Educational Science

Why are insects attracted to artificial lights?

The classic summer cookout comes with chips, drinks and then, after the sun goes down, swarms of insects flitting around porch lights. But flying around artificial lights can have deadly consequences for critters such as moths, gnats and mosquitos; they can get trapped under lampshades and exposed to predators such...

The Devils Hole pupfish is so inbred that it shouldn’t be alive

The Devils Hole pupfish is small, blue and incredibly endangered. It also may be the most inbred creature on Earth. All 263 wild Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) live in one location: a 10-foot by 20-foot (3 by 6 meters) cavern in the middle of Devils Hole in Nevada, a...

Dominant males of an Indonesian species of fish turn black during periods of heightened aggression, scientists have discovered. Their blackened markings, which quickly emerge at the start of a conflict, appear to serve as a signal of dominance to other fish. Celebes medaka (Oryzias celebensis) males with these distinctive black...

How do insects know which flowers have pollen?

When pollinators land on a flower, they're on a mission: They're looking for sweet nectar to eat and specks of nutritious pollen to bring back to their young. But how do insects know where to find pollen? In theory, the process is easy: A flower flaunts bits of tasty, aromatic...

A bizarre 'snake worm' has baffled scientists for over a decade, now they know what it is

Researchers have solved Alaska's snake worm mystery after discovering a new species of fungus-eating fly whose juveniles band together and slither around like a long, gray serpent. The snake worm mystery began more than 16 years ago in the summer of 2007, when Ester resident Maggie Billington spotted thousands of...

Prehistoric fish with giant jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth are the ultimate living fossils

Gars are the ultimate living fossils, having changed at an incredibly slow pace since their ancestors emerged during the dinosaur age 150 million years ago, scientists have revealed. This leisurely rate of change means these prehistoric fish have the slowest rate of molecular evolution among all jawed vertebrates. The gar...

365 million-year-old 'alien' fish had one of the most extreme underbites on record

Scientists recently discovered that an ancient fossilized fish may be one of the top contenders for nature's most extreme underbite. When a researcher first unearthed the first known fossil of this fish in Poland in 1957, he thought it had a long set of fin spines, leading to the alien-inspired...

Hummingbird hawk-moth: The bird-like insect with a giant sucking mouthpart

Name: Hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) Where it lives: Europe and North Africa, migrating north in summer and south in winter What it eats: Nectar Why it's awesome: — It's a bird! No, it's a hummingbird hawk-moth! This fascinating creature looks like a hummingbird, but it's actually a moth. It even...

Where do eels come from?

Critically endangered European eels (Anguilla anguilla) spend their adult lives in fresh water in Europe, ranging from Norway to the Mediterranean. But you won't find any baby eels in the mix. So where do all the mature eels come from? Almost entirely across the Atlantic Ocean, as it turns out....

Watch ancient, giant millipede the size of a car brought back to life in remarkable reconstruction

A remarkable reconstruction shows a 300 million-year-old millipede the length of a small car crawling around a forest floor looking for love. The footage was created for Netflix's Life on Our Planet — a series that brings extinct creatures back to virtual life in video footage. The clip shows Arthropleura,...