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Glittering Tides: Where to Spot Bioluminescence in the Bay Area

Every year during the summer or fall, shore waves across the Bay Area are lit up with flashes of beautiful blue light. This beautiful blue light is caused by millions of tiny bioluminescent plankton...

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Watch Ladybugs Go From Goth to Glam

Ladybugs may be the cutest insects around, but they don’t start off that way. Also called lady beetles or ladybirds, they pop out of their eggs as prickly mini-monsters with an insatiable hunger for...

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Varroa Mites Are a Honeybee’s 8-Legged Nightmare

Every year, up to half the honeybee colonies in the U.S. die. Varroa mites, the bees’ ghastly parasites, are one of the main culprits. After hitching a ride into a hive, a mite mom hides in a honeycomb...

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This Weevil Has Puppet Vibes But Drills Like a Power Tool

This fuzzy acorn weevil can’t crack open acorns like a woodpecker or chomp through them like a squirrel. Instead, she uses her incredibly long snout, called a rostrum, to power-drill through an acorn’s...

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Dog Ticks Are Changing Their Diet. You’re on the Menu

Like its name suggests, the brown dog tick dines on dog blood. But as temperatures rise, they’re more likely to feast on you, too. That’s a problem, because the brown dog tick is a vector for Rocky...

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Mom, Where Do Baby Jellyfish Come From?

When grown-up jellyfish love each other very much, they make huge numbers of teeny-tiny potato-shaped larvae. Those larvae grow into little polyps that cling to rocks and catch prey with their stinging...

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A Drain Fly’s Happy Place Is Down Your Pipes

Ever wonder how those tiny, jumpy flies got onto your bathroom wall? Well, they came out of your sink drain after growing up down in the pipes. A goofy, long “mustache,” fuzzy wings and some aquabatics...

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Watch Spawning Corals Synchronize With the Night Sky

When the moon, sun and ocean temperatures all align, an underwater “snowstorm” occurs. Corals put on a massive spawning spectacle by sending tiny white spheres floating up the water column all at once....

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Sharpshooter Insects Are Real Wizzes at Whizzing

Sharpshooters survive by guzzling a lot of plant sap. But drinking all of that liquid nutrition presents a problem for these tiny insects: how do you move it all out? They’ve perfected a...

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These Solar-Powered Carnivorous Flatworms Divide and Conquer

Tiny marine flatworms called acoels hunt for prey in coral reefs. They’re referred to as “plant-animals” because they’ve got a partnership with photosynthetic algae that live inside of them. But this...

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Watch Ferns Get Freaky

Look at the underside of a fern leaf. Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern...

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Meet the Bug You Didn’t Know You Were Eating

The cochineal is a tiny insect deeply rooted in the history of Oaxaca, Mexico. Female cochineals spend most of their lives with their heads buried in juicy cactus pads, eating and growing. After...

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Sick Brown Pelicans Are Turning Up Along the Coast — and We Don’t Know Why

Dozens of malnourished and injured brown pelicans are turning up along the Northern California coastline. Russ Curtis, a spokesperson for the nonprofit organization International Bird Rescue, said the...

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Stingless Bees Guard Tasty Honey With Barricades, Bouncers and Bites

The honeybee that sweetened your tea isn’t the only kind of bee that makes the sweet stuff. More than 600 bee species across Mexico, Central and South America and tropical regions worldwide do too....

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These Baby Starfish Are Carnivorous Little Snowflakes

Six-rayed sea stars make great moms! Unlike most sea stars, mama six-rayed sea stars are VERY involved in their kids’ lives, caressing and protecting their babies for months. When they’re big enough,...

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Tar Pits Are a Death Trap. Except for This Fly.

Within the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, not far from West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, paleontologists are hard at work sorting through one of the richest collections of ice age fossils in the...

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This Mite-y Beetle Buries the Dead to Start a Family

Insects called burying beetles haul mouse carcasses down into the dirt and prep them to feed their future offspring. Also known as carrion beetles, they have some stiff competition … and some help from...

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New Bay Area Research Reveals the Secret Lives of Sperm Whales

Sightings of sperm whales are rare in Monterey Bay. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t nearby, deep under the surface of the ocean. Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute analyzed a...

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5 Creepy Creatures Out to Suck Your Blood

Chances are you’ve got one of these bloodsuckers lurking nearby. Mosquitoes, ticks, lice, kissing bugs and tsetse flies are all looking to grab a bite … of you. See exactly how they do it and what you...

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Why Do Sunflowers Face the Sunrise?

To bring all the bees to the yard! These pollinators love warm, bright blooms early in the morning. But how did these plants end up facing east? It turns out they spend their whole life getting in just...

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These Bees Hustle to Put Food on the Table

You know honeybees make honey, but did you know they make bread too? And four other types of bees are also dedicated chefs! Alfalfa leafcutting bees take a punch from a flower for your ice cream. Blue...

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Glowing and Swimming Sea Slugs Newly Discovered in the Deep Sea

Monterey Bay researchers have discovered a remarkable new species of sea slug that lives in the deep sea. The glowing nudibranch swims through the ocean’s midnight zone with a large gelatinous hood and...

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Lacewing Love Is Noisier Than You Think

Lacewings have babies that are prized as pest control. But before they can mate, they have to vibrate their bodies and sing to each other, making noises like purring cats or growling stomachs....

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Beware of Flesh-Eating Sand Piranhas at the Beach

Known as sand piranhas, Excirolana chiltoni are tiny crustaceans that nibble at your feet – and draw blood – if you hang out on the wet sand at the beach. They live on the Pacific coast of the U.S. and...

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Want a Cozy, Free Home? Ask This Caterpillar How

As a caterpillar, a grass skipper butterfly is an architect. It builds its home by weaving skeins of silk, which the caterpillar uses to fold shut a blade of grass. After growing up inside this “grass...

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4 of the Deadliest Tiny Hunters We’ve Ever Filmed

Watch turret spiders, wormlions, assassin bugs and dragonfly babies use stealth, speed and lethal weapons to dispatch their prey. TRANSCRIPT No one said life in the wild would be easy. Yikes! These...

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Monarch Butterflies Are on the Decline in California. Here’s Why

California’s iconic monarch butterfly population saw a sharp decline this year, which biologists attribute to the hot summer and fall temperatures across the state affecting the species’ migratory...

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4 Tiny Romances That Are Almost Too Freaky to Share

Praying mantises, barnacles, newts and earthworms have some of the strangest love lives. TRANSCRIPT We get it, dating is hard. From meeting the right special someone, to getting to know them, to...

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This Weevil Was Born in Your Rice and It’s Hungry

While it has a cute snoot, a rice weevil is a stowaway. It sneaks into your pantry as an egg that its mom laid inside a single grain of rice. Once it hatches, it turns your rice into its new home....

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Where to See Wildflowers Near You in the Bay Area

Each spring, the Bay Area’s rolling hills and coastal landscapes burst into color as wildflowers blanket the terrain. From the iconic California poppy to the delicate shooting star, these blooms are...

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