World needs death and decay claims an article is ScienceDaily 12 September 2018 about a study published in Ecological Monographs 11 September 2018, doi: 10.1002/ecm.1331. When animals and plants die there is a need for their remains to be broken down and decomposed so that nutrients and other substances are returned to the earth to […]
Category: Insects
How Dragonfly Wings Get their Patterns
How dragonfly wings get their patterns according to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg 17 September 2018 and PNAS published online 17 September 2018 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1721248115. Insect wings get their structural support from struts called veins, with large primary veins and smaller, narrower secondary veins which branch off the primary veins and intersect, forming a pattern of geometrical […]
Moth Tails Baffle Bats
Moth tails baffle bats, claim scientists in reports in Science (AAAS) News, Science Daily 4 July 2018 and Science Advances 4 July 2018 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aar7428. Moth wings vary a lot in their shape. Some moths have rounded wings and others have elongated tails on their back wings. As moths are preyed on by bats a […]
Mosquitoes Inspire Injection Needles
Mosquitoes inspire injection needles, according to a report in ScienceDaily 25 June 2018 and Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, doi: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2018.05.025 published online 18 May 2018. Scientists and engineers have studied the structure of the mosquito proboscis, and how the mosquito uses it, to find out how mosquitoes are able to bite […]
Bees Understand Zero
Bees understand zero, according to articles in ScienceDaily and Nature News 7 June 2018 ABC News8 June 2018, and Science, 8 June 2018, doi: 10.1126/science.aar4975. Previous studies of bees have shown they can count up to four. Biologists at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and University of Toulouse in France, have now shown that honeybees understand […]
Birds Disperse Stick Insects
Birds disperse stick insects, according to reports in Science News and ScienceDaily 28 May 2018, and Ecology, 29 May 2018, doi: 10.1002/ecy.2230. Stick insects are found throughout the world and scientists have wondered how they could have spread to land masses that are separated by long distances. Stick insects are large and don’t fly so […]
Thirsty Mosquitoes Seek Blood
Thirsty mosquitoes seek blood, according to reports in ScienceDaily 1 May 2018 and Scientific Reports 1 May 2018, doi:10.1038/s41598-018-24893-z. Scientists at University of Cincinatti were studying the effect of dry conditions on mosquitoes when some of the mosquitoes escaped from a laboratory container. They noticed the dehydrated mosquitoes were very aggressive and tried to bite. […]
Stick Disguise Evolved Early
Stick disguise evolved early, claim scientists, according to reports in Nature News 25 April 2018 and Proceedings of Royal Society B 25 April 2018 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.042. Stick insects, as their name suggests, have long slender bodies and many have plate-like projections called lamellae, which also help make them look like twigs. These features are considered […]
Mayfly Legs Go With the Flow
Mayfly legs go with the flow according to Science (AAAS) News 17 January 2018. Mayfly larvae on the genus Ecdyonurus graze on algae on rocks in flowing streams. The larvae are very small and light and the current could easily dislodge them, but they manage to stay in contact with the rocks even in rapidly […]
Butterflies Evolved Before Flowers
Butterflies evolved before flowers, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 10 January 2018, BBC News 11 January 2018, and Science Advances doi:10.1126/sciadv.1701568, 10 January 2018. Scientists studying rocks samples from drill cores extracted from Late Triassic and Early Jurassic rocks in Northern Germany, have found fossil butterfly wing scales in rocks dated […]