Browse Nuisance Animals Stories

As temperatures warm up and summer approaches, a surge in stinging and biting insects can quickly turn a fun day outside into an itchy, uncomfortable ordeal. Elmer Gray, a research entomologist with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and specialist for UGA Cooperative Extension, shares insight into the most common insect pests of the season — and how to protect yourself and your family.

Researchers at UGA working with fire ants are trying to understand how a small group of ants can convince a larger group to change a fundamental aspect of their behavior—whether they kill or nurture multiple queens. Their work was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author is Haolin Zeng, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology who completed his PhD at the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2022.

As overnight temperatures increase during the summer, so do mosquito populations, bringing with them the risk of mosquito-borne diseases. In late June, the Centers for Disease Control warned that the U.S. is seeing an increased risk of dengue fever, a sometimes fatal viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes. This disease has been across much of South and Central America and the Caribbean, and with about 1,500 cases, the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has declared a public health emergency over dengue.  

As January transitions to February, few of us are thinking about mosquitoes and the multitude of problems they can cause when spring arrives. But with January rain totals well above normal across the Southeast, it is a good time to take inventory of where standing water is holding and what can be done to eliminate it.

Cooler weather may be upon us, but as we open windows and head outside, it is important to remember that we are still in mosquito season. Recent rains have filled all of the containers, cracks and crevices that can hold water around our homes and neighborhoods. While working around my yard, I have found mosquito larvae in the bird bath, a garbage can lid and in the rim of a recycling container.

Warming temperatures will have tegus on the move in southeast Georgia. Reporting sightings of tegus, alive or dead, is needed to keep the big, South American lizards from gaining a foothold in the state, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Jena Johnson, a lab manager in the Department of Entomology in UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, captures what she observes working with mosquitoes and other insects in the lab of entomology professor Michael Strand. She finds scientific and artistic meaning in her photos, which offer a glimpse at both intriguing behavioral phenomena and unexpected natural beauty.

Recently, a church trustee in Bartow County brought samples of “holey” mail to the local University of Georgia Cooperative Extension office for closer examination. Strangely, mail deposited in the church’s mailbox was showing up with holes chewed through the outer layer of the envelopes, but the mail inside was intact — a small miracle in itself.

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is assisting the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GDNR) in the effort to find and remove tegus from the wild in southeast Georgia, and the public’s help remains critical to keeping these big, South American lizards from getting a toehold in the state.

It has been 17 years since a set of billions of periodical cicadas emerged from their underground chambers and filled the air with boisterous buzzing and desperate mating calls.