DIET

Baby pigeons eat food that their parents eat and then regurgitate (throw up). Adult pigeons eat almost any organic food they can find.

HABITAT

Pigeons build nests around farms, warehouses, mills and grain storage. They also inhabit parks, buildings and bridges in cities.

IMPACT

Pigeons are very dirty because they do not really clean themselves and they will live almost anywhere, under almost any conditions. They can cause food poisoning and spread disease such as cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis, toxoplasmosis, salmonella. Their droppings can destroy buildings and statues. Other pests like fleas, lice, mites and ticks that also spread disease may live on these birds.

PREVENTION

• Make it hard for pigeons to build a nest.
• Fill in any holes in your house and don’t leave a lot of open space on flat surfaces where they might be able to build a nest.
• Keep all food and water out of their reach. Don’t leave garbage laying around, do not leave food out, keep birdbaths clean and do not litter.
• Do not feed the pigeons!

info courtesy of wwww.pestworld.org

Arizona Scorpion Control Services

Remember to call 886-PEST for all of your Arizona spider control & removal needs!

Rat cooking lands TV show in hot water

Dec. 6, 2009, 12:37 PM EST

SYDNEY (AP) — Two stars of the reality TV show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here” have been charged with animal cruelty after allegedly killing and cooking a rat to eat during filming.

Chef Gino D’Acampo who won the viewer-feedback contest series, and actor Stuart Manning were charged after animal welfare activists lodged a complaint about a segment for the British TV program, which was filmed in Australia, the activists and British media reported Sunday.

In a statement to The Associated Press, New South Wales state police said Sunday that two men, aged 33 and 30, were charged with animal cruelty for acts in connection to the program but did not give names or other details. They have been asked to appear in court to face the charge on Feb. 3. The maximum penalty is three years in prison.

D’Acampo is 33 years old and Manning 30.

The show’s producer, ITV, confirmed in a statement that “the New South Wales RSPCA are currently looking into an incident in which a rat was killed in the camp.”

“The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable. The concern is this was done purely for the cameras,” David O’Shannessy of the New South Wales RSPCA told the British Broadcasting Corp.

He said producers were normally required to have animal welfare officers on set when animals were used during filming, but in this case it did not take place.

“I’m a Celebrity” strands C-list celebrities in the Australian jungle, subjects them to a series of icky trials involving spiders and snakes, and allows the public to vote them off the show one by one.

The key to faster H1N1 flu vaccines hides in the cells of caterpillars. This according to a Connecticut based protein Sciences Corporation. The idea is to use insect proteins from caterpillars instead of the traditional egg proteins when developing the vaccine. Australia will be the first to test this vaccine and will be the first to benefit from this newly found method. To read the full article check out H1N1 flu vaccine ‘in months’

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.13.2009

Villanova University student Christopher Meehan made good use of his January 2007 trip to the beach south of Cancún — documenting behavior of the first spider known to science to be deliberately and almost totally vegetarian.

Meehan, now a first-year graduate student in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, is the lead author in a study published Monday in Current Biology on Bagheera kiplingi, a jumping spider that will pass up a tasty fly for a sip of nectar and a salad.

It’s not a bad start for a young man who was just looking to do a “quick and dirty” field study to find something interesting to say about the much-researched mutualistic arrangement between acacias and ants — the biological equivalent of finding a new angle for a term paper on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Meehan’s focus was easily steered from ants to spiders when he made his first visit to the acacia shrubs.

“It was pretty early, a beautiful morning and I was walking down the beach. I saw these little silken shelters studding the plants and these spiders that evidently lived in the shelters.”

That sent him running back to his adviser and co-author, Robert L. Curry, a biology professor at Villanova.

“He came back and said, ‘Can I study the spider?’” recalled Curry. “I said, ‘What spider?’ ”

These acacias, you see, aren’t supposed to have spiders or beetles or caterpillars on them. The ants who inhabit them “are known for being very aggressive, vicious defenders,” said Meehan. The deal is they defend the plant from other predators, and the plant makes these nutrient-rich leaf parts called Beltian bodies for them to eat.

Meehan began observing.

“So I was following this spider around, trying to see why it was there while all these vicious ants were trying to bite and sting it,” Meehan said. “I saw it approach a group of ants guarding one of these Beltian bodies. It took a strike, but not at the ant — at the vegetable body. I knew that it was something new to the literature. I knew spiders shouldn’t eat plants.”

He reported back to Curry.

“I said, ‘Oh my God,’ ” Curry recalled.

Spiders are known to inadvertently ingest a little pollen along with their prey, and they do a small bit of nectar-feeding, said Curry, but none of the 40,000 species of spider was known to deliberately eat plants.

Meehan’s lab director at UA, Judith Bronstein, said it’s the kind of discovery that requires fresh eyes.

“There is a large community of scientists who study spiders, and they all know spiders eat other insects,” she said. “One is not supposed to see vegetarian spiders.”

Bronstein, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, said Meehan “has this very naive, honest approach about what theory says nature should look like, and because of that, he goes from discovery to discovery.”

“It’s a symptom of the kind of biologist he is, and this is the first of many things he’ll find,” Bronstein said.

Meehan had a bit of a letdown when he returned to Villanova, found someone who could identify the spider for him and learned he wasn’t the first to note this spider’s behavior.

Eric Olson of Brandeis University had observed similar behavior in Costa Rica in 2001, but results of his study were never published. Meehan called Olson, and the two at first “held our cards close to our vests,” said Meehan.

Curry said Olson’s research was not conclusive. The spiders he had observed were not as numerous and not as herbivorous.

Meehan and Olson decided to merge their research.

Olson became a co-author, as did Curry, and Matthew W. Reudink and T. Kurt Kyser of Queens University in Ontario. Reudink and Kyser performed the analysis that found that the spiders, the ants and the acacias had virtually identical ratios of certain isotopes of carbon and nitrogen — laboratory proof that the spiders’ diet came from the plants.

Meehan changed his master’s thesis topic.

Curry said the spiders were a better fit for his student than the birds he had him studying at Villanova. “He was never that much a bird person anyway,” he said. “He was the kid in the backyard, mucking around, looking at creepy-crawly things.”

Jumping spiders have always intrigued him, said Meehan. “They look at you and seem superficially curious,” he said.

These spiders proved infinitely interesting and entertaining.

Meehan made four more trips to Mexico, observing and recording the spiders’ behavior.

He discovered they build their nests on the tips of the oldest foliage, which are less patrolled by the ants.

He observed male spiders who “guard their nests and attack any intruder — spiders will smack it off,” he said.

“It’s the first case of spiders being Mr. Mom,” he said.

He hopes to make a case for the spiders’ sociality, which would be another big deal, but he is “lacking systematic data,” at the moment.

“Think of our own societies,” he said, “a race of individually-oriented, clever hunter-gatherers who transitioned to farming, transitioned to civilization from year-round access to consistently available food.”

These spiders, “thousands or at least hundreds on a single plant, tolerate each other. The males are aggressive toward each other, but what else is new?”

The new grad student is hitting the books this semester and working in Bronstein’s lab.

His expanded research areas include the evolution of cooperation and conflict, mutualism and the evolution of sociality. He’s also signed on to study the effects of climate change on species interaction in Amazonia.

He’s been a graduate student for a month and he’s already afflicted with wanderlust.

“I’m just waiting for these classes to get over,” he said, “so I can get back in the field.”

To see the video please visit http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/312955

Killer Spices Can “Season” Pests to Death

Ker Than
for National Geographic News

August 16, 2009

Herbs and spices used to flavor food are also green alternatives to synthetic pesticides, scientists say.

Oils from thyme, rosemary, mint, and other herbs and “killer spices” are gaining favor among farmers as alternatives to synthetic pesticides, according to Murray Isman, an entomologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada. (Also see “Killer Bugs Made Welcome on Green Farms.”)

Sprayed onto crops like any garden-variety pesticide, the plant oils repel insects, similar to how chili peppers can repel elephants. Other oils kill pests outright, the study says.

Originally intended for the perfume and food-flavoring industries, the killer-spice oils are already available wholesale and may be headed to retail shelves if the new use catches on, the researchers say.

The all-natural pesticides should be inexpensive too, Isman reasons, since they’re already in widespread use as wholesale perfume ingredients and flavorings for food. Companies are already working to bring the spice oils to retail shelves for farmers, he said.

Killer Spices Cause Fatal Spasms

Research suggests the oils interfere with the insect nervous system, making the muscles so hyperactive that bugs essentially spasm to death.

The oils also can disrupt an insect’s cellular membranes, causing fatal leakages of essential fluids.

The plant oils are most effective against small, soft-bodied bugs that suck on plant juices, such as aphids, whiteflies, and spider mites.

“Small, soft-bodied insects are more vulnerable to having their membranes melted or smothered by the oils,” Isman said.

Small insects also have large surface areas relative to their internal volume, so more of the bug is likely to come into contact with the oil, he added.

Since “killer spices” are natural, you might think insects would have evolved defenses against the seasonings. But scientists think insects may be less likely develop resistances to plant-based pesticides, because they tend to be complex chemical mixtures and therefore more complicated to defend against.

“With most conventional pesticides, you have one chemical that’s the poison,” Isman said.

Killer Spices Not Necessarily Killer Apps?

The prognosis isn’t entirely rosy for killer spices, though.

The oil-based pesticides evaporate quickly and degrade rapidly in sunlight. As a result, they have to be reapplied every few days, compared to every few weeks for conventional pesticides.

“At the end of the day, what matters is how much it costs and the health and environmental impacts,” Isman said. “And there the plant-based pesticides have an advantage.”

Findings presented today at an American Chemical Society meeting in Washington, D.C.

�