Insects

How do small headhunter ants decapitate larger, fiercer trap-jaw ants? And why do they do it?

By Loraine Fick

The American cockroach places a well-aimed karate kick to keep the jewel wasp from turning it into a zombified husk of wasp chow. That's what a new study found anyway.

By Nathan Chandler

Justin O. Schmidt studies insect venom and has a rating system for the relative agony inflicted by the world's most painful stings. Which is the worst?

By Jesslyn Shields

Structures in some butterflies' wings are actually part of their ears.

By Jesslyn Shields

Thanks to a citizen science project in the path of totality, researchers studied bee activity and were surprised by the results.

By John Perritano

For five nights in a row, a praying mantis came to the same garden spot to hunt for fish, completely confounding scientists.

By Jesslyn Shields

Beekeeping, when you get down to it, is the art and science of removing honey from hardworking bees without them missing it. But beekeeping is about so much more than just the honey.

By Dave Roos

The tiny fly cocoons are between 34 and 40 million years old and contained well-preserved parasitic fossils.

By Mark Mancini

Teaching bees to do things like sniff out certain smells is easy. The tricky part is training them to use the skills in the wild.

By John Donovan

Being eaten from the inside out by wasps sounds like something out of a nightmare, but for some caterpillars, sadly, it's just life.

By Jesslyn Shields

Bees "beard" together, sometimes to swarm, but usually to keep the hive cool during hot summer weather.

By Carrie Tatro

African Matabele ants always take the quickest route back to headquarters, which may not be the shortest path.

By John Perritano

Oak processionary moth caterpillars can trigger allergic reactions causing everything from eye irritation to anaphylactic shock.

By Laurie L. Dove

Scientists have identified a substance responsible for breaking down pesticides in bees, which will help them come up with a bee-friendlier bug spray.

By Laurie L. Dove

A species of termite-hunting sub-Saharan ants tend to their wounded.

By John Perritano

Insects are crucial to the functioning of every ecosystem on the planet. Now they're disappearing, and nobody's sure why.

By Jesslyn Shields

It seems like flying cockroaches want to dive bomb your face. Are they aggressive? Defensive? Or maybe it's all just in your scared ape mind.

By Jesslyn Shields

Entire colonies of half a million venomous ants are one scary threat following serious flooding.

By Jesslyn Shields

And it's amazing to see if you can finagle a spot at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park viewing in late spring.

By John Donovan

Scientists planted dummy caterpillars across the globe and discovered that when it comes to safety from predation, it's all about location, location, location.

By Jesslyn Shields

The secrets to ladybugs' wing-folding could yield new designs in flying robots and even newfangled umbrellas.

By Amanda Onion

For one species of dragonfly, the hassle of dealing with aggressive suitors is worth playing possum over.

By Jesslyn Shields

Eating bugs is gaining popularity in the West, but many are still put off simply because they're insects. Might bugs in cocktails make the idea a bit easier to swallow?

By Sarah Gleim

And its special endowment is not the thing that intrigues scientists the most.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

In a state already teeming with pythons, tourists and Jimmy Buffett singalongs, the flesh-eating screwworm makes Florida a little more menacing.

By Jesslyn Shields