Search Results for: Spiders

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1,116 results
  1. A microscope image of an adult sea spider made a full recovery after its back half was amputated.
    Animals

    Some young sea spiders can regrow their rear ends

    Juvenile sea spiders can regenerate nearly all of their bottom halves — including muscles and the anus — or make do without them.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  2. A banded sugar ant caught by an Australian ant-slayer spider
    Animals

    This spider literally flips for its food

    The Australian ant-slayer spider’s acrobatics let it feast on insects twice its size, a new study shows,

    By Freda Kreier
  3. A photo of spider monkey bones found buried alongside eagle bones to the left and other animal bones
    Archaeology

    A spider monkey’s remains tell a story of ancient diplomacy in the Americas

    A 1,700-year-old spider monkey skeleton unearthed at Teotihuacan in Mexico was likely a diplomatic gift from the Maya.

    By Freda Kreier
  4. three sequence images of a syringe stuck in a dead wolf spider as it picks up a spider corpse
    Tech

    Scientists turned dead spiders into robots

    In a new field dubbed “necrobotics,” researchers used a syringe and some superglue to control the dead bodies of wolf spiders.

    By Asa Stahl
  5. a close-up photo of a jumping spider
    Animals

    News stories have caught spiders in a web of misinformation

    Nearly half of news stories about peoples’ interactions with spiders contain errors, according to a new analysis.

    By Betsy Mason
  6. photo of silkworm cocoons
    Life

    A metal ion bath may make fibers stronger than spider silk

    The work is the latest in a decades-long quest to create artificial fibers as strong, lightweight and biodegradable as spider silk.

    By Meghan Rosen
  7. Dozens of tiny Delena huntsman spiderlings in or near their white egg sac, surrounded by their much larger, red-legged mother.
    Animals

    These huntsman spiders do something weird: live together as a big, happy family

    Five unusual species of spider moms let youngsters live at home way past the cute waddling baby phase.

    By Susan Milius
  8. image of male and female orb spiders mating
    Animals

    These are our favorite animal stories of 2022

    Goldfish driving cars, skydiving salamanders and spiders dodging postcoital death are among the critters that most impressed the Science News staff.

    By Deborah Balthazar
  9. image of male and female orb spiders mating
    Animals

    These male spiders catapult away to avoid being cannibalized after sex

    In a leap for survival, male Philoponella prominens spiders leverage hydraulic pressure to extend leg joints and fling themselves off hungry females.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  10. a fossil spider, with an inset showing the fossil in ultraviolet light that revealed a substance possibly produced by diatoms
    Paleontology

    Glowing spider fossils may exist thanks to tiny algae’s goo 

    Analyzing 22-million-year-old spider fossils from France revealed that they were covered in a tarry black substance that fluoresces.

    By Carolyn Gramling
  11. photo of a black and yellow female jorō spider
    Animals

    Invasive jorō spiders get huge and flashy — if they’re female

    Taking the pulse (literally) of female jorō spiders hints that the arachnid might push farther north than a relative that has stayed put in the South.

    By Susan Milius
  12. A black sea cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota) expels a stringlike substance, called the Cuvierian organ, as a defense against predators like crabs, as shown in this artist’s illustration.
    Animals

    This sea cucumber shoots sticky tubes out of its butt. Its genes hint at how

    A new genetics study is providing a wealth of information about silky, sticky tubes, called the Cuvierian organ, that sea cucumbers use to tangle foes.

    By Darren Incorvaia