Search Results for: Butterflies
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1,026 results
- Animals
Static electricity may help butterflies and moths gather pollen on the fly
Electrostatically charged lepidopterans could draw pollen out of flowers without touching the blooms, computer simulations suggest.
- Animals
Want to see butterflies in your backyard? Try doing less yardwork
Growing out patches of grass can lure adult butterflies and moths with nectar and offer lawn mower–free havens for toddler caterpillars.
- Paleontology
Early ants may have had complex social lives, fossil data suggests
The earliest ants may have been primed for a highly social life — 100 million years ago, the insects had antennae tuned to key communication functions.
- Health & Medicine
Honeybees can “smell” lung cancer
Bees can detect the scent of lung cancer in lab-grown cells and synthetic breath. One day, bees may be used to screen people’s breath for cancer.
- Animals
The last leg of the longest butterfly migration has now been identified
After a long journey across the Sahara, painted lady butterflies from Europe set up camp in central Africa to wait out winter and breed.
- Neuroscience
Here’s how magnetic fields shape desert ants’ brains
Exposure to a tweaked magnetic field scrambled desert ants’ efforts to learn where home is — and affected neuron connections in a key part of the brain.
- Animals
Big monarch caterpillars don’t avoid toxic milkweed goo. They binge on it
Instead of nipping milkweed to drain the plants’ defensive sap, older monarch caterpillars may seek the toxic sap. Lab larvae guzzled it from a pipette.
- Animals
Migratory fish species are in drastic decline, a new UN report details
The most comprehensive tally of how migrating animals are faring looks at more than 1,000 land and aquatic species and aims to find ways to protect them.
- Life
The inside of a rat’s eye won the 2023 Nikon Small World photo contest
The annual competition puts the spotlight on science and nature in all its smallest glory.
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The animal kingdom never ceases to amaze
Editor in chief Nancy Shute revels in the wonder of animals, from psychedelic toads to extinct pterosaurs.
- Animals
Butterflies may lose their ‘tails’ like lizards
Fragile, tail-like projections on some butterflies' wings may be a lifesaver.
- Life
Flowers pollinated by honeybees make lower-quality seeds
Honeybees are one of the most common pollinators. But their flower-visiting habits make it harder for some plants to produce good seeds.
