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Insect Eggs
This story appears in the September 2010 issue of National Geographic magazine.We fool ourselves most days. We imagine the Earth to be ours, but it belongs to them. We have barely begun to count their kinds. New forms turn up in Manhattan, in backyards, nearly anytime we flip a log. No two seem the same. They would be like extraterrestrials among us, except that from any distance we are the ones who are unusual, alien to their more common ways of life.
As the vertebrate monsters have waxed and waned, the insects have gone on mating and hatching and, as they do, populating every swamp, tree, and patch of soil. We talk about the age of dinosaurs or the age of mammals, but since the first animal climbed onto land, every age has been, by any reasonable measure, the age of insects too. The Earth is salted with their kind.
We know, in part, what makes the insects different. Those other first animals tended to their young, as do most of their descendants, such as birds, reptiles, and mammals, which still bring their young food and fight to protect them. Insects, by and large, abandoned these ancient traditions for a more modern life.
Insects evolved hardened eggs and with them a special appendage, an ovipositor, which some use to sink their eggs into the tissue of Earth. Lift a stone and you will find them. Split a piece of wood, and they are there, but not only there. Birds struggle to find good places to nest, yet insects evolved the ability to make anything—wood, leaves, dirt, water, even bodies (especially bodies)—a nursery. If there is a single feature that has ensured insects' diversity and success, it is the fact that they can abandon their young nearly everywhere and yet have them survive—because of those eggs.
They began simply, smooth and round, but over 300 million years, insect eggs have become as varied as the places where insects reign. Some eggs resemble dirt. Others resemble plants. When you find them, you might not know what you are seeing at first. The forms are unusual and embellished with ornaments and apparatuses. Some eggs breathe through long tubes that they extend up through water. Others dangle from silky stalks. Still others drift in the wind or ride on the backs of flies. They are as colorful as stones, shaded in turquoises, slates, and ambers. Spines are common, as are spots, helices, and stripes. More than biology, their designs suggest the work of an artist left to obsess among tiny forms. They are natural selection's trillion masterpieces; inside each is an animal waiting for some cue to break free.
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Cage-free or free-range? Here's what those egg labels really meanThe basic workings of insect eggs, however, like the basics of any egg, are recognizable. The egg develops its shell while still inside the mother. There the sperm must find and swim through an opening at one end of the egg, the micropyle. Sperm wait inside the mother for this chance, sometimes for years. One successful sperm, wearied but victorious, fertilizes each egg, and this union produces the undifferentiated beginnings of an animal nestled inside a womblike membrane. Here eyes, antennae, mouth parts, and all the rest form. As they do, the creature respires using the egg's aeropyles, through which oxygen diffuses in and carbon dioxide out. That all of this occurs in a structure typically no larger than a grain of raw sugar is simultaneously beyond belief and ordinary. This is, after all, the way in which most animals ever to have lived on Earth had their start.
What you see in the accompanying photo gallery are the eggs of a few small branches of the insect tree of life. Among them are those of some butterflies that face extraordinary travails to defend themselves against predators and, sometimes, against plants on which they are laid. Some passionflowers transform parts of their leaves into shapes that resemble butterfly eggs; mother butterflies, seeing the "eggs," move on to other plants to deposit their babies. Such mimics are imperfect, but fortunately so is butterfly vision.
Eggs must also somehow escape having the eggs of another type of insect, parasitoids, laid inside of them. Parasitoid wasps and flies use their long ovipositors to thrust their eggs into the eggs and bodies of other insects. Roughly 10 percent of all insect species are parasitoids. It is a well-rewarded lifestyle, punished only by the existence of hyperparasitoids, which lay their eggs inside the bodies of parasitoids while they are inside the bodies or eggs of their own hosts. Many butterfly eggs and caterpillars eventually turn into wasps as a consequence of this theater of life. Even the dead and preserved eggs shown here are likely to hold mysteries. Inside some are young butterflies, but inside others may be wasps or flies that have already eaten their first supper and, of course, their last.
Every so often, and against all odds, a group of insects has regressed a little and decided to care more actively for its young. Here and there we see the evidence. Dung beetles roll dung balls for their babies. Carrion beetles roll bodies. And then there are the roaches, some of which carry their newborn nymphs on their backs. The eggs of these insects have become featureless and round again, like lizard eggs, and in so doing also become more vulnerable and in need of care, like our own young. Yet they survive. Perhaps they are the vanguard of what will come next, the next kingdom beginning to rise. Though perhaps not. Recently I watched a dung beetle rolling a ball, and the ball looked like a rising sun. Above that beetle was a fly trying to lay an egg inside the beetle's head.
Insects have been cracking out of eggs for hundreds of millions of years. It is happening now, all around you. If you listen, you can almost hear the crumbling of the shells as tiny feet, six at a time, push into the world.
Iguana Lays More Than Two Dozen Eggs In Miami Resort Swimming Pool
A female iguana was found stuck inside of a water slide jet at a Florida resort after she laid more than two dozen eggs that ended up at the bottom of a swimming pool.
On Friday, Michael Ronquillo, the owner of Humane Iguana Control, arrived at an unnamed resort in Miami after he was contacted about the mother and her babies.
'Upon our arrival, the iguana escaped, leaving behind 30 eggs in the swimming pool. We've received calls about iguanas nesting in unusual places like pools, under artificial turf, and cars,' Ronquillo told Fox News.
Ronquillo said that his team have 'no idea' how the iguana and her eggs got trapped in the slide and pool.
Humane Iguana Control told DailyMail.Com that the mother escaped from the jet while the eggs had to be 'dispatched due to iguanas being an invasive species.'
A female iguana is seen trapped inside of a pool water slide jet at a local resort in Miami, Florida. Her legs and claws are seen through the holes
Michael Roquillo, the owner of Human Iguana Control, said that his team have 'no idea' how the iguana and her eggs got trapped in the slide and pool
Commenters flocked to social media and reacted to the odd discovery, as one said: 'Needed a place to lay her eggs. We have lots of iguanas in Florida, but this would freak me out.'
Another jokingly said: 'Even iguanas have to go on vacation...'
Pictures showed the eggs sprawled across the pool floor, close to the drain, as another shot showed the large female iguana trapped inside the water slide jet.
Her legs hung out of the holes in the jet, as Ronquillo said that his team believes that the mother was 'trying to lay eggs in there.'
'Female iguanas are very active during the breeding season and you will find them in random places,' he said in a post about the bizarre find on Instagram.
Another clip showed the experts looking inside the pool pipe with an endoscopy camera to 'make sure' the iguana was not trapped in there.
Toward the end of the video, Ronquillo showed the collection of eggs that his crew rescued from the bottom of the pool.
'We're not really sure how the iguana laid them on the slide, or that area, and how they ended up in the pool,' Ronquillo said.
Mating season for the reptiles typically runs from February to March, and Ronquillo said that females are known to lay 'up to 70 eggs annually.'
Iguanas are some of the largest lizards found in the US as their tails make up about half of their length, according to San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
Roquillo discovered 30 iguana eggs at the bottom of the pool, near where the female lizard was found
Another clip showed the experts looking inside the pool pipe with an endoscopy camera as they wanted to 'make sure' the iguana was not trapped in there
The reptiles are native to Central America and some eastern Caribbean islands, and they first arrived in Florida in the 1960s.
Since then, their population has been steadily rising. Iguanas are known to get into sewer systems and are strong swimmers.
In recent years, the invasive reptiles have made their way to the Sunshine State and have been blamed for causing damage to buildings and power outages.
It is also extremely dangerous to approach iguanas in the wild.
'Directly addressing iguanas can pose bodily harm and health risks due to their sharp nails, teeth, and tail whips reaching speeds of 30 mph,' Ronquillo said.
Ronquillo also stressed that if an iguana or iguana eggs are seen in a body of water, like a swimming pool, experts should be contacted as pools can cause 'health risks' for the babies.
He added that iguanas are known to carry serious diseases and critters like salmonella, ticks and mites.
Wildlife experts have warned that iguanas can transmit salmonella to pets and cause erosion near lakes and canals, and when temperatures fall, the National Weather Service in Miami has been known to issue falling iguana advisories.
In recent years, the invasive reptiles have made their way to the Sunshine State and have been blamed for causing damage to buildings and power outages. (pictured: A green iguana in dangling from the air in cold weather)
In May 2023, a Florida man, John Ride, 58, got the surprise of his life when he noticed his toilet was occupied by a furious iguana
When it gets cold, below 40 degrees, the critters go into a sort of suspended animation mode and fall to the ground. They usually wake up in the sun's warmth.
In May 2023, a Florida man, John Ride, 58, got the surprise of his life when he noticed his toilet was occupied by a furious iguana.
The scaled intruder seemed as stunned as Riddle as it began to hiss angrily at him, turning its head towards his camera for a menacing photo.
'I walked in my bathroom and found Godzilla in my toilet,' Riddle said.
'He didn't seem at all pleased and started splashing and hissing at me.'
Before Riddle could finally use the bathroom, he grabbed a net he uses to clean out his pool and removed the unwelcome visitor.
'I guess I won't be leaving the door open for the dogs anymore,' he added.
Chinese Scientists Discover New Kind Of Dinosaur Egg
Chinese paleontologists have unearthed a new kind of dinosaur egg in the eastern Shandong province, suggesting that the ancient creatures were even more diverse than previously assumed.
For decades, academics have debated whether dinosaurs always laid hard-shelled eggs like modern-day birds, or whether some species laid soft-shelled eggs similar to those produced by some turtles, snakes, and lizards. The fossils uncovered in Shandong, however, appear to be from a distinct third category.
The fossilized eggs were originally uncovered in 2019 by a research team from Beijing's China University of Geosciences. The team, who analyzed the fossils in collaboration with researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Anhui University, published their findings in the journal Cretaceous Research on April 25.
The part of Shandong where the dig took place — Laiyang City — is known as "the hometown of dinosaurs" in China due to the area's unusually rich fossil deposits. Paleontologists had previously discovered eggs from 13 different dinosaur species in Laiyang, but the China University of Geosciences team were "astonished" by this latest find, Zheng Hanghai, the researcher who led the dig, told Sixth Tone.
The eggs are presumed to date from the Cretaceous period, around 145 million to 66 million years ago, and belong to the Spheroolithidae family of dinosaur eggs, which are commonly found in East Asia. But their structure is totally distinct from any previously uncovered in the region, according to Zheng.
Despite three of the eggs having been crushed and deformed, they had somehow remained intact. Zheng said they looked like ping-pong balls that had been smashed with a blunt instrument.
This kind of deformation is "extremely unusual," Zheng said. Only one previous example of a deformed dinosaur egg has been recorded worldwide, and that only had a "tiny, partial deformation," he said.
This suggests that the eggs were softer and less brittle than normal, hard-shelled dinosaur eggs. But they weren't soft-shelled eggs either: Further analysis revealed that the eggs had a thin shell around 1.4-2.6 millimeters thick.
In addition, the eggs' microstructure — with its "bush-like eggshell units in the middle and outer parts of the eggshell" — is different from any spheroolithid eggs previously found in East Asia, Zheng said.
Zheng and his team are still trying to work out what kind of dinosaur may have produced this unique egg, which they have named Spheroolithus phacelus. They expect that they likely belonged to a hadrosaur — a family of fast, agile herbivores with crested skulls that lived in the late Cretaceous period. Many hadrosaur fossils have been found in the same area.
At this stage, Zheng said the team wasn't ready to speculate about what the eggs reveal about the evolutionary trajectory of the dinosaurs. But recent discoveries of soft-shelled dinosaur eggs have suggested that dinosaurs were more diverse than long assumed. This latest finding will only add to this sense.
"There has been a long-running discussion on whether dinosaurs' shells were hard or soft," said Zheng. "The deformed eggs add a third element to discussions on the evolution of dinosaur eggs, which is extremely significant."
China has become a hotbed of paleontological research in recent years. In 2020, two new species of titanosaurs were discovered in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In March, another new species of ankylosaur was uncovered in the eastern Jiangxi province.
Additional reporting: Li Dongxu
(Header image: The five dinosaur eggs researched by Zheng and his colleagues. Courtesy of Zheng)
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