We are engaged in a comprehensive study of cicada killers (Sphecius spp.), including their behavioral ecology. At one location, we observed interactions among three putative species of Sphecius, and used DNA barcoding to help clarify relationships among them. For this, we sequenced a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene. During our study, a new taxonomic key of New ...

This study evaluated foraging effectiveness of Pacific cicada killers (Sphecius convallis) by comparing observed prey loads to that predicted by an optimality model. Female S. convallis preyed exclusively on the cicada Tibicen parallelus, resulting in a mean loaded flight muscle ratio (FMR) of 0.187 (N = 46). This value lies just above the marginal level, and only seven wasps (15%) were below 0...

Males of the cicada Okanagana rimosa (Homoptera: Cicadidae) that produce calling songs are parasitised by the parasitoid fly Emblemasoma auditrix (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). An ethogram of the infection behavior was extracted from videotaped experiments with tethered hosts. The infection behavior can be divided into three phases, each involving different sensory cues: long-range host detection vi...

The ever increasing number of computers connected into network leads to the development of new programming techniques to allow full use of the potential of these virtual computers. Despite problems of programming difficulty, associated with the distributed computing environment, the problem of fault tolerance is also emerging. The distributed computing environment is often used as a low-cost su...

Female cicadas use sound when they select a mate from a chorus of singing males. The cicada has a tympanal ear; and the tympanal membrane, and constituent tympanal ridge, act as both acousto-mechanical transducers and frequency filters. The tympanal ridge is physically connected to a large number of mechanoreceptor neurons via a cuticular extension known as the tympanal apodeme. Using microscan...