All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Krill kick up a storm of ocean mixing
Scientists have measured living creatures' contribution to the stirring of ocean water, and they found that little kicking krill legs do a lot.
- Animals
Scent Stalking: Parasitic vine grows toward tomato odor
A wiry orange vine finds plants to raid for nutrients by growing toward their smell. With video.
- Animals
Mother deer can’t ID their fawns by call
Fawns can distinguish their mom's voice from another deer's, but a mom can't pick out her fawn's call.
- Animals
Crickets on Mute: Hush falls as killer fly stalks singers
Within just 5 years, singing has nearly died out among a population of cricket on a Hawaiian island.
- Animals
Sexually Deceptive Chemistry: Beetle larvae fake the scent of female bees
Trick chemistry lets a bunch of writhing caterpillars attract a male bee that they then use as a flying taxi on their way to find food.
- Animals
Battle of the Hermaphrodites
A biologist argues that combining the sexes can actually make gender wars worse.
- Animals
Hey, Roach Babe: Male cockroaches give fancy courting whistles
Some male cockroaches whistle at females with surprisingly complex, almost birdlike whistles.
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Moss Express: Insects and mites tote mosses’ sperm
A lab test has shown that mosses have their own version animal-courier system for sperm that's similar to pollination.
- Animals
Flea treatment shows downside of social life
The flealike parasites that build up in a shared burrow take an unexpectedly large toll on the ground squirrel's reproductive success.
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Is a Galápagos finch caught in a split?
An inland population of one of the famed Galápagos finches may become a new textbook example of the way in which two species emerge from one while still living together.
- Animals
How do female lemurs get so tough?
Female ring-tailed lemurs may get masculinized by well-timed little rises of prenatal hormones.
- Animals
Female moths join pheromone choruses
Female rattlebox moths can detect each other's male-luring pheromones and tend to gather in what may be a scent version of male frogs' chorusing around the pond.
