@ShaulaEvans It might be someone else has replied with drosophila trivia but I haven't read through all the replies yet so in case not:

The male fruit fly's sex combs (on its little arms that help him latch onto a female's abdomen for mating) need to be black. The pigment in them makes them functional. If you breed a mutant who lacks the pigment, not only can you barely see his sex combs, but also he can't do the nasty 'cause he can't get a grip.

@ShaulaEvans

A fact about a particular bug. Like God, I have an inordinate fondness for beetles*. In particular, Dytiscus.

I dug a small garden pond and was filling it up when there was a whir by my head and a 'plop'.

You guessed it! The first inhabitant of the pond was a Dytiscus

* 'There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of the distinguished British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.”'

@ShaulaEvans Incredibly, there is a single group of insects which have a winged instar before adulthood. And strangely enough, it’s the mayflies. They molt into a winged form, which lives for a few minutes to a couple of days, which _then_ molts into the sexually mature adult form.

@ShaulaEvans Gynandropmorphism, though very rare, is a real-world and highly visible example of animals being both a 'boy and a girl' at the same time. It is something observed in Lepidoptera and other bugs, in addition to many other animals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynandromorphism

@ShaulaEvans Male bees (and wasps, and ants) are _haploid_ and do not have fathers. They are not just the only animals, but the only _eukaryotes_ to evolve reproduction that differs from the normal alternation of haploid/diploid generations. (Reproduction is usually very strongly evolutionarily conserved, for obvious reasons: if a mutation messes it up somehow, there's no chance for it to get sorted out again in future generations, because there won't _be_ any future generations.) So euphemising sex ed as "the birds and the bees" is unhelpful, as "the bees" are literally _the_ worst available model organism for human reproduction.

@ShaulaEvans oh please tell your friend about the Australian small ant-blue butterfly!

Fun facts:
1. Critically endangered in Victoria but still breeds in Canberra including near my house in the suburbs.
2. The female is more colourful than the male.
3. Has a symbiotic relationship with coconut ants who build nests in dead wood. The butterfly lays eggs next to ant nests. The ants take the eggs inside and feed the larvae. When the caterpillar is big enough it then makes food for the ants. Then it crawls out of the nest, makes its cocoon, and becomes a butterfly.
4. To protect the butterfly, we must protect the ant. To protect the ant, we must leave dead eucalyptus and acacia wood on the ground instead of tidying up our reserves or building houses on them.

@ShaulaEvans Do "underwater bugs" count? If so: The invasive crabs in Europe know how to cut hooks off fishing lines. They also know how to remove the hooks from their bodies if they get caught. They chop the line, then use their claws to carefully remove the hook from their bodies. That means they feel the hook, know that the line is an issue but even cooler: they know that lines with hooks hanging into the ocean are potential dangers, having made the connection. Cool!

Hej @lavievagabonde

I guess this is a call for #CoolBugFacts that you could easily help with. A friend of @ShaulaEvans could be cheered up by telling anything about bugs.

The only thing I could contribute that the term "bug" in computer science is based on an actual bug that had been found by Grace Hopper in the circuitry of one of the first computers ever. But you probably knew that. You'll find a picture on "Bug (engineering)" at wikipedia.

Not a very unknown bug, but the one I knew.

@ShaulaEvans Forester moths are red first thing in the morning, but turn green as it warms up: https://entomologize.tumblr.com/post/714237607249379328/fun-fact-green-forester-moths-adscita-statices

@ShaulaEvans

1. The largest ant to ever walk the earth (that we know of) is the extinct species known as "Titanomyrma" The fossilized queens of this species were about the size of hummingbirds.

2. Carpenter ants sleep in a cuddle pile inside of their homes in rotting logs, like puppies.

3. Camponotus rectangularis is a carpenter ant with a wide head and simple black eyes. She gets her second name from her rectangle-shaped thorax.

4. The oldest verified ant queen lived over three decades.

@ShaulaEvans How moths avoid bats by using echo-jamming clicks

https://www.animalsaroundtheglobe.com/how-moths-avoid-bats-using-echo-jamming-clicks-4-342160/

@ShaulaEvans rove beetles (Staphylinidae) are not only (one of) the largest family in the animal kingdom, but they use their abdomen to fold their wings under the shortened elytra.
In fact, their wings have distinct folding lines, but it doesn't matter if the left or the the right wing is on top of the other while folding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhU9NhHIYQc

@ShaulaEvans I don't know if stick insects are Officially Bugs or not, but there's a species in Papua New Guinea which sprays when agitated, and the locals use it as an Antibacterial Spray Insect.

Other interesting stick insect facts here: https://deborah.makarios.nz/2019/10/29/the-weird-and-wonderful-stick-insect/

@ShaulaEvans Insects rock! Learn how bugs race on the water surface. Here we go:

21.08.2025 ... A new study explains how tiny water bugs use fan-like propellers to zip across streams at speeds up to 120 body lengths per second.

https://coe.gatech.edu/news/2025/08/tiny-fans-feet-water-bugs-could-lead-energy-efficient-mini-robots

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv2792

@ShaulaEvans how about these:

- domestic honeybees have specialized roles at the hive entrance, easiest to see with a slow motion camera. The entrance operates a bit like an airport. There's a bee who frisks incoming bees to confirm that they belong, a bee who sniffs incoming bees like one of those drug dogs to verify pheramone signature, an air traffic control bee who watches inbound and outbound bees, a security bee who leaps into action upon signal from the other bees to kick out intruders and imposters.

- bees have also been shown in studies to possibly be able to: do math, recognize faces, experience ptsd, and play

- the spongy moth was introduced to the US by a guy who was hoping to corner a new silk market, but he lost control of the caterpillars and they became an extremely invasive species there, oops

- not bugs obviously but they might still find this cool: spiders have been found to communicate with each other via drumming

@ShaulaEvans not a specific bug fact but i love that nz can vote on bug of the year (closes 16 feb this year). https://bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-here-2026/

@ShaulaEvans the UK giant willow aphid is the UK's biggest aphid, entirely female and reproduces by parthenogenesis and lives on willow trees in the spring and summer but we still have no idea where they go in winter.