Sentences with word «frass»

After observing that the caterpillars «ballistically eject» Grape Nut - sized pellets of excrement, also known as frass, Weiss decided to investigate.

«It's not surprising that chemicals in frass would be something that caterpillars have to worry about,» says chemical ecologist Jack Scultz at Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

The scientists found out about this clever mechanism when they analyzed larval frass.

In the new study, the researchers collected the caterpillar frass and turned it into an extract, which they applied to wounded corn leaves.

Another possibility is that the caterpillars fling frass to avoid being crowded out of their homes and being forced to waste valuable energy building new homes.

She found that 14 of 17 caterpillars whose shelters were decorated with frass were eaten within 5 minutes.

But another group of caterpillars whose houses were decorated with similar - sized glass beads all survived, indicating that skippers shoot frass to avoid attracting predators.

Weiss put the leaf houses in small boxes to see what would happen when frass accumulated.

The presence of frass not only attracts more flies, the flies also eat and excrete more, and this raises the attractiveness of a food source further.

If this species is as attracted to its own frass in a similar way as Drosophila melanogaster is, new possibilities to effectively control this pest would open up.

A research team of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, demonstrated in a new study that the flies» frass also contains these pheromones.

It is believed the fungus spreads through the environment by beetles boring into dead infected trees, generating disease - tainted frass [5] that is then spread via wind.

I am a sass and frass kind of gal!

For years, chemical ecologist Dawn Luthe and her students wondered why fall armyworm caterpillars (Spodoptera frugiperda) let piles of feces, known as frass, accumulate on corn, trapped in the plant's cuplike whorls where the leaves join the stalk.

Modern and highly sensitive mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy methods showed that the benzoxazinoid identified in the larval frass was no longer identical to the substance in the plant leaves.

And then there's frass, which, Rasgon helpfully explains, is «mite poop.»

The exact component of the frass that causes the switch in the plant's defensive strategy remains a mystery.

And the frass, which can become rather liquidy, is right next to the open wounds left by the caterpillar chewing on the plant,» says Luthe of Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

To the scientists» surprise, the frass contained sexual pheromones.

They found some frass (the proper terminology for insect poo) and about 30 eggs in the soil.

The frass odors are not only species - specific, they are also different in males and females.

The next step was to chemically analyze the frass to find out which odor components of the flies» feces were appetizing.

Larvae hatching from these eggs might benefit from the presence of the larvae that were there previously: They could process the food more easily when it has been «pre-digested» by microorganisms in the frass of their conspecifics.

«Even though it is known that some beetle species use their fecal excretions to pass information to their conspecifics, we were surprised about how highly attractive even the smallest amounts of frass were to vinegar flies,» reports Ian Keesey, the first author of the study.

When the researchers examined the frass of these pests − pests that cause enormous crop damage −, they found the toxin with sugar still attached.

«Cricket manure, or «frass», is a natural plant food providing balanced nutrients, beneficial bacteria, and chitin for the development of healthy roots, built - in pest resistance and strong growth.»

Joy Hillier raises crickets and collects their poop or frass, as they call it politely, and turns it into plant food.

And their feces, also known as frass (there's your word of the day), is a great plant fertilizer.

One telltale sign is frass.