The Millipede That Glows In The Dark

The blind, nocturnal arthropod produces a deadly toxin when disturbed
September 28, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

The Evolution of the Orchid and the Orchid Bee

Which came first--the plant or its pollinator?
September 23, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

Wild Things: Tarantulas, Jellyfish and More...

Hummingbirds, attacking bears, ancient hominids and other news updates in wildlife research
August 2011 | By T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth, Erin Wayman and Sarah Zielinski

14 Not-So-Fun Facts About Mosquitoes

Number 7: Mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide, lactic acid and octenol found in our breath and sweat. They may have a preference for beer drinkers
July 27, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

The Insect That Creates Its Own Lightshow

There are about 2,000 species of fireflies, a type of beetle that lights up its abdomen with a chemical reaction to attract a mate
July 01, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

Wicked Bugs (and Spiders and Worms and Other Creepy Crawlies)

Let's face it, we don't like bugs. Sure, they do plenty of good---such as keeping their naughty brethren in check, contributing to the world of medicine, providing key roles in the food webs that are essential to healthy ecosystems---but we can't help but focus on the bad. And so does Amy Stewart i...
May 03, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

The Gold and Silver Beetles of Costa Rica

Imagine you're a conquistador in the 1500s. You've spent many weeks on a boat to get to Central America and many days hacking away through the jungle, dressed in hot and heavy armor, swatting at mosquitoes, desperately trying to find that fortune you were promised back home. Then you glimpse a bit ...
April 29, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

Wild Things: Mongooses, Bladderworts and More...

Fairy-wrens, wasps, and a nearly 3,000 year old big toe
April 2011 | By T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth, Jesse Rhodes and Sarah Zielinski

Male and Female Butterflies Take Turns at Courting

When it comes to butterflies, males are usually the pretty ones. They have to be, since they're also usually the ones that do the courting. But male and female squinting bush brown butterflies (Bicyclus anynana) that live in central Africa  look alike, at least to us. Both are equally beautiful in ...
January 10, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

North American Bumblebees on the Decline

"The bees are disappearing." It's such a well-known fact that it even became a key plot point in season 4 of Doctor Who (with the explanation that the bees were aliens simply returning to their home planet). Most of the concern has centered on honeybees and the problem now known as colony collapse ...
January 04, 2011 | By Sarah Zielinski

Dryer Sheets as Bug Repellant?

It's a modern old-wives tale: put a Bounce dryer sheet in your pocket while gardening and it'll keep away the mosquitoes or gnats. This may seem a bit far-fetched to those of us who have never tried it, but researchers have now found that there could be some truth in it, when it comes to gnats, any...
December 20, 2010 | By Sarah Zielinski

Zoom in on a Daddy Longlegs

This psychedelic photo is a depth color-coded projection of a confocal microscope image of the eyes of a daddy longlegs (Phalangium opilio). The image, by Igor Siwanowicz of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Munich, Germany, was awarded first place in the Olympus BioScapes International ...
November 19, 2010 | By Sarah Zielinski

Inside a Mosquito's Heart

What does a mosquito's heart look like? I would never have expected that it would look like this, a fluorescent image taken by Jonas King, a student at Vanderbilt University, which won first place in the Nikon Small World photography competition.King, working in the lab of biologist Julián Hillyer,...
October 22, 2010 | By Sarah Zielinski

The Scariest Zombies in Nature

Parasites found in ant bodies tell us that Hollywood’s stories of the undead may be closer to truth than fiction
October 18, 2010 | By Brian Switek

Gargantuan Spider Webs Bridge Waters of Madagascar

As a young girl, I used to wake up in the middle of the night, frightened by a spider I knew had to be lurking in some dark corner of my room. For arachnophobes such as myself, nothing could be more unsavory than a big spider that blends seamlessly into tree bark. Unless that same spider also spins...
October 04, 2010 | By Jess Righthand

Ants Defend Trees from Elephants

I'm beginning to think that elephants are pretty wimpy creatures, especially for ones their size. First came the Mythbusters (video below), who demonstrated that elephants might really be afraid of little white mice. And now there's a study in Current Biology showing that ants deter elephants from ...
September 16, 2010 | By Sarah Zielinski

Cootie Catchers Say Lice Reveal Lots About Early Humans

Children all over America are returning to school this fall and I’m sure parents have done all they can to prep their youngsters—which hopefully involves any and all vaccines and boosters. But not even the most diligent efforts toward preventative health care can save your child from the bug that h...
September 13, 2010 | By admin

Ants Use Velcro to Catch Large Prey

Think about how you might try to catch King Kong: large numbers of people might help, but it takes coordination and a technological advantage—guns on planes—to bring the big guy down. Ants don't have guns or planes (not yet, anyway), so how can they capture something thousands of times bigger than ...
July 23, 2010 | By Sarah Zielinski

Radio-Tracking Orchid Bees in Panama

For the first time, scientists have tracked the movements of tropical orchid bees using radio-transmitters. The bees, studied at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, fly up to 3 miles from their home areas and patrol up to 285 acres of rainforest in their hunt for food and mates.J...
May 27, 2010 | By Brendan Borrell

Photo Contest Finalist: Spider in the Light of Daybreak

This photo, Spider in the light of daybreak, is a finalist in the Natural World category of Smithsonian magazine's 7th Annual Photo Contest. The image was taken by Csaba Meszaros of Budapest, Hungary. He writes:Velence is the second largest lake in Hungary and Sukoro is a village closely. I went o...
March 12, 2010 | By Sarah Zielinski

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