Insects, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 11, 2013

New Cockroach Species Replacing Oriental Roach in Southwest US

From the garages of Southern California to the apartments of Philadelphia, oriental cockroaches have reared their heads wherever there is moisture and rubbish or leftover food. But at least in the southwestern United States, and perhaps soon in a town near you, a new species of the cockroach is replacing...

Jan 26, 2016

Mom Genes: This Cockroach Species' Live Births Are in Its DNA

A cockroach species is one of the only insects in the world that shares some notable traits with humans: Like humans, beetle mimic cockroaches give live birth to their young, and they also seem to be able to provide nutrients from their bodies to their young, similar to the nourishment...

Jul 15, 2016

Cockroaches Use Their Own Internal GPS to Get Around

When navigating your kitchen, cockroaches likely don't need to stop for directions. Turns out, the pesky insects have an internal GPS. That navigation system, which relies on head direction and contextual cues, is similar to one that's used by rats and even humans, the researchers said. The mechanism is likely...

Aug 17, 2016

Flying Cockroaches! Heat Sends Your Favorite Pests Soaring

Summer weather can make for hot, sticky and uncomfortable days. And if staying cool and keeping hydrated aren't enough to worry about, heat waves could cause cockroaches to take to the skies. Yes, you read that right. Flying cockroaches. Cockroaches, like all insects, are cold-blooded, meaning their activity rate increases...

Nov 22, 2016

'Lover' Cockroaches Grow Bigger Testicles to Woo Mates

Cockroaches are known for their superior survival skills, but it seems these bugs have another evolutionary advantage when it comes to the mating game: Male roaches can grow bigger testicles, if need be, to woo a mate. A new study finds that Madagascar hissing cockroaches can adopt different strategies to...

Feb 8, 2017

Eww! Live Cockroach Pulled from Woman's Nose in Rare Case

A woman who woke up in the middle of the night because she felt an odd crawling sensation in her head turned out to be harboring a real, live cockroach in her nose, according to a new report of the case. The 42-year-old woman, who lives in Chennai, India, said...

Mar 24, 2017

Female Cockroaches Sync Up Their Virgin Births

Female cockroaches don't need a mate to lay eggs, but they do like company. New research finds that virgin female cockroaches housed together are quicker to produce offspring than virgin females living alone. It isn't particularly pleasant to imagine this happening under the fridge, but female American cockroaches (Periplaneta americana)...

Mar 22, 2018

Here's Why Cockroaches Can Survive Just About Anything

The genome of the American cockroach has been sequenced for the first time, revealing why these creepy-crawlies are such tenacious survivors. The roach (Periplaneta americana) has widely expanded gene families related to taste and smell, to detoxification and to immunity, compared with other insects, according to a new study published...

May 4, 2018

A Cockroach Crawled Inside a Woman's Ear, and It Can Happen to You

Another day, another story about an insect crawling into a person's ear and making itself at home. Katie Holley, a Florida resident, woke up in the middle of the night to a weird sensation in her ear, like someone had placed a chip of ice in my left earhole, she...

Jun 28, 2019

Cockroach 'Superbugs' Becoming Near-Impossible to Kill

German cockroaches — small, swift, prolific insects that live only around people — are quickly evolving resistance to a range of pesticides at the same time and may soon be nearly impossible to kill with chemicals alone. Exterminators typically rely on different classes of toxic chemicals to eliminate roaches; if...

Feb 9, 2022

Creepy, big-eyed cockroach discovered trapped in amber from 100 million years ago

Today's cockroaches are nocturnal creepy crawlers that scatter when you turn on the light. But their ancient relatives were likely the polar opposite, according to the discovery of an immaculately preserved, big-eyed cockroach trapped in amber. Its huge peepers likely helped it forage during the day, when the sun was...

Nov 16, 2004

Advanced Optics ... on Butterfly Wings

Long before engineers sought to create microscopic devices that manipulate light for electronics, known as photonics, Nature had developed animals that reflect light with smaller and more complex structures than any manufactured by man. New research shows that the wings of the morpho rhetenor butterfly reflect its brilliant blue colors...

Apr 8, 2005

Billions of Butterflies Descend on California

Heavy winter rains have led to billions of butterflies that are beginning to descend on California in what could be a record migration. Millions of butterflies that flew into the Central Valley in the last week of March could be just the advance guard of an unprecedented hoard. This may...

May 4, 2005

Butterfly's Navigation Secret Revealed in Flight Simulator

The monarch butterfly is known to use the angle of sunlight as a navigational guide on its annual fall migration from across North America to Mexico. But how it processes the information has been a mystery. Now scientists have used a flight simulator and peeked inside the butterfly brain to...

Nov 17, 2005

The Secret of Bright Butterfly Wings: LED Technology

Science was way behind nature in developing LED light technology, a new study finds. The beautifully colored wings of African swallowtail butterflies manipulate light using engineering tricks similar to those found in digital displays. The butterflies have black wings with bright patches of green and blue, which they use to...