I’m genuinely curious

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Found this on Instagram reels. Why are the ants taking the buttons? Could they be made of something organic that they like the taste of?
All of the comments were AI generated pictures of the ants using the buttons for human things which was honestly to be expected.

I’ve told her they’re basically harmless, more scared of you and that they squeak but she always hates when I talk about them 😞 can anyone help ?

I'm not sure how we'd even test or understand this.... But I was curious, anyway!

Does this ant-mimicking spider, for example, actually understand that it looks like an ant, but it ISN'T an ant, and that it should act like one for survival? Would it have that conceptualization?

Is it scuttling around like, 'Heh heh heh, I'm fooling these guys so hard right now.'

Or is it just learned behaviour?

Yeah. Even looking of images online deeply disturb me. Especially spiders or even roaches or mosquitoes. Im just repulsed/disgusted by them. Some more than other obviously. I would like to not be like that....but it is what it is lol. Why do u guys like bugs? What is it about them that u like?

Saw this under a post about ladybugs. Need an entomologist to confirm

Currently sitting here on the sidewalk crying like a dumbass. I’m going to school for conservation biology and in entomology class this semester , we’re supposed to do a bug collection. Wasn’t my first choice of an animal based class to take because of that reason but it’s the only one I was able to get into. I’ve been putting it off for a long while and since it’s starting to get cooler out , I figured I should get started. Put a grasshopper in my kill jar and after 3 minutes I started crying and it looked like it was struggling and I started bawling I had to let it out. I really don’t think I’ve got the heart for this, it’s making me sick to my stomach. I have no clue how i’m supposed to do this project when it’s like the whole point of the class . I hate killing any bug it truly breaks my heart I seriously don’t know if I can do it. I love animals so much even the smallest bug, I don’t want it to die. I know it’s supposed to be a good learning experience and it’s beneficial but man

Update. Was able to speak with my professor, he said it would be fine for me to submit photos / and also scientific illustrations:) I am feeling sooo much better. Thanks everyone for your comments and support , I read them all❤️❤️

Saw this on tiktok and it sounded like this person was just projecting and making stuff up about cockroaches. Is this true or nah cause this "aspiring" entomologist is really adamant it is.

Doing research about cochineal dye (made from the tiny little cochineal insects) and I’m wondering:

Is there is any truly painless way to kill an insect?

With all of the papers coming out that seem to show a strong case for insects being able to feel pain, the typical traditional methods of making this dye—slow dehydration or boiling them alive—seem quite cruel. :(

Why do these wasps congregate on my clothes line each evening?

Why do these wasps hang out on my clothing clips each night?

Northern Australia.

These guys have started congregating on my clothing clips each evening since about a month ago. There is no nest nearby and they are very chill but I really want to know why they are suddenly doing this. I have to shoo them away if I hang clothes at night but I have never been stung or harassed by the lil dudes. Any idea why they are doing this?

It’s not cold or even cool at night. And no nest or start of nest anywhere.

Have tons of monarchs on my swamp milkweed, this is the first time I’ve seen this. Found her on the dirt under the biggest plant, skin is firmly fused with the chrysalis, and it’s extremely small. It is bright and firm, which makes me believe she’s alive.

OE? We’ve had a significant amount of rain the last few days, and heat and humidity is through the roof. Very curious about what may have gone wrong.

r/monarchbutterfly banned me for this post, I’m just hoping someone with more information can let me know if I need to do anything to prevent spread of infection if it is OE or similar.

It was covered in tiny little flies and I figured it was dead but I moved it gently away from the sink and it’s little pedipalps and mouth started moving about. Dotted a little water within the pedipalps reach and the spider reacted. Then fed it one of the little flies that was previously crawling all over. What on Earth happened to the little guy???

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but I don't get why killing insects and small arthropods in general is so normalized. Like when I was in school, every time I was watching ants on the school playground, someone would always come to stomp them just to hurt me. I was always the 'weird kid' just because I liked insects. They always brought beetles to me just to kill them in front of me. The worst part, I confronted them and told them to stop but they said that insects don't have souls and that God made them for us to squish(catholic school). I just don't get it, they showed empathy to dogs and cats and other furry animals but the moment it was any sort of invertebrate then it was "hideous","ugly", and "deserved to die".In class we were watching a video about the life cycle of a silk moth and when it showed the moth passing away after laying eggs, they cheered the moth's death on :( and when I talked about my pets at the time ( some beetles) they said that they wanted to step on them.

Just wanted to let out some steam (sorry for the long rant)

I want to observe my local insect biodiversity (for a university project since this remote area of my home village doesn’t have any data on it) so I got a Sofirn SR15 UV (basically a really strong uv light with a visible light filter) and another strong normal light. I pointed them at a bright white cotton sheet which should be grippy enough for insects to hold on to. A couple of moths visited, but left shortly after. I’ve only been able to photograph one moth (had to let them chill out for a bit so I can transport them over to the focus stacking setup but only one moth stayed long enough to calm down).
My guess would be that it’s too bright and not scattering about since others use 360 degrees setups while I’m using a direct beam pointing at the sheet. But maybe I’m missing a crucial point since I’m only a marine biologist.
Would appreciate every tip, especially by people with experience. I don’t think a lack of diversity could be the reason since at least five different moth species visited. They just didn’t land on the sheet but rather flew against me and everything before quickly leaving again :( there are also no other light sources for at least 2km.
Thanks!

I live in a hilly region, its 1 pm and location southern asia. The bug was minding its own buisness when I found it.

I have no idea what to do, I searched online and it’s all I could come up with, cutie hid under a pear slice haha.
I don’t want to rob him or her of life but I don’t want them to perish either. Any tips?

So, I've been helping clear leaves over at my Nan and Grandad's recently and was watching a robin in the garden. I was suddenly reminded of the gatekeepers I had seen there earlier in the year and the meadow browns I had seen around Hyde Park in the summer.

So, we know that eye spots are often used in butterflies to deter predators and we know that owl butterflies look like, well, owl heads. Is it conceivable that the eyespots and patternings of the gatekeeper and meadow brown are not just generic eyespots, but ones deliberately inteded to make them appear to other predators/competitors as if they are adult male robins, specifically?

Furthermore - just thinking from my own palaeontological perspective here - could we perhaps, unknowingly, be getting a small insight into the patternings and colourations of recently, or dare I postulate, perhaps even distantly extinct species through this mimicry in other species?