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This Snail Goes Fishing With a Net Made of Slime
Go clamber around the tide pools at Asilomar State Beach this summer and you might notice something odd: Some of the rocks look like someone haphazardly glued twisty scraps of old macaroni to them....
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Meet the Floating Animals That Call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Home
Trash from humans is constantly spilling into the ocean — so much so that there are five gigantic garbage patches in the seas. They hang out at the nexus of the world’s ocean currents, changing shape...
View ArticleThis Fly Torpedoes a Bindweed Bee’s Nest
A “bee fly” looks a bit like a bee, but it’s a freeloader that takes advantage of a bindweed turret bee’s hard work. The bees dig underground nests and fill them with pollen they collect in the form of...
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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...
View ArticleThis Daring Fly Swims in a Shimmering Bubble Shield
Covered in a shiny bubble, the alkali fly scuba dives into the harsh waters of California’s Mono Lake. Thanks to an abundance of hair and water-repellent wax, this remarkable insect remains dry while...
View ArticleCockroach vs. Hydraulic Press: Who Wins?
Do cockroaches — those daring, disgusting disease vectors — have anything at all to offer us? Scientists think so. They compressed American roaches with a hydraulic press, subjecting them to the force...
View ArticleWatch 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...
View ArticleVarroa 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...
View ArticleThis 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...
View ArticleDog 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...
View ArticleMom, 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleWatch 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....
View ArticleSharpshooter 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...
View ArticleThese 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...
View ArticleWatch 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...
View ArticleMeet 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...
View ArticleStingless 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....
View ArticleThese 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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