Iridescent camouflage found, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News, ScienceDaily, Telegraph (UK) 23 January 2020 and Current Biology 23 January 2020, doi: 10. 1016/j.cub.2019.12.013. Iridescence is the bright, variable colour created by light being refracted in surface structures, e.g. peacock feathers and some butterfly wings. It produces bright clear colours, so most evolutionary biologists […]
Mosquitoes analyse flower chemistry, according to reports in ScienceDaily 22 January 2020 and The Daily University of Washington 6 February 2020 and PNAS 7 January 2020, doi:10.1073/pnas.1910589117. Although mosquitoes have a well-earned reputation for biting people and sucking blood, their main food source is flower nectar. As explained by Jeffrey Riffell, a professor of biology […]
Insect pollination extended by 50 million years, claim scientists in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 11 November 2019, and PNAS 11 November 2019 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1916186116. Scientists from China, Germany and USA have studied a beetle preserved in Burmese amber and found it was carrying pollen grains from a flowering plant. The beetle belongs to a […]
Weevil larvae at sea according articles in Journal of Experimental Biology, 13 December 2018, doi: 10.1242/jeb.195792. Flightless insects and small invertebrates are found all over the world, including remote islands. In order to get to such places they must cross long stretches of ocean. Even if they are carried on rafts of vegetation they will […]
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 […]
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, 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, 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, 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, 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 […]