Department of Entomology

Composting can be wildly frustrating. Maggots to the rescue

tomwt — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 22:19:07 +0000

Composting can be wildly frustrating. Maggots to the rescue tomwt Tue, 03/10/2026 - 15:19 More CNAS in the Media Jacob Margolis | LAist March 09, 2026

LAIST - Do you hate composting as much as I do?

Even though I know it has benefits for both my garden and the environment, I hate turning the pile and worrying about the right ratio of greens to browns and whether it’s too wet or too dry. And it’s always dispiriting to check for loamy, wonderful compost at the bottom only to pull up chunks of vegetables from two months ago.

And before you ask about worm farms, I’ve tried them too. Let’s just say that at some point, I expect to be held accountable for my crimes against worm-kind.

But for the compost- and time-challenged like me, I think I may have found a solution that allows me to simply toss my kitchen scraps into a bin and have it turned into fertilizer in about a month.

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“Unlike earthworms, [they’re] much more tolerant of a wider range of conditions and food sources. It will eat any organic waste in the larval form,” said Kerry Mauck, associate professor of entomology at UC Riverside.

She and her colleagues recently wrote a paper that describes a food waste processing system driven by black soldier fly larvae that was largely self-sustaining for about two years. Similar systems have been used to process food waste around the world.

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Kerry Mauck

Scientists have discovered the bed bug’s greatest fear

tomwt — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 18:01:09 +0000

Scientists have discovered the bed bug’s greatest fear tomwt Tue, 02/24/2026 - 10:01 More CNAS in the Media Ed Cara | Gizmodo February 24, 2026

GIZMODO - Despite their tiny size, bed bugs are perhaps the scariest thing a person can realistically encounter in their home. But what do these blood-sucking fiends fear most? The answer, recent research shows, is apparently water.

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, tracked how bed bugs behaved around water. The insects avoided wet surfaces as much as possible, though younger bugs were more nimble at doing so, they found. The team’s research not only sheds light on one of humanity’s most spine-chilling parasites but could also help improve pest control efforts.

“These findings demonstrate that the wet surface is intrinsically aversive to bed bugs, a factor that must be considered in the development and application of liquid-based control tactics to prevent bed bugs from evading freshly treated surfaces,” the study researchers wrote in their paper, published this past December in the Journal of Ethology.

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Dong-Hwan Choe

Bed bugs fear water, and this could change how we fight them

tomwt — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:02:05 +0000

Bed bugs fear water, and this could change how we fight them tomwt Mon, 02/23/2026 - 09:02 More CNAS in the Media Sanjana Gajbhiye | Earth.com February 23, 2026

EARTH.COM - Have you ever wondered if bed bugs are afraid of anything? These tiny blood-sucking insects cause stress in homes around the world. Once bed bugs enter a room, getting rid of them can feel almost impossible.

But new research from the University of California, Riverside has revealed something surprising. Bed bugs fear water.

A recent study shows that moisture and wet surfaces make bed bugs quickly turn away. This discovery could help scientists and pest control companies better understand how to deal with infestations.

Why bed bugs fear water
The shape of a bed bug’s body explains this fear. Bed bugs have very flat bodies. Small breathing holes called spiracles sit along the sides of the belly.

“If they physically contact a body of water, they’ll get stuck to its surface, blocking their respiratory openings,” said Professor Dong-Hwan Choe, an entomologist at the UC Riverside.

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Dong-Hwan Choe

California researchers working to prevent screwworm infestation north of the border

tomwt — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:05:12 +0000

California researchers working to prevent screwworm infestation north of the border tomwt Tue, 12/23/2025 - 08:05 More CNAS in the Media Salvador Rivera | NewsNation December 23, 2025

NEWSNATION - During the late 1800s and well into the 1900s, the New World screwworm invaded the U.S., devastating livestock and requiring a decades-long eradication campaign.

During that time, the fly could be found from California to Florida.

Eventually, scientists discovered that by releasing sterile male flies into the air, they could all but eliminate the species.

“By 1966, California was one of the last places the fly was eradicated from,” said Alec Gerry, a professor of veterinary entomology at the University of California, Riverside.

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Alec Gerry

Flesh-eating Screwworms are creeping closer to a comeback in the United States

tomwt — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 16:27:42 +0000

Flesh-eating Screwworms are creeping closer to a comeback in the United States tomwt Fri, 12/19/2025 - 08:27 More CNAS in the Media Sarah Kuta | Smithsonian Magazine December 19, 2025

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Roughly 60 years ago, the United States eradicated the New World screwworm, an insect that feeds on living tissue. But now, the flesh-eating creature appears to be creeping closer to a comeback.

New World screwworm is the name given to the larval, or maggot, stage of the Cochliomyia hominivorax blowfly. Loosely translated from Latin, the insect’s scientific name means “maneater,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

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In California, researchers are taking steps to stop the parasite before it has a chance to re-establish itself stateside. With funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, scientists at the University of California, Riverside are spearheading a statewide monitoring program to keep an eye out for the bugs. To do that, they’re setting out traps filled with a stinky perfume designed to mimic the smell of rotting flesh—which many species of blowfly, including C. hominivorax, find irresistible.

They’re also talking with livestock handlers, veterinarians and entomologists, who are likely to be the first to encounter C. hominivorax if it does eventually return to the state.

“It hasn't been found in California yet, but it's within 70 miles of the Texas border,” says Amy Murillo, an entomologist at the university who is leading the project, in a statement. “We need to be prepared.”

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Amy Murillo

Californian researchers are preparing for the return of a parasitic flesh-eating maggot – that has been confirmed in humans

tomwt — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 23:19:15 +0000

Californian researchers are preparing for the return of a parasitic flesh-eating maggot – that has been confirmed in humans tomwt Thu, 12/18/2025 - 15:19 More CNAS in the Media Sophie Ellis | BBC Wildlife Magazine December 18, 2025

BBC WILDLIFE MAGAZINE - Researchers in California are preparing for the possible return of a parasitic flesh-eating fly which once decimated livestock.

The New World screwworm is the larval (or maggot) stage of a blowfly known as Cochliomyia hominivorax. While most blowflies are harmless and feed on decaying carcasses, the screwworm feeds on living tissue.

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Tackling screwworm
“It hasn’t been found in California yet, but it’s within 70 miles of the Texas border,” said Amy Murillo, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of California Riverside (UCR). “We need to be prepared.”

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Amy Murillo

How plant-eaters snag their essential amino acids

tomwt — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 22:27:09 +0000

How plant-eaters snag their essential amino acids tomwt Wed, 12/03/2025 - 14:27 More CNAS in the Media Katarina Zimmer | Knowable Magazine December 03, 2025

KNOWABLE MAGAZINE - n warm, shallow waters, a spiny, slug-like creature grazes on bacterial sludge on the seafloor, while sponges nearby filter clouds of suspended particles. A shell-encased Odaraia swims past, picking smaller life forms out of the water, while a giant Anomalocaris, with its formidable grasping appendages, prowls for soft-bodied critters. It’s a scene from some 500 million years ago, of oceans teeming with a new kind of life — the up-and-coming kingdom of animals.

Animals, made of many cells and feasting on other life instead of manufacturing their own nourishment from scratch, were an evolutionary hit. But this way of living brought complications. Early in the kingdom’s lineage, animals lost the ability to make nine of the 20 amino acids needed to build proteins.

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All 36 Hawaiian species of Pariaconus psyllids host the Carsonella bacterium, but many also get essential amino acids that Carsonella doesn’t produce from Makana and Malihini. The precise makeup of these bacterial communities evolved as their insect hosts adopted different diets and thus had different needs, explains entomologist and evolutionary biologist Allison Hansen of the University of California, Riverside.

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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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Chow-Yang Lee

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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Chow-Yang Lee

Squashing the spotted lanternfly problem may require enlisting other species

tomwt — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 15:05:41 +0000

Squashing the spotted lanternfly problem may require enlisting other species tomwt Fri, 08/08/2025 - 08:05 More CNAS in the Media Erin Garcia de Jesús | Science News August 08, 2025

SCIENCE NEWS - A beautiful menace is on the move in the United States. Polka-dotted, red-and-gray-winged insects are gliding along sidewalks, climbing on plants and crawling up buildings. Spotted youngsters are leaping away to avoid a sticky end at the bottom of a shoe.

Welcome to spotted lanternfly season.

An invasive plant hopper native to parts of China, India and Vietnam, spotted lanternflies (Lycoma delicatula) have been making their way across the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States for more than a decade, and some studies suggest they could reach California in the not-too-distant future.

In the spotted lanternfly’s native range in China, a fellow insect is on the prowl. There, the parasitoid wasp Anastatus orientalis lays its eggs inside those of spotted lanternflies, preventing them from hatching. The wasp may have helped control spotted lanternfly populations in South Korea after the invasive insect swept through the country in 2004.

Wasps might also help in the United States, though not A. orientalis or A. bifasciatus, a related wasp from Europe. The wasps attack not only spotted lanternfly eggs, but also stink bugs and many other plant hopper relatives native to the United States. Instead, researchers need to find a wasp that kills spotted lanternflies without too many native casualties, says Mari West, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside and who also works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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