Insects are plentiful and inexpensive. Even when children aren’t attending school in person, they can learn from the encounters they have with insects outside.
The process of turning a newly dead animal into a bony skeleton relies on an explosion of life that ushers in decomposition.
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New research suggests individual bees are born with one of two learning styles – either curious or focused. Their genetic tendency has implications for how the hive works together.
Monarch butterflies cover a tree at El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico.
D. André Green II
A single colony of bees can have 60,000 bees in it. Together, they can visit up to 50 million flowers each day to collect pollen and nectar. They’re not called ‘busy bees’ for nothing!
The complex interactions that maintain group health inside a bee hive offer lessons for humanity during pandemics.
Rachael Bonoan
Honey bees in the most polluted parts of an Indian city were more likely to die sooner and showed clear signs of poor health.
The Texas frosted elfin (Callophrys irus hadros), a small butterfly subspecies found only in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, has lost most of its prairie habitat and is thought to have dramatically declined over the last century.
Matthew D. Moran
Recent reports of dramatic declines in insect populations have sparked concern about an ‘insect apocalypse.’ But a new analysis of data from sites across North America suggests the case isn’t proven.
When they suck your blood they can leave behind the parasite that causes sleeping sickness.
Patrick Robert/Sygma via Getty Images
This insect’s unique reproductive biology could lead to new ways to control the species in the environment – and prevent the deadly sleeping sickness it spreads to people.
Urban green spaces can be a rich habitat for diverse pollinators, if they’re managed properly.
Swarms of locusts are seen on a tree in a residential area in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta on June 12, 2020.
BANARAS KHAN/AFP via Getty Images
The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted interest in home gardening. Three scientists who garden explain some basic methods for controlling common insects and microbes that can spoil your crop.
Past research has shown honeybees can add, subtract and even understand ‘zero’. But according to new findings, they can’t tell four flowers from five in natural settings.