All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Spider males good for mating, food
Expectant mothers, including spiders, need to eat well. For Mediterranean tarantulas, a male suitor tastes just fine.
- Life
How Tiktaalik got its neck
The oldest fossil with a neck, Tiktaalik roseae, shows how animals developed a head for living on land.
- Life
Grunting humans, moles scare earthworms
Science tackles the old mystery of why worm grunters who rub a stake in the ground can catch earthworms.
- Life
Climate warms, creatures head for the hills
Unusual data let scientists test predictions that global warming drives species up slopes.
- Life
Tough times for mammals
Between a fifth and a third of the world’s mammal species face the threat of extinction.
- Life
Beetles grow weed killer
Beetle moms carry their own bacteria for making a compound to protect their gardens.
- Life
Fish glowing red
Plenty of reef creatures fluoresce red, even where seawater absorbs red sunlight.
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- Life
Giant honeybees do the wave
Giant bees coordinate and make waves that would rival those in any football stadium. Predators of the bees don’t find it cheering.
- Life
Birds duet to fight and seek
The first study to track birds in the forest via microphone arrays shows that birds double up on fight songs, or play Marco Polo in tropical shrubbery.
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Alarming sex appeal
Hens may find there’s just something about a guy that squawks at danger.
