If you are suffering from a persistent headache, don’t be tempted to eat mothballs. In 2011, a 34-year old patient was admitted (unconscious) to a hospital emergency department in Amsterdam “following the ingestion of camphor mothballs for persisting headaches”. Fortunately, after a week or so of intensive clinical care she recovered and was discharged in […]
Tag: moth
How to prepare a moth to drive a car
Step-by-step, practical instructions for how to prepare a moth to drive a tiny automobile. That’s what this video shows, and the accompanying paper describes: It’s all published formally as: “Insect-controlled Robot: A Mobile Robot Platform to Evaluate the Odortracking Capability of an Insect,” Noriyasu Ando, Shuhei Emoto, and Ryohei Kanzaki, Journal of Visualized Experiments, no. 118, December 2016, […]
The case of the whistling caterpillars
“In this study, we introduce a novel form of sound production in caterpillars – whistling. While most insects and caterpillars that generate sound do so by rubbing body parts together or against a substrate, few generate sound through using air expulsion. The walnut sphinx Amorpha juglandis caterpillar is a cryptic species found throughout much of […]
Cyanide moths – ok snack for kids
Some types of moth, notably the Zygaena genus, can contain significant quantities of cyanide, raising the question ‘Is it a good idea to eat them?’ The question has particular relevance since the moths are a traditional favourite snack amongst children from the Carnia region of Italy. The children like to eat the moths´ingluvies (roughly equivalent […]