All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Pea aphid youngsters use piggyback rides to escape a crisis
When some mammal is about to munch their plant, aphids drop to the ground and youngsters want a ride to safety.
- Animals
A jumping spider mom nurses her brood for weeks on milk
Even after spiderlings start hunting for themselves, they come to mom for milk.
- Animals
Mosquitoes may surf winds above Africa more than we realized
More than 40 meters up, balloon traps in Mali caught females of malaria-spreading mosquito species.
- Animals
How locust ecology inspired an opera
When an entomologist decides to write a libretto, you get an operatic elegy to locusts.
- Animals
Hemp fields offer a late-season pollen source for stressed bees
Colorado’s legal fields of low-THC cannabis can attract a lot of bees.
- Animals
Climate change may have made the Arctic deadlier for baby shorebirds
What were once relatively safe havens in the Arctic are now feasting sites for predators of baby birds.
- Animals
How roaches fight off wasps that turn their victims into zombies
Cockroaches kick attacking emerald jewel wasps to avoid being incapacitated and buried alive as living meat for the wasps’ young.
- Animals
Coral larvae survive being frozen and thawed for the first time
Cryopreservation might help save some coral reefs at risk from climate change and other dangers.
- Animals
In cadaver caves, baby beetles grow better with parental goo
A dead mouse — with the right microbial treatment from beetle parents — becomes a much better nursery than your average carcass.
- Animals
How nectar bats fly nowhere
Exquisitely sensitive tech makes first direct measurements of the forces of bat wingbeats.
- Animals
What bees did during the Great American Eclipse
A rare study of bees during a total solar eclipse finds that the insects buzzed around as usual — until totality.
- Life
Lemur study suggests why some fruits smell so fruity
A new test with lemurs and birds suggests there’s more to fruit odors than simple ripening.
