Kids Ask Dr. Bug about the curious things found in the garden

The winner of the title, “World’s Smallest Bug” depends on how you define “bug.” As an entomologist, I define “bug” as an insect in a special group called the Order Hemiptera. There are some tiny “true bugs” that are ½ a millimeter long which are smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. These tiny insects belong to a group with a name that is much longer than the actual bug: Dipsocoromorpha!

If you define bug as any insect, then the answer might be a fairyfly or a feather-winged beetle. The fairyfly is not a fly, rather it is a teeny-tiny wasp that lays its eggs in other insects, and it is about 0.2 millimeters. A kind of featherwing beetle is only 0.35 millimeters and lives in the spore tubes of fungi. These insects, with compound eyes, brains, bodies, legs, and wings, yet they are about the size of tiny single-celled organisms called paramecium.

How do bugs move around without getting lost?

When Alice was lost in Wonderland and she asked the Cheshire cat which way to go, he told her “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” Some insects do not have a nest to return to, so they do not have to worry about finding their way back to something. They only need to think about where they want to go to find food, shelter, or a mate.

Many insects use landmarks to find their way. They may be seeking out something tall, like the trunk of a tree, or something the gives off the right vibes (color, texture, smell) for what they are seeking, like a carpenter bee seeks out wood to burrow in to lay her eggs.

Other insects, such as honey bees and ants, live in a colony so they need to be able to travel to find food, and then find their way home afterward. Insects use a variety of strategies to keep from getting lost. Ants and termites leave a pheromone (scent) trail when they travel. This also helps their nestmates to follow them to find great food sources. Some ants also measure the length of each step and keep a running tally of how many vironmental cues to know when to travel, as well as light-sensitive magnetic sensors in their antennae to use both the sun and their internal compass to guide them from Mexico, through the United States, to Canada, and back to Mexico. It can take 4-5 generations of Monarchs to make this journey, and we still do not know all the details flashing them in the sunlight to attract a mate. steps they have taken to determine the distance they have traveled. A foraging honey bee can sense the position of the sun in relation to her hive when she leaves. She can also sense how far she flew and can adjust for the movement of the sun so she can return home and do the waggle dance to tell the other girls in the hive where to get the best food. Dung beetles use the polarized light of the moon and stars to guide them from their dung patty to the place they want to bury their tasty treat and raise their family.

The sparkly wings are made by special ridges, grooves, small hairs, or special scales on insects that can reflect or refract light which creates that shiny appearance.

Can bugs be friends with each other?

Insects do not have friends like humans do. Most insects do not even interact with other insects of their same species other than to mate or eat together, like when Japanese Beetles release an aggregation pheromone to let other beetles know they found a tasty food source. Insects can form relationships with each other, though, called symbiotic relationships. These relationships can be beneficial for both insects (called a mutualism), or only one partner benefits but the other partner is not harmed (called commensalism), or one partner is harmed while the other benefits (called parasitism).

Some insects use a combination of techniques to navigate, such as monarch butterflies. They use en- of how this happens. We have so much to learn from insects!

Why do some insects have shiny wings?

Who doesn’t love some bling?! Shiny wings can be beneficial, and the reasons will be different for different insects. Some insects have shimmering wings to make them difficult to see so predators cannot focus on them. Other insects use their gleaming wings to help regulate their body temperature by reflecting sunlight away from them which helps them keep cool. Some butterflies and moths use their glistening wings in courtship displays,

An example of a mutualist relationship is aphids and ants. The aphids suck plant juices and excrete a sweet liquid called honeydew. Ants like the honeydew, so they protect the aphids from predators and “milk” the aphids. An example of commensalism is a tiny beetle that catches a ride on a bee like an Uber to get from one place to another. An example of parasitism is a tiny braconid wasp that lays its eggs inside a tomato hornworm. The hornworm dies, but the baby wasps grow up to take down more garden pests.

Do you have questions for Dr. Bug? Send them to ReallT@Missouri. edu or https://bit.ly/KidsAskDrBug. Please include your name and age. To help me learn what you learn from this column, consider filling out this survey: https://bit.ly/ KidsAskDrBugSurvey.

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