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 story of the Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spider offer insight into the challenges ahead for invertebrates – the tiny engines of Australia’s biodiversity – after this year’s cataclysmic fires.
Flamingos crowd a muddy area in Mumbai, India, May 17 2020.
EPA-EFE/DIVYAKANT SOLANKI
“I arrived in Perth and bought a foam mattress for the back of my car – my bed for half of the trip. I stocked up on tinned food, and I headed north in search of these tiny eight-legged gems.”
Hostile reactions to spiders are harming conservation efforts.
Karim Rezk/Flickr
Don’t be afraid of spiders – be afraid for spiders
Jumping spiders, like this one, usually have eight eyes: two very large front eyes to get a clear, colour image and judge distance, and extra side eyes to detect when something is moving.
Flickr/Thomas Shahan
The glue that gives spider webs their stickiness is a form of spider silk protein. Researchers can imagine cool uses for a synthetic version – but had to wait for the tricky glue gene to be sequenced.
Trapdoor spiders that build unique burrows are found only in small areas of Queensland. But they don’t travel very far from their location, and that could put them at risk.
Steatoda grossa, also known as the false black widow spider, poses little threat to humans. True black widows only bite when they are disturbed.
Mike Hrabar
Scientists were not sure if an adult butterfly could remember things it learned as a caterpillar. Then a study by a team of US scientists found something very interesting.