When goldenrod gall flies embark on their winter hibernation, they freeze solid and have only the fats that they carry on board to sustain them. However, scientists from Western University, Canada, have discovered that the ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 30, 2014
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Armed with a ferocious pair of mandibles, male stag beetles appear well prepared to take on the world. 'Their jaws are not just for ornamentation, they really use them to fight', says Jana Goyens from the University of Antwerp, ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 26, 2014
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Snakes aren't usually renowned for their ability to fly, but Chrysopelea snakes from southeast Asia regularly launch themselves from trees into the air gliding for 10s of meters before touch down. In a bid to understand how ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 29, 2014
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Raptors are the masters of the aerial dogfight. Intercepting prey on the wing, falcons lock their victims in their gaze before engaging in battle. Intrigued by the raptor's attack strategy, Suzanne Amador Kane recruited falconers ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 15, 2014
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For 60 years the world has believed that dolphins did not have enough muscle to propel them at high speed and that they were resorting to some fluid-flow trickery to pull off their impressive performance. But Frank Fish from ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 15, 2014
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Love them or hate them, cockroaches are notoriously good escape artists and can flee at astonishing speeds. However, this speed can make it difficult to sense the world around them: 'When animals move slowly they rely mostly ...
Engineering
Dec 4, 2013
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As darkness descends upon the tropical rainforests of Malaysia, male chirping katydids of the Mecopoda complex are just getting warmed up for their usual nightly concerts to woo the females. These nocturnal suitors are favoured ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 4, 2013
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Much like a pair of closed eyelids a snake's eye is covered layer of skin riddled with tiny blood vessels. Although this layer is transparent Kevin van Doorn for the University of Waterloo, Canada, wondered if the blood vessels ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 30, 2013
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Up until a year ago, how an elephant made its guttural infrasonic calls was still a matter of debate, as Christian Herbst, from the University of Vienna, Austria, points out: 'Some people suggested it's just like in us humans, ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 16, 2013
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During his time in Daniel Morse's lab at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA, PhD student Daniel DeMartini has seen many Doryteuthis opalescens squid pass through the lab's doors. These squid provide DeMartini ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 5, 2013
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