Insects and Arachnids
Insects and arachnids are the most popular wild animal on Earth. Read our collection of articles discussing all sorts of ants, bugs, butterflies, spiders and just about every other type of insect and arachnid.
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And we mean really loud. Like up to 100 decibels loud. Get all the buzz on what's making these bug-eyed bugs return.
By John Cooley & Chris Simon
The praying mantis is a powerful predator, and not as robotic (or as romantic!) as it seems.
Black widow spider venom can be deadly but how likely are you to be bitten? It might surprise you that these arachnids are on the shy side.
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While luna moths aren't exactly rare, they're hard to find so every encounter seems extra special.
That's right – daddy longlegs isn't an actual kind of spider, but a colloquial name that's been applied to a wide range of spiders and non-spiders, insects and non-insects.
By Mark Mancini
Bees get a lot of credit for pollinating important food crops, but they get a lot of secret help from their nocturnal friends, the moths.
The elephant hawk moth is breathtakingly beautiful as an adult, but as a baby ... not so much.
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Born pregnant? You bet. It's a survival instinct but could also explain how these garden pests spread like wildfire.
By Mark Mancini
The deadly Asian giant hornet, the largest hornet in the world, was spotted in the U.S. for the first time in late 2019. You'll want to stay far away from this creature. Its nickname? The "murder hornet."
Mayflies have the shortest adult life span of any animal, but swarms of them can still be seen on weather radar.
Some cicadas are annual breeders and some show up loudly about every 17 years, but all cicadas produce a "song" that can reach 120 decibels — very close to a level that can damage human ear drums.
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Work by volunteers and nonprofit organizations, such as butterfly waystations and increased education efforts, has turned around long-term population decline for some butterfly species.
Fruit flies are annoying, but we also owe them a huge debt of scientific gratitude.
Locusts are just mild-mannered grasshoppers until they swarm up and become monstrous. In parts of the world, locust plagues are becoming a way of life.
If you've never seen a botfly, it looks rather harmless — like a basic bumblebee even. Until it lays its eggs inside a living host, and that's when things get really gross.
By Mark Mancini
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Dragonflies are fast, powerful and unbelievably aggressive, using a rudimentary form of 'trigonometry' to calculate distance and move in for the kill.
They both sting painfully and hate to be disturbed. But is one more aggressive than the other?
The sting of a tarantula hawk is so painful you are advised to lie on the ground as soon as you're stung to avoid falling.
Black soldier fly larvae will eat almost anything and they taste pretty good themselves, too.
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Tarantulas are the largest spiders in the world and, believe it or not, some can live for up to 30 years.
Not all spiders spin webs, but the eight-legged arachnids that do, spin all kinds of different webs, some big, some small.
By Mark Mancini
These nasty pests are developing cross-resistance to multiple classes of insecticides.
Just like bees, wasps are pollinators that are also endangered. But you rarely hear anyone pleading to save wasps. A new study finds out why wasps are despised by the public and researchers alike.
By Dave Roos
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Ninety percent of brown recluse bites don't have any effect at all — but the mythology around these creatures and their bites is legendary.
Is the "banana spider" you're looking at the one that sits around harmlessly catching flies, or could its bite kill a small child? If we rely solely on common names, this question is complicated.