Pests and Parasites News

September 20, 2026

Top Headlines

The U.S. Eradicated This Flesh-eating Parasite. Now It’s Back

Sep. 15, 2026 The flesh eating New World screwworm has returned to the United States, threatening livestock, wildlife, pets and potentially people as it spreads north. A new UC San Diego tracking system aims to predict where the parasite could strike next while ...

A Coral Reef Thought Dead for 60 Years Is Teeming with Life

Sep. 14, 2026 More than 60 years after surveys suggested a deep coral reef off Benin was probably dead, scientists have found it alive. Cameras revealed healthy-looking coral patches supporting multiple fish species more than 50 meters beneath the surface. The ...

The Secret to Longer Life May Be Hidden in Bat DNA

Sep. 11, 2026 Long-lived bats appear to combine powerful immune defenses with unusual strategies for eliminating damaged cells, potentially helping them avoid cancer and disease for decades. Researchers hope these genetic tricks could eventually reveal new ways ...

Wasps Are Disappearing This Summer, and Scientists Are Worried

Sep. 11, 2026 Britain’s wasps have become mysteriously scarce this summer, and scientists suspect an unusual combination of temperature swings, heatwaves, and food shortages may be responsible. Even the wasps that remain appear unusually small, potentially ...

“Parachute Science” Is Failing the Tropics, Home to More Than 80% of Insect Species

Sep. 9, 2026 Insects quietly hold much of the natural world together, yet conservation efforts are overlooking the tropical regions where more than 80 percent of insect species live. Monash University researchers ...

MIT Turns Bacteria Into Living Transistors

Sep. 4, 2026 MIT researchers have created bacterial “transistors” that can be wired together into living circuits capable of performing calculations and directing chemical signals. One day, these biological computers could coat plant roots or leaves, ...

Plants May Be Evolving the Wrong Traits for a Warming World

Sep. 3, 2026 Morning glories may be getting caught in an evolutionary tug-of-war between surviving climate change and attracting increasingly scarce pollinators. Over just nine years, researchers found that the plants’ rate of adaptation plunged by 96%, even ...

Scientists Tested 212 Plant-based Meat Alternatives. Every One Contained Fungal Toxins

Aug. 28, 2026 Every one of 212 plant-based meat alternatives and drinks tested in the UK contained at least one naturally occurring fungal toxin, though concentrations remained below recommended EU guideline ...

Bird Flu Is Spreading. Your Backyard Feeder Could Make It Worse

Aug. 24, 2026 Backyard bird feeders could become unexpected hotspots for H5N1 as Australia’s bird flu outbreak spreads, bringing species together in ways that rarely occur naturally. Experts say stopping feeding is safest, while smaller amounts of food, no ...

Scientists Left This Farm Field Alone. Thousands of Orchids Appeared

Aug. 23, 2026 An abandoned farm field became a flourishing wildflower meadow within little more than a decade, with plant diversity doubling and thousands of orchids appearing naturally. The discovery suggests that simply giving nature time to recover could be a ...

World’s Most-used Weedkiller Disrupts Honeybee Brains

Aug. 6, 2026 Glyphosate was long thought to be safe for honeybees because they lack the enzyme the chemical targets in weeds. However, researchers found that exposed bees foraged 13 percent less after only three days and showed changes in brain chemicals linked ...

Two Deadly Flowers Could Inspire Powerful New Medicines

Aug. 3, 2026 Scientists have figured out how two famously poisonous plants create chemicals with surprising medical potential. After tracking thousands of genes in wolfsbane and larkspur, they identified six enzymes needed to build a complex compound called ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:18am EDT

New Chemical Wipes out 95% of Termites Without Harming Humans

Sep. 19, 2026 A chemical that stops drywood termites from building new exoskeletons killed about 95% of colonies in testing, offering a potentially safer alternative to traditional fumigation. Because termites ...

Scientists Just Named a New Snake After Guns N’ Roses Legend Slash

Sep. 18, 2026 A newly discovered snake from New Guinea has been named after Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, who has loved reptiles since childhood. Genetic testing and physical differences confirmed that the ...

Scientists Discover a Powerful New Antivenom Hidden in Rattlesnake Blood

Sep. 8, 2026 Researchers discovered that combinations of toxin-blocking proteins naturally found in rattlesnake blood can powerfully neutralize venom from several dangerous snake species. In lab tests, the ...

Scientists Discover a Bizarre “devil Flower” Hidden in Thailand

Sep. 3, 2026 Scientists have discovered a strange black “devil flower” in Thailand that lives mostly underground, steals nutrients from fungi, and looks strikingly unlike a typical plant. The newly named ...

Chimpanzees Have Been Hurling Rocks at the Same Trees for More Than a Decade

Aug. 28, 2026 Some chimpanzees in West Africa repeatedly throw rocks at particular trees, creating piles of stones that can remain in use for more than a decade. ...

Your Dislike of Eating Bugs May Be 9,000 Years Old

Aug. 27, 2026 Ancient teeth and human DNA are revealing a surprising history of insect eating. Modern humans in northern Eurasia appear to have eaten insects only occasionally, while Neanderthals may have consumed ...

324-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals How Insects Conquered Land

Aug. 27, 2026 Ancient fossils suggest insects conquered land through a long amphibious phase rather than making an abrupt jump from water to dry ground. A newly identified 324-million-year-old species still ...

This Shark Can Live 400 Years. Its Eyes Barely Seem to Age

Aug. 22, 2026 Greenland sharks may live for 400 years without suffering the kind of retinal decline normally associated with aging. Researchers found healthy eye tissue and active proteins specially adapted for ...

Pollen Has a Surprising Problem — and Honeybees Have Found a Way Around It

Aug. 19, 2026 Honeybees can apparently detect when their food has the wrong balance of essential nutrients and adjust how much they eat to avoid potentially ...

A 60-Year-Old Theory About Ants, Bees and Wasps May Be Wrong

Aug. 15, 2026 Scientists have long thought an unusual genetic system helped ants, bees, and wasps evolve their extraordinary social colonies. A massive new analysis suggests that genetics alone can’t explain ...

For 15,000 Years, Humans and Dogs Have Been Changing Each Other

Aug. 10, 2026 Dogs have been shaping—and being shaped by—humans for about 15,000 years, evolving from early partners of hunter-gatherers into an astonishing range of specialized companions. Across the globe, ...

Forget the Sperm Race: Fertilization May Depend on Teamwork

Aug. 6, 2026 Millions of sperm do not always compete alone—some species send them into action as coordinated teams. A sweeping evolutionary study found that this cooperation is widespread among arthropods and ...

These Insect Submariners Survive Depths That Should Crush Them

July 27, 2026 Lake fly larvae plunge more than 200 meters into Lake Malawi each day to hide from predators, using tiny air sacs to control their depth. A rubber-like material called resilin lets them expand or ...

Why Are So Many Dead Bumblebees Appearing on Sidewalks?

July 29, 2026 Bumblebees naturally have short lives, but extreme heat and human activity are making survival harder. Pesticides can poison bees or destroy the flowers they depend on, while habitat loss leaves them ...

Scientists Discover a Completely Different Way to Fight Viruses

June 30, 2026 Researchers have uncovered an unexpected antiviral defense system in sea anemones that works very differently from the one humans use. The discovery suggests evolution developed multiple ways to ...

These Tiny Soil Microbes Could Rescue Crops from Salty Farmland

June 28, 2026 Researchers have discovered that beneficial soil bacteria give plants an unexpected survival advantage in salty soils. Instead of helping plants keep salt out, the microbes stimulate the production ...

This Common Pesticide May Be Quietly Wiping out Future Bumblebees

July 10, 2026 A next-generation pesticide designed to kill crop pests may also be interfering with the reproductive health of bumblebees. Researchers discovered that low-dose exposure to sulfoxaflor changed gene ...

Scientists Finally Solved How H5N1 Bird Flu Hid in Dairy Cows

June 23, 2026 Researchers uncovered why H5N1 bird flu attacks cows’ udders instead of their lungs: the virus’s preferred receptors are concentrated in mammary tissue. The breakthrough could help scientists ...

The Secret Language Behind Animal Cooperation

June 20, 2026 Animals from different species often rely on surprisingly sophisticated communication to work together, whether finding food, cleaning parasites, or gaining protection. New research suggests these ...

Scientists Catch a “jumping Gene” Mid-Leap Between Species

Aug. 4, 2026 Scientists have uncovered a surprising way that “jumping genes” may move between species and speed up evolution. While these mobile genetic elements were thought to travel mainly inside viruses ...

Butterfly That Barely Ages Could Help Unlock Longevity Secrets

June 22, 2026 Scientists discovered that Heliconius butterflies have evolved an extraordinary lifespan, living several times longer than closely related species. Even more surprising, some show little sign of ...

One Tiny Mutation May Explain How Bat Viruses Become Human Threats

June 23, 2026 Scientists found that one tiny genetic change can completely alter how a coronavirus behaves in different species. Comparing SARS-CoV-2 with a closely related bat-only virus, they showed that a ...

These Bees Have Nowhere to Hide from Extreme Heat

June 18, 2026 A major study of Australian native bees found that stem-nesting species may be the first to feel the impact of climate change. Unlike bees that nest underground, they have few ways to escape ...

Trees Keep Absorbing Carbon Long After They Stop Growing

July 9, 2026 Oak trees keep absorbing carbon dioxide long after their annual growth has ended, revealing that photosynthesis and wood production are not as closely linked as scientists once believed. The finding ...

Beneath Our Feet Lies a Fungal Superhighway Stretching 68 Quadrillion Miles

June 15, 2026 Beneath our feet lies a vast hidden fungal superhighway that helps sustain much of life on Earth—and scientists have now mapped it for the first time. Researchers estimate that these underground ...

Scientists Went Looking for Giant Trees in Taiwan and Found a Lost World

Aug. 3, 2026 Taiwan’s steep, remote mountains have sheltered extraordinary forests containing hundreds of giant Taiwania firs. After years of difficult expeditions, LiDAR mapping, and citizen-science detective ...

Scientists Stunned as Bumble Bees Solve a Classic Intelligence Test

July 2, 2026 Bumble bees astonished researchers by inventing a new way to reach a hidden reward, despite never being taught the trick. The discovery adds to growing evidence that these tiny insects are far ...

This Blood-Feeding Fly Sacrifices Its Sight After Finding a Host

June 2, 2026 Deer keds rely on flight and vision to find a host, but everything changes once they land. After shedding their wings forever, these parasites reduce the activity of key vision-related genes by about ...

This Bizarre Crocodile Relative from the Triassic Looked Like an Ostrich Dinosaur

May 29, 2026 Scientists have discovered Labrujasuchus expectatus, a bizarre crocodile relative that looked more like an ostrich-like dinosaur than anything resembling a modern crocodile. It walked on two legs, ...

Deadly Fungus and Lung Parasites Are Hammering Wild Rattlesnakes

May 26, 2026 A sweeping new study of wild snakes in the southeastern US has revealed a hidden health crisis slithering beneath the surface. Researchers found that many snakes are carrying multiple infections at ...