Add another species to the list of organisms oozing over Alaska. A tiny gnat — one that in its larval stage sometimes crawls over its brethren’s backs in great numbers until together they resemble a long gray snake — is a newly described species. Alaska insect expert Derek Sikes and postdoctoral researcher Thalles Pereira from […]
Worm, Insect — Kinguk Tawa kingugturningaitua! – No, I won’t eat worms! Earthworms are relatively rare in Alaska. Despite the abundance and notoriety of their cousin the ice worm, earthworms do not thrive in acidic forest soils or in areas with extensively frozen ground. Of the 1,800 known species of earthworms, the only naturally occurring […]
Kinguk—Insect Kingut ilait kumsugnartaartut.—Some insects are ugly. Mosquitoes, black flies, white socks, no-see-ums, and other biting insects are an inescapable part of summer in the Gulf of Alaska. Hatched during the warming days of May, they thrive until the heavy frosts of fall. Anyone who has worked outdoors on a still day knows the […]
Ed Berg has spent much of his life observing the natural happenings on a large peninsula (the Kenai) that juts from a larger peninsula (Alaska). The retired ecologist who worked many years for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been around long enough he might see a second version of the most damaging insect […]