Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 26, 2021

Prime numbers protect Brood X cicadas from everything but zombie fungus

After spending 17 years underground, trillions of cicadas will emerge this spring to creak out their ear-splitting mating songs and litter tree trunks with their eerie molted skin. It's weird enough that Brood X, as this enormous influx of cicadas is known, somehow manages to emerge all at the same...

Mar 29, 2021

What are Brood X cicadas?

Every 17 years, the billions of periodical cicadas that make up Brood X turn their attention from tree roots to the sky. In the spring of 2021, after nearly two decades of development underground, the insects are ready to dig their way out of the earth across the eastern United...

May 20, 2021

Finding those delightful Brood X cicadas: Here's how

Something incredible is happening right now that takes place just once every 17 years: Brood X cicada nymphs are wriggling out of the soil to climb the nearest trees, where they will transform into red-eyed, black-bodied adult cicadas by the billions. If you live in the eastern United States, you're...

May 22, 2021

Some Brood X cicadas will be sex-crazed zombies with disintegrating butts

All Brood X cicadas want to do is mate and die in peace — is that so much to ask? Unfortunately, a number of the now-emerging cicadas may instead find themselves the victims of a zombifying fungus that transforms their butts into spore-shedding fungal gardens. For the past 17 years,...

Nov 29, 2021

New video reveals how 'caterpillar soup' transforms into shimmering butterfly wings

To transform into a butterfly, a caterpillar must first dissolve into a goopy soup within its chrysalis. Now, in striking new videos, scientists have revealed how this goo reassembles into the delicate scales on a butterfly's wings. To watch this process unfold in living caterpillars undergoing metamorphosis, the researchers behind...

Dec 1, 2021

Ants vomit into each other's mouths to form social bonds

Ants have social networks just like humans do, but instead of exchanging information through posts and comments, they vomit into each other's mouths. Most insects have a foregut, a midgut and a hindgut. However, for social insects, the foregut has become sort of a 'social stomach,' said Adria LeBoeuf, an...

Dec 16, 2021

Newfound millipede breaks world record for the most legs

A newfound species of millipede has more legs than any other creature on the planet — a mind-boggling 1,300 of them. The leggy critters live deep below Earth's surface and are the only known millipedes to live up to their name. The word 'millipede' has always been a bit of...

Feb 19, 2022

What do ants smell like?

Skunks are notoriously stinky. The musk ox, true to its name, emits a musky scent during mating season. And for some lucky owners, dog paws smell like corn chips. But these are not the only members of the animal kingdom that are smelly. Perhaps one of the most peculiar stinky...

Mar 4, 2022

Anal bulbs, detachable butt hairs and booty camouflage: Welcome to #InverteButtWeek on Twitter

Sometimes the best view of an insect, spider, crab or clam is the sight of its rear end. Animal butts come in a mind-bending variety of shapes and sizes, and the butts of invertebrates — animals without backbones — are especially diverse and often delightfully weird. From marine worms with...

Apr 22, 2022

Swiftie scientist names millipede species after Taylor Swift

Scientists have described a previously unknown species of millipede in the Appalachian Mountains — and named it after pop superstar Taylor Swift. Researchers discovered the millipede, along with 16 other newly described millipede species, as part of an extensive research project to sequence the DNA of species in the Nannaria...

Apr 26, 2022

Venomous bloodworms grow deadly copper fangs with totally metal trick

A venomous bloodworm species grows bizarre, deadly metal teeth, and now scientists know how: with a single, simple protein that transforms copper deposits located at the bottom of the seafloor into fearsome fangs. Bloodworms (Glycera dibranchiata) are segmented, bright-red marine worms that can grow to be 14 inches (35 centimeters)...

May 19, 2022

What's the difference between a moth and a butterfly?

Say the word butterfly and a brilliant, orange-and-black-winged Monarch butterfly may fly through your mind. Say moth, meanwhile, and the brain may conjure up an image of a dull, brown-winged pest that nibbles holes through clothing. But is appearance really the main difference between these two types of winged insects?...

Jul 22, 2022

Monarch butterflies teetering ‘on the edge of collapse,’ added to endangered species list

The migratory monarch butterfly has joined the endangered species list. On Thursday (July 21), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the butterfly, a subspecies of monarch (Danaus plexippus) as endangered, indicating that the subspecies is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. The main threats...

Aug 9, 2022

Creepy deep-sea 'vanilla Vader' woodlouse is 25 times bigger than a land louse

A colossal, creamy yellow woodlouse relative that has a vague resemblance to Darth Vader has been discovered deep below the ocean surface in the Gulf of Mexico, a new study finds. At more than 10 inches (26 centimeters) long, the creature is 2,500% larger than common roly polies, or woodlice...

Sep 1, 2022

Swarms of 'mini-shark' beach bugs are on a foot-biting rampage in California

Beachgoers in Southern California are being targeted by swarms of tiny, aggressive sea bugs, previously dubbed mini-sharks, that seem to have a thing for feet. The shrimplike creatures have been snapping at the ankles of locals promenading along the shoreline, leaving people hopping around in pain, according to local news...