All Stories by Susan Milius
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Meeting Danielle the Tarantula
Insect zoos have no lions, tigers, or bears but can give plenty of thrills, courtesy of tarantulas, giant beetles, and exotic grasshoppers.
- Plants
Petite pollinators: Tree raises its own crop of couriers
A common tropical tree creates farms in its buds, where it raises its own work force of tiny pollinators.
- Plants
Shower power: Raindrops shoot seeds out with a splat
In a seed-dispersal mechanism scientists have never seen before in flowering plants, rain plops into a capsule and makes seeds shoot out the corners.
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Parrots will fluoresce for sex
A budgerigar's head literally glows for its mate, and both males and females of this parrot species prefer to court radiant partners.
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Female pipefish face toughest odds
In the world of pipefish, which are cousins of sea horses, sexual selection may reverse, wherein females battle each other for male favor through sexual selection.
- Earth
Toxic Pfiesteria inhabit foreign waters
The notorious Pfiesteria microbes, implicated in fish kills and human illness along the mid-Atlantic U.S. coast, have turned up in Norway.
- Ecosystems
Tadpole Science Gets Its Legs . . .
The amazingly complex tadpole now shines in ecological studies.
- Animals
Hanging around Mom’s web helps everybody
For nearly grown spiderlings, lingering in their mother's web instead of setting off on their own turns out to be a boon for the mom, as well as themselves.
- Ecosystems
Mistletoe, of all things, helps juniper trees
A mistletoe that grows on junipers may do the trees a favor by attracting birds that spread the junipers' seeds.
- Animals
Unknown squids—with elbows—tease science
Glimpses from around the world suggest that the ocean depths hold novel, long-armed squids that belong in no known family.
- Animals
Crows appear to make tools right-handedly
A study of 3,700 leaf remnants from crows making tools suggests that the birds prefer to work "right-handed."
- Animals
Female ducks can double eggs by trickery
Female goldeneye ducks can double their offspring by sneaking eggs into other females' nests before settling down to a nest of their own.
