Animals
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Animals
How weaver ants get a grip
Strong sticking power and quick reaction time help the insects stay put in trees.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Sea slug carries disposable penis, plus spares
A hermaphroditic gastropod sheds its penis after one use, then uncoils another.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Compared with rodents, bat species carry more viruses
Viruses that can jump from animals to people may find the flying mammals a fine place to lurk.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Mole sniffs the world in stereo
Nostrils of the common mole recognize slight differences in smells to steer it toward its food.
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Animals
Cats kill more than one billion birds each year
New analysis doubles estimate of avian death tolls, revealing that hunting felines take bigger bite out of wildlife than expected.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Dung beetles steer by the Milky Way
The insects orient themselves using starlight, researchers find in planetarium experiments.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Finally, the truth about barnacle sex is revealed
A genetic analysis shows that the sessile crustaceans can broadcast sperm in water, contrary to previous assumptions.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Integrative and Comparative Biology
The hormonal roller coaster that is male pipefish pregancy and collision safety features for flying insects.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Claims of fairness in apes have critics crying foul
A report that chimps divvy up rewards much as people do draws criticism.
By Bruce Bower -
Science & Society
Insect illustrator
Taina Litwak is an “art department of one” in D.C. for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory.
By Roberta Kwok -
Animals
Early arthropod had a fancy brain
A 520-million-year-old fossil of a segmented animal shows that sophisticated central nervous systems are surprisingly ancient.
By Erin Wayman