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Insects

Luna moths - arguably the most spectacular moths in North America - deflect bat attacks with their ornate wing tails.

New Research

Luna Moths’ Gorgeous Wings Throw Off Bat Attacks

Spinning twin tails at the end of moth wings garble bats’ sonar cries, causing the winged predators to miss the tasty mark

A honeybee visits a flower in Bath, England

New Research

City Bees Are Actually More Diverse Than Country Bees

Other pollinators don’t like urban areas as much as rural, but bees live in similar numbers across different landscapes

New Research

Cockroaches Have Personalities, Too

Feel guilty the next time you crush a cockroach

Resin, similar to the kind shown here, is used by the newly discovered caterpillar to build its cocoon.

New Research

A Newly Discovered Caterpillar Makes a Deadly Fortress of Its Cocoon

Scientists have found a caterpillar in a Borneo forest that uses toxic tree resin to build an extra-safe home for its metamorphosis

The Academy's live Lexias pardais with gynandromorphism

Cool Finds

A Museum’s Butterfly Emerged Half Male, Half Female

The rarity is like a natural experiment that tells scientists how genes and hormones interact to produce different sexes

An Asian tiger mosquito in action.

New Research

Could GM Mosquitoes Pave the Way for a Tropical Virus to Spread?

Modified insects designed to stop dengue fever could make it easier for another disease-carrying species to take root

New Research

Ants Usually Turn Left While Exploring

It’s a sinister version of human’s tendency towards right-handedness

Get a good look at Sinea incognita, a newly recognized species of assassin bug.

New Research

Meet the Stealthiest Assassin Bug in the United States

The unique and secretive species has been living among us unrecognized for a century

The Melitta haemorrhoidalis bee, collected from Wotton-under-Edge, England, requires patches of bellflowers to make its nests.

Bees and Wasps in Britain Have Been Disappearing For More Than a Century

Changes in agricultural practices since the 19th century may be a major culprit in the pollinators’ decline

New Research

A Worm’s Gut Could Help Dispose of Plastic Trash

Microbes found in the guts of waxworms like to feast on polyethylene

New Research

Manhattan Insects Eat the Equivalent of 60,000 Hot Dogs Each Year

Millions of urban insects act as efficient, largely unnoticed garbage disposals

Pacific bluefin tuna populations have declined by up to 33 percent over the last 20 years.

Trending Today

300+ Species Just Joined the List of Threatened Plants And Animals

Overfishing, overhunting and habitat loss drove many of the new additions

A bed bug surrounded by potentially parasite-laden feces.

New Research

Bed Bugs Can Transmit the Chagas Disease Parasite

The parasite is usually associated with Latin and South America, but was recently found throughout Louisiana, too

This twisted wing parasite is one twisted killer.

The Everyday Cannibals and Murderers of Los Angeles

Who needs film noir when you’ve got these insects in the City of Angels?

Cool Finds

When Becoming a Man Means Sticking Your Hand Into a Glove of Ants

Young men must subject themselves to a ritual involving bullet ant-filled gloves not once but 20 times

New Research

Plants Can Sense When Insects Are Eating Them

Plants can sense munching vibrations that insects make, and respond accordingly with heightened defenses

Buck moth caterpillars are the bane of the New Orleans spring.

New Research

Caterpillars Beware: Venom Won’t Protect You From Clueless Baby Birds

Young birds will dumbly peck at anything that crawls their way—even if it winds up teaching them a painful lesson

Blood-sucking kissing bugs carry the parasite that causes Chagas disease, a malady that plagues some 9 million people in Latin America.

New Research

A Blood-Sucking Foe Lurks in Central American Caves

Kissing bugs, which can spread Chagas disease, turned up positive for human blood meals in caves in Guatemala and Belize

A carrion beetle fossil from the Cretaceous period.

New Research

Carrion Beetles Were the First Caring Parents

Flesh-eating beetles that lived 125 million years ago set the stage for modern parenting

An urban spider hangs out in downtown Los Angeles.

New Research

Friendly Neighborhood Spiders Get Bigger in Cities

A study of orb-weaving spiders in Australia shows a correlation between urbanization and fatter arachnids

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