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While a huge amount of research has examined how plants and animals looked in the prehistoric past, we know extremely little about what these creatures would have sounded like (Dr. Alan Grant's 3D-printed raptor voice box in Jurassic Park 3 notwithstanding). But now, we finally have some idea of one noise that would have pierced the primeval woodlands 165 million years ago. More »
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This is the most endearingly strange thing you'll watch all day. Andrew Quitmeyer, a PhD student at Georgia Tech, has alerted us to his handy video tutorial on painting ants for scientific experiments. If you ever need to open an ink parlor for a six-legged clientele, this is your huckleberry. More »
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Wasps are among the most fascinating creatures in the insect world. Their nests are incredible architectural achievements, which they often make by manufacturing their own paper out of leaves. Many of them live in vast hives, sometimes with multiple queens, while others are loner parasites who implant their eggs into other unwary insects. More »
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Are you a fan of embiggened bugs? Alex Wild — master of ceremonies over at Myrmecos — has just posted over 600 of his best photographs from 2011, and it is one of the most jaw-dropping collections of insect macrophotography we've ever seen. Click through to check it out — you won't be disappointed. More »
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The Australian island Tasmania is home to two species of millipedes. These insects only ever meet on a tiny, 300 feet wide patch of land running right down the island. It's a bizarre arrangement, and it has biologists completely baffled. More »
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As far as primates go, we humans are pretty darn bald. We don't have the thick layer of fur of most of our brothers and sisters — and the reason for this has been a subject of much evolutionary debate. Our body hair is densely packed, but incredibly fine. But while it won't keep us as warm as a gorilla's, it does do one thing very well: it helps against ectoparasites. More »
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Bedbugs were pretty much wiped out in the United States back in the 1950s, but over the past decade they've returned with a vengeance. They're tougher and more resistant to insecticides than ever before, and it's all due to inbreeding. More »
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Don't look away from the mighty Giant Weta Bug! With a wing span of seven inches and the weight of three mice, this this New Zealand discovery is pure, unfiltered nightmare fuel. More »
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It's alarming enough when robots ingest plant detritus like twigs and grass clippings. It's another thing entirely when they can start chowing down on members of the animal kingdom. A pair of prototype robots are designed to catch bugs, a major step on the path toward robots that can hunt, catch and digest their own meals. More »
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With New York still in the grips of a bed bug epidemic, the question keeps popping up: why are these little bastards so damned hard to kill? According to new research, their resurgence in the last few years has definitely been closely linked to the Big Apple, but it's actually been happening in all 50 states. The infestation is the worst since the 50s — and the bugs have developed a resistance to pyrethroids, one of the few types of insecticides used to do them in. More »
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Perhaps you were not aware that "Bee larvae, when sauteed with a little butter and a few drops of honey, taste very much like bacon." Well, at Girl Meets Bug you can get that information along with a recipe for 'BeeLT.' You'll also get a YouTube webisode about how to prepare a scorpion (freeze it first and remove the hair before battering it). There are also sauce recipes for caterpillars and a way to literally eat fried worms. In between recipes are links to other bug eaters, and tips on how to raise bugs for food. Bugs are the food of the future, so you'd better get used to preparing them in a tasty way. More »
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They can't be stopped with conventional pesticide. They can disable a huge industrial plant, and they short out electrical equipment. They eat animals as well as plants. Kill 100,000, and a million more ants will follow. More »
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Anyone with a lick of sense knows that you don't go up against ants in a fight, especially if they're Camponotus cylindricus. Try anything, and they'll explode themselves and decorate your body with their corpses. More »
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Scientists have found fossils of an early insect that seems to have the body parts from many different types of today's insects. It represents an evolutionary conundrum. More »
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The life of the cottony cushion scale insect reads like something from the most ridiculous of tabloid newspapers. Dad leaves parasitic body parts in his own daughter, which produce sperm that fertilise her eggs. He is both father and grandfather to his own grandchildren. More »
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Do I need to tell you any more? Can't we just let that sentence stand, knowing that it's out there, and go on with our lives? No? Okay. Here's some more detail. More »
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Crazy people (who are technically scientists) show readers how to make a beard of bees to impress their friends or perhaps kill themselves in the least dignified way possible. More »
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It's easy to see how ants get around when they're in a long line – just follow the ant in front of them. But how do ants find their way back to nest when they're on their own? A creepy experiment provides clues. More »
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Sometimes science hardly seems worth it. To find out about the hunting habits of a rare spider, scientists had to find spiders, examine their sex organs, and finally put them in death matches against each other. More »
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For those of you keeping track at home (I know you're out there), you can now add "chemical warfare" to the list of things that ants kick ass at. More »
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If you're one of those Harold Camping superfans who've waited your whole life for an Old Testament plague, might I suggest moving to Nashville? A fellow who works there recently filmed a solid six stories of them. Warning: video's loud. More »
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Spoilergeddon! New Dark Knight Rises set photos may confirm a key plot point, and the Avengers cast may have just gotten bigger. Stanley Tucci joins The Hunger Games and a Sons of Anarchy star joins Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim. More »
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There are several kinds of fungus that infect the brains of insects like ants and crickets. Each fungus controls the mind of its host, eventually killing it and sprouting from the bug's brain. Probably the creepiest killer of all is a fungus called Ophiocordyceps. More »
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All winged insects look more or less the same: a main thorax that's split into three segments, two legs on each segment, and four wings. But there's one exception, and it's spectacularly weird. Meet the massive "helmets" of treehopper insects. More »
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The fossil of one of the biggest ants ever has been discovered in Wyoming. Over fifty milliion years ago, it crossed the arctic to get there. Scientists have analyzed the data, and believe that a hot planet fosters the spread of super-sized ants. More »
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What would insects and arachnids look like if you were the size of a pea? These videos by Ahmet Özkan offer a Lilliputian's eye view into the horribly brutal world of arthropod death matches. And this battle has a surprise ending! More »
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Queen bees are much larger than worker bees, and live years longer, for one reason. They gorge on a sugary protein called "royal jelly." Now a scientist has made ultra-large flies using royal jelly too. Are humans next? More »
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All ants form hive minds, working together with uncanny precision to build giant colonies. But weaver ants do a lot more: They domesticate other insects and "milk" them for food, use tools, and go on group scorpion hunts. More »
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1966's Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #69 gave us "Beware of The Bug-Belle," a kooky Silver Age Superman story about Lois and Lana Lang turning into disgusting, crime-fighting arthropods. Here are some of the best scenes from this lost gem. More »
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We already know wasps are evil incarnate, but according to new research, they may yet have some redeeming features. Female beewolf digger wasps have colonies of symbiotic bacteria that inhabit their antennae and the wasps secrete this bacterial cocktail into the cocoons of their offspring. The bacteria create a potent salve of anti-bacterials and anti-fungals, and is the first known non-human case of prophylactic antibiotics. It's a symbiosis to fight infection, not provide food. More »
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This fossil was found in the sandstones of southern Massachusetts, and is the oldest known full-body impression of a flying bug. It's there on the left, and you can see the distinct impressions made by its six legs, as it struggled to escape from the mud it got stuck in before being fossilized. Formed approximately 300 million years ago, this cast is the most ancient evidence of the Pterygota subclass of insects, and is thought to be the distant antecedent of the mayfly. More »
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Scott Bain isn't too happy how the rest of humanity is treating our insect friends, and he's conveyed this frustration with Micromachina, a series of miniatures depicting preserved beetles as clockwork automatons. More »
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When the Australian patent office granted a 2001 patent to Mr. John Keogh for inventing the wheel (an action for which they shared an Ig Nobel Prize), little acknowledgment was given to those animals who regularly reinvent themselves a wheels. More »
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Well, this tactic only works if you're an exterminator. On Monday in Dallas, Terminix filled a billboard emblazoned with the words "E. COLI" with several thousand roaches (the roaches got 15-minute breaks as a reprieve from the heat). More »
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When groups of red wood ants interact and fight, the smaller groups fight harder and take more casualties. Ants are one of the few non-human animals that engages in close-contact group battles, and how they fight is directly linked to the makeup of that group. More »
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Usually when you see extreme close-ups of insects, they look like terrifying monsters. The segmented eyes, the tiny cilia, the barbed limbs, and so on. But award-winning photographer Igor Siwanowicz manages to make his insect micrography... cute? More »
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Sculptor Tom Hardwidge builds pint-sized clockwork insects and spiders out of defunct ammunition and sundry watch parts. In another universe, these little buggers are climbing in your coal-powered, head-warming derby and spitting axle grease all over your telescopic monocle. More »
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Approximately 100,000 Americans are afflicted with Ekbom Syndrome, a psychological disorder in which sufferers believe that they're infested with insects. Ekbom sufferers are reluctant to get psychological treatment, as they believe bugs are the cause of their discomfort. And when an entomologist suffers from Ekbom Syndrome, the result is one of the most skin-crawling scientific papers imaginable. More »
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Plants use photosynthesis to turn sunlight into energy every single day. This ability appeared to be completely unknown in the animal kingdom, leaving the living solar battery that is Superman as the only animal to ever harness the sun's rays for power. But now we've discovered that a type of hornet is doing its own homegrown photosynthesis, absorbing sunlight and turning it into useful energy. It's the first animal we've ever discovered that possesses this ability...and we might be able to harness our own version of it for alternative energy. More »
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