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.
“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.”
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.
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.