Despite its two-eyed appearance, Phalangium opilio has six peepers. The four optical remnants shed light on the arachnids’ evolutionary history.
Category: Animals
Male dragonflies’ wax coats might protect them against a warming climate
Some male dragonflies have a waxy coat that keeps them cool while pursuing mates and may also help the insects shrug off a warming climate. U.S. dragonfly species that produce…
Male mammals aren’t always bigger than females
The idea that male mammals tend to be larger than females has been scientific dogma since Darwin. Bigger bodies, the thinking goes, are better in the battle to win the…
Newfound bee species help solve a decades-old mystery
In 1965, renowned bee biologist Charles Michener described a new species of masked bee from “an entirely unexpected region,” the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. Michener named the bee Hylaeus…
Older monarch caterpillars binge on toxic milkweed goo
Maybe science has misunderstood the dining style of big monarch butterfly caterpillars. What insect watchers have called defense against the toxic latex a milkweed plant oozes may not be avoidance…
This is the first egg-laying amphibian found to feed its babies ‘milk’
In the middle of the night in a humid coastal rainforest, a litter of pink, hairless babies snuggle with their mother. They stir and squeak for milk, their mother obliges,…
How air pollution can make it harder for pollinators to find flowers
Air pollution may blunt the signature scents of some night-blooming flowers, jeopardizing pollination. When the aroma of a pale evening primrose encounters certain pollutants in the night air, the pollutants…
See 3-D models of animal anatomy from openVertebrate’s public collection
Frog entrails, lizard scales and mouse tails, oh my. These creatures are among more than 13,000 museum specimens that had their innards CT scanned as part of a six-year mission…
Giant tortoise migration in the Galápagos may be stymied by invasive trees
After trudging upslope for weeks, a giant tortoise slows its hundreds of cumbersome kilograms to a stop. Dense woods defended by barbed wire–like blackberry bushes block its path. After a…
The Brazilian flea toad may be the world’s smallest vertebrate
A Brazilian flea toad’s head is too tiny to bear its many crowns. Scientists have bestowed the frog — which is native to Brazil but is neither a flea nor…
