When the Beetle was first introduced, Americans had never seen anything like it. Among art car enthusiasts, it became the ideal canvas for self-expression.
Champagne celebrations with a new species discovery for beetle scientists may not be the best move – you’d be drunk all the time. But it’s still important work.
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.
How can the same basic genome produce such different forms in the two sexes of a single species? It turns out one gene can encode for various things, depending on the order its instructions are read.
Bat populations have been hammered by deforestation. Efforts like tree-planting schemes are a step forward, but they’re doomed to fail unless we apply a bit more local knowledge.
Dung beetles have been cleaning up the planet for at least 65 million years. The 6000 species across the world have adapted to a life at the back end of the food chain in the most remarkable ways.