Insects/Spiders

Feature Writer: Albert Burchsted
With between 4 and 6 million species, insects are the most common animals on Earth. They populate almost every habitat from Antarctica to deserts, rain forests, lakes, mountain tops, glacier snow, and deep underground. A few live in the ocean.
Where there are insects, spiders feed on them. Ranging in size from just a few hundredths of an inch to giants with leg spans near thirteen inches, spiders are the ultimate insect hunters: stalking or building webs to catch them.
Animals with jointed legs are arthropods. Of these, only the insects have wings to fly, but air travel is an important method of dispersal used by other arthropods.
Suite101 articles bring new information on insects, spiders, and other invertebrates. Please comment on the articles and share stories of invertebrates on my blogs.
feature articles
Albert Burchsted
Nov 9, 2009
Why Insects Migrate
In: Insects/Spiders (general)
Prior to the Pleistocene, animals had little need to migrate. Glaciation events and concurrent droughts forced insects (and others) to develop seasonal movements.
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Oct 31, 2009
Web Manipulation Explains Spider Behavior
In: Spiders
Hungry spiders build webs with sticky fibers while sated spiders remove these insect traps. An elegant experiment demonstrates the value of this manipulation.
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Oct 31, 2009
One Spider's Method to Prevent Overeating
In: Insects/Spiders (general)
Some spider brains are hard wired to kill and eat prey when it is captured. Replacing sticky threads with non-sticky ones prevents overindulgence.
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Oct 30, 2009
Matricide and Infanticide in a Spider
In: Spiders
Some baby spiders eat their mothers and second mates kill eggs of former mates. These behaviors carry severe penalties for the female while the babies and males benefit.
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Oct 29, 2009
Spiders Without Poison Glands
In: Spiders
Having lost their poison glands, uloborid spiders wrap their living prey in a silk cocoon that smothers and sometimes crushes the prey to death.
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Oct 24, 2009
Neurology of Insect Migration and Navigation
In: Insects/Spiders (general)
Genetically wired into insect brains are seasonal clocks, innate compasses, and maps that help these tiny long-distance migrants travel.
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Oct 17, 2009
Newfound Understanding of Insect Migration
In: Insects/Spiders (general)
Migrating insects return to the same wintering locations while they fuel, rest, and use routes and flight patterns that are similar to those used by birds.
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Oct 3, 2009
A Fantastic Dragonfly Migration
In: Insects/Spiders (general)
Dragonflies leave India, fly across the Indian Ocean to Africa with the assistance of storms, and their great grandchildren may make the return journey to India.
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All feature articles in Insects/Spiders
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