Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Insects

How to Build a Mosquito Trap From an Old Tire

Canadian researchers hope to curb the spread of Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases by luring the pests into homemade traps

Cool Finds

This “Sweaty” Billboard Kills Mosquitoes

Gross gimmick or Zika-fighting innovation?

This bed bug has favorite colors, too.

New Research

Bed Bugs Are Picky About Certain Colors

But don’t buy new sheets just yet

Black widows’ red hourglass tells birds to back off but is almost invisible to insects.

The Deadly Cunning of the Black Widow’s Color Scheme

Why did the spider evolve to have that crimson hourglass on its back?

New Research

Do Insects Have Consciousness and Ego?

The brains of insects are similar to a structure in human brains, which could show a rudimentary form of consciousness

Cool Finds

The Northeast Prepares for Swarms of Cicadas This Spring

Billions of red-eyed cicadas will emerge from the earth in much of the northeast this spring, part of a 17-year-cycle

The Chilarchaea quellon trap-jaw spider can snap its long chelicerae shut in about a quarter of a millisecond.

Tiny Spiders Are the Fastest Known on Earth

Some trap-jaw spiders can snap their mouths shut with incredible force—in less than a millisecond

New Research

Researchers Make Cyborg Beetles a Reality

Outfitted with microprocessor-equipped backpacks, scientists can control the beetle’s steps via remote control

Scan of Idmonarachne brasieri

New Research

305-Million-Year-Old Fossil Helps Unravel the Spider’s Evolutionary Web

The spider look-alike shows what separates modern spiders from their ancient eight-legged cousins

An ant of the species Iridomyrmex purpureus (center) lifts a leg in an aggressive display when she encounters ants from a different nest.

Antennae Yield New Clues Into Ant Communication

Despite more than a century of study, scientists still have much more to learn about the complex world of ant communication

This Tube is full of mosquitoes.

Cool Finds

The London Underground Has Its Own Mosquito Subspecies

Take a bite out of this strange evolutionary example

The highly regular spacing of fairy circles in Australia becomes visible in dense vegetation. The grasses in the foreground of the image are patchy as they rebounding from fire.

New Research

Mysterious Fairy Circles Have Been Found in Western Australia

Once thought to exist only in Namibia, circles spotted 6,200 miles away are helping sort out how these odd features form

The hell-ant's fearsome fangs are on full display in this 3D false-color rendering of a Haidomyrmex scimitarus queen, produced by combining several hundred two-dimensional x-ray snapshots.

New Research

These Tiny Saber-Toothed Terrors Are Among the World’s Oldest Ants

Analysis of insects entombed in amber shows that the “hell ants” were among the first to diverge from the original ant-wasp ancestor

Almonds are just one of the crops commonly treated with flubendiamide, a pesticide that has come under fire from the EPA.

Trending Today

The FDA Will Ban a Common Pesticide

Flubendiamide is used in about 200 crops like almonds and soybeans

Mosquito Deterrents: The Good, the Bad and the Potentially Effective

With Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses on the rise, researchers are looking for the next best way to keep the bugs from biting

Cool Finds

Watch a Stunning Time-Lapse of Cave-Bound Glowworms

These New Zealand sparklers aren’t stars—they’re insects

New Research

Here’s Why It’s So Hard to Smash a Cockroach

Scientists chased and crushed cockroaches—and their results could one day save lives

Local workers disinfects the famous Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 26 January 2016.

Trending Today

Zika Virus May Spell Trouble for the Rio Olympic Games

U.S Olympic Committee officials suggest that athletes concerned about Zika stay on the sidelines this year

An image of the fossilized lacewing Oregramma illecebrosa, left, and the modern owl butterfly Calico Memnon, right.

New Research

Jurassic-Era Insect Looks Just Like a Modern Butterfly

Jurassic “butterflies” helped pollinate ancient plants millions of years before the butterfly even existed

An Indian Municipal Corporation sanitation worker fumigates as part of a drive to curb breeding sites for mosquitoes causing a dengue outbreak in New Delhi in October 2015.

Age of Humans

The World’s Megacities Are Making Dengue Deadlier

Outbreaks are more common now thanks to bigger cities and more places for mosquitoes to live

Page 31 of 38