Insects/Spiders
Latest Feature Articles
|
Bola Spiders Lure and Eat Moths
Bola spiders release sex pheromones of moths to lure males. When one arrives, the spider swings a silk strand with a sticky ball on the end to capture the moth.
|
|
Why Insects Migrate
Prior to the Pleistocene, animals had little need to migrate. Glaciation events and concurrent droughts forced insects (and others) to develop seasonal movements.
|
|
Web Manipulation Explains Spider Behavior
Hungry spiders build webs with sticky fibers while sated spiders remove these insect traps. An elegant experiment demonstrates the value of this manipulation.
|
|
One Spider's Method to Prevent Overeating
Some spider brains are hard wired to kill and eat prey when it is captured. Replacing sticky threads with non-sticky ones prevents overindulgence.
|
|
Matricide and Infanticide in a Spider
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.
|
|
Spiders Without Poison Glands
Having lost their poison glands, uloborid spiders wrap their living prey in a silk cocoon that smothers and sometimes crushes the prey to death.
|
|
Neurology of Insect Migration and Navigation
Genetically wired into insect brains are seasonal clocks, innate compasses, and maps that help these tiny long-distance migrants travel.
|
|
Newfound Understanding of Insect Migration
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.
|
|
A Fantastic Dragonfly Migration
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.
|
|
How to Avoid Tick Bites and Lyme Disease
Long, snowy winters and cool, rainy springs allow ticks to survive in high numbers. Thus, defensive prevention and tick checks are a must.
|
|
Wasp and Bee Stings
Wasps and bees have stingers to fight off rivals, defend nests, and deter predators. The insects vary in willingness to sting and the venom varies in the pain produced.
|
|
What Dragonflies Eat and What Eats Them
Both larval and adult dragonflies are preyed on. Unwary odonates are fair game as aquatic and flying predators enjoy dragonfly protein in their diets.
|
|
Dragonfly Mating and Reproduction
Dragonflies and damselflies display unusual courtship. Eggs may be deposited underwater, drilled into mud, carved into stems, or dropped while in flight.
|
|
Life Cycle of a Dragonfly
Dragonflies are ancient amphibious insects in the order Odonata. Their aquatic predatory larvae metamorphose into aerial predators with better agility than bats have.
|
|
Dragonfly Surveys
Dragonflies and damselflies are counted all over the world. Distribution is uneven and depends on the presence of proper habitat and environmental factors.
|
|
Beetles That Burrow and Tunnel
Whether carnivorous or herbivorous, many beetle larvae live invisibly inside plants or underground, sometime in numbers large enough to cause severe damage.
|
|
Asian Tiger Mosquito, a Recent US Introduction
A once tropical mosquito is now well established in the US with the potential to initiate a devastating epidemic of viral, bacterial, or protozoan tropical diseases.
|
|
Why Bird Parents Carry Feces From Nests
Removing feces from the nest helps keep the area clean and also reduces visibility of the nest to predators. Which of these is more important is discussed here.
|
|
Thermoregulation in Insects
Most insects cannot fly until their body temperature approaches 100oF (38oC). Various behavioral and physiological methods of increasing temperature are used.
|
|
Chemical Communication in Aphids
Scientists are busy identifying the myriad of molecules that regulate social, reproductive, and emergency interactions of aphids and associated animals.
|
|
Ants Tightly Control Their Aphids
Although ants and aphids are known to share a mutually positive relationship, the ants keep their "cows" in line through behavioral and chemical constraints.
|
|
Persistent Viral Infections of Aphids
Viral diseases that aphids transmit to plants are either persistent or last only a few days. The viruses of persistent infections permeate the entire body of the aphid.
|
|
Aphids Transmit Plant Viruses
While a heavy infestation of aphids may deplete a plant's resources and kill it, a light scattering of aphids might transfer viruses that destroy an entire crop.
|
|
Hazards to Aphids Living in Galls
Dangers and restrictions of gall living affect the dwellers. The ways in which aphids attempt to overcome these are highly evolved, yet are sometimes insurmountable.
|
|
Unusual Lifestyles of Aphids
Although most are aerial, many aphids cause plants to produce galls, produce external camouflage, or even go underground and spend the winter in ant burrows.
|
Latest Articles