All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
The Trouble with Chasing a Bee
Radar has long been able to detect high-flying clouds of insects, but it's taken much longer for scientists to figure out how to track your average bee.
- Animals
Locust Upset: DNA puts swarmer’s origin in Africa
The desert locust was not an ancient export from the Americas, according to a new DNA analysis.
- Animals
Ant Iron Chefs: Larvae fix dinner but don’t sneak snacks
Movies of an ant colony show that larvae are the ones that prepare dinner when meat is on the menu. With Video.
- Earth
TB Dilemma: Badger refugees complicate culling
Two new analyses bring an ironic twist to the heated debate over whether badgers in Britain should be killed to prevent them from spreading tuberculosis among cattle.
- Ecosystems
When Worms Fly: Insect larvae can survive bird guts
Insects can travel as larval stowaways in the guts of migrating birds.
- Animals
Face Time: Bees can tell apart human portraits
Honeybees will learn to zoom up to particular human faces in a version of a facial-recognition test used for people.
- Animals
Unway Sign: Ant pheromone stops traffic
Researchers have found a new kind of traffic sign on ant trails, a chemical "Do not enter" that keeps foragers from wasting their time on paths that don't lead to food.
- Animals
Tszzzzzt! Electric fish may jam rivals’ signals
An electric fish appears to sabotage a rival's electric signals as a fight starts. With Audio and Video.
- Animals
Yikes! The Moon! Bat lunar phobia may come from slim pickings
A study of creatures that fly around at night suggests that scarce food may account for why some bats avoid hunting under a full moon.
- Animals
Great Galloping Crinoids: Lilylike sea animal takes a brisk walk
A sea creature called a stalked crinoid may look as motionless as a flower on a stem but a video has revealed it practically jogging across the ocean floor. Video.
- Animals
Cool Birds
Emperor penguins go to such extremes to cope with life in Antarctica that they've inspired interesting science as well as a hit movie.
- Animals
Proxy Vampire: Spider eats blood by catching mosquitoes
Researchers studying food preferences among spiders report finding the first one with a taste for vertebrate blood.
