subterranean termites in the genus Reticulitermes are a common scourge, responsible for significant economic damage in that part of the state. Early studies of these termites indicated that only two pest species existed—Reticulitermes hesperus and Reticulitermes tibialis.

However, a 2023 study by Chow-Yang Lee, Ph.D., endowed presidential chair in urban entomology at the University of California, Riverside, and his fellow researchers suggested that there could be as many as four undescribed species of Reticulitermes in California, one additional to southern California.

In a study published in July in Annals of the Entomological Society of America, Lee and colleagues confirmed the existence of an undescribed species of subterranean termite in Southern California, which they’ve named Reticulitermes rusti. The study was led by Joanne Chen, a Ph.D. candidate in Lee’s lab, joined by fellow researchers from UC Riverside, the U.S. Forest Service, National Taiwan University, and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. The researchers named the new species after retired UC Riverside professor Michael K. Rust, Ph.D., “who has contributed significantly to our knowledge of the biology and management of subterranean termites in southern California for the last 50 years,” they write.

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Why we’re losing the war against inbred super bed bugs

tomwt — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 15:56:42 +0000

Why we’re losing the war against inbred super bed bugs tomwt Mon, 07/29/2024 - 08:56 More CNAS in the Media Sofia Quaglia | BBC Science Focus July 26, 2024

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS - Bed bugs have been around longer than humans. When researchers used bed bug DNA to get an idea of when they first evolved, they found that the ancestors of today’s bed bugs were already tiny but successful predators over 115 million years ago, during the reign of the dinosaurs.

What they were preying on back then, we don’t know, possibly ancient birds. What we do know is that when the first bats appeared, bed bugs were present.

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While the common bed bug is the most widespread, the rounder and chubbier tropical bed bugs have recently started showing up all over the northern hemisphere, according to Prof Chow-Yang Lee, chair of urban entomology at University of California, Riverside.

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