play4smee/Flickr
If warmer weather is your sign to reach for the pesticide, think again. From better soil to your own army of beneficial bugs, here are five reasons to put down the insect spray.
Gory and gross, insects use disguises to improve their odds of survival.
(Pixabay)
Some insects wear gory disguises and macabre masks year round, not just at Halloween.
Shutterstock
Researchers are warning of a wipeout of huge numbers of insects. What’s the evidence behind this alarm?
shutterstock.
Killing insects, as the Big Wasp Survey asked people to do, contributed to many vital advances in science.
Bees usually get nectar from flowers, but sometimes they steal it from the nests of other bees.
Flickr/Michael Cheng
Bees sting other animals, including humans, when they think there might be a threat to their hive. But Evie, age 8, wonders if bees ever accidentally sting other bees.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) photographed at Thésée-la-Romaine, France.
Daniel Jolivet / Flickr
The caterpillar and the butterfly: two forms, a single individual? A biologist and a philosopher explore this paradox.
Whiteflies - Africa’s main cassava pest causes damage to crops.
Maurice/Flickr
Crop losses in African countries due to insect pests are estimated at 49%. However, with some species losses can climb up to 100%.
Monarch caterpillars feeding on milkweed leaves and dropping their faces (taken in the laboratory facility).
Prayan Pokharel
Bugs use their own defecation to defend their young, locate their homes and increase mating opportunities. For humans, insect faeces may even have untapped medicinal properties.
Tiny hairs cover the bodies of honeybees — including this one dusted in pollen — that allow them to detect molecular “fingerprints” similar to how home security sensors work.
(Shutterstock)
Bees and home security cameras use the same complex techniques to monitor their environments.
Allied forces wearing gas masks at Ypres, 1917.
Wikimedia Commons
The first fully industrialised war prompted many to draw parallels between human society and the insect world.
*Psyche Delia*/Flickr
Garden pollinators can turn their noses up at the flowers human eyes find most beautiful.
Tom/Flickr
Simple and inexpensive gene-editing technology such as CRISPR has made the creation of genetically modified organisms much easier. But could nature still keep the upper hand?
How do they each know what to do?
Tim Nowack
Researchers identified simple behavioral rules that allow these tiny creatures to collaboratively build elaborate structures, with no one in charge.
Angustoniscus amieuensis , a New Caledonian cockroach that lives in the moist forests of the island.
P.Grandcolas
The theory that New Caledonia was a piece of land that separated from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana was a seductive one. But then a cockroach rose up to challenge it.
Megalopta genalis .
United States Geological Survey
Nocturnal insects have eyes that act like cameras to enhance their light-gathering abilities.
Ladybugs stop pests from eating our food and destroying crops.
Flickr/Inhabitat
Small animals are the fabric of the world around us. Without them everything would crumble.
Iida Loukola
They shoot, they score … if there’s a sugary reward at the end of it.
Dr. Eijiro Miyak
Collecting pollen takes a surprising amount of teamwork.
What causes some people to become convinced their skin or bodies are infested with crawling critters?
from www.shutterstock.com
Some people have terrifying delusions they are infested with insects, spiders or even small animals. But help is available.
Ababil Wings SS / shutterstock
We have barely begun to tap into the pharmaceutical potential of the most diverse animals of all.