Insects, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 31, 2014

6 Mysterious 'Dracula' Ant Species Discovered in Madagascar

Six new species of a mysterious blood-sucking ant have been identified in Madagascar — and they're an especially odd bunch. The so-called Dracula ants, described today (March 31) in the journal ZooKeys, seem to defy many of the normal rules that scientists use to classify ants. The genus Mystrium is...

Jun 23, 2014

Chomping Invaders! Alien Trap-Jaw Ants Spread Along Gulf Coast

An aggressive type of trap-jaw ant with a mighty bite is gaining ground in the U.S. southeast, new research finds. The species, Odontomachus haematodus, is native to South America, but it seems to have spread recently along the Gulf Coast without attracting much attention until now. The fact that some...

Aug 1, 2014

Can Ants Save the World from Climate Change?

Ants may be some of Earth's most powerful biological climate brokers, a provocative new study claims. The average ant lives and dies in less than a year, but a long-term experiment tracking the insects' effects on soil suggests they cooled Earth's climate as their numbers grew. Ants are changing the...

Oct 30, 2014

Zombie Ants to Ghost Frogs: 6 Real Halloween Monsters

Halloween is a time to celebrate mythical creatures that haunt our dreams — when the undead come to life and bloodsuckers go on the prowl. But some of these monsters have real-life counterparts in the animal world. From vampire bats to zombie ants, here are some of the creepiest real-life...

Jan 7, 2015

Off with Their Heads! Tiny Flies Decapitate Ants for Dinner

There are tiny tropical flies that turn fire ants into zombies with larvae that eat the ant's brain. But wait: This fly story gets even better. Researchers have discovered a related group of female flies that bite off ant heads and then haul them away for dinner. Anything you put...

Feb 19, 2015

Fire Ants Hitched Ride Around Globe on 16th-Century Ships

Spanish ships spread tropical fire ants around the globe in the 16th century, according to new research about one of the first worldwide invasive species. Tropical fire ants (Solenopsis geminata) originally hail from the Americas, but are now found almost anywhere with a tropical climate, including Australia, Africa, India and...

Dec 1, 2015

Oh Snap: Trap-Jaw Ants Jump with Their Legs, Too

Trap-jaw ants are known for using their powerful jaws to launch themselves into the air, somersaulting several times their own body length to evade predators. But some of these ants have another trick in their escape arsenal. Scientists recently discovered a trap-jaw species that leaps with its legs, a behavior...

Aug 8, 2016

Friends with Benefits? Cannibalism Not All Bad for Male Praying Mantis

Hungry female praying mantises don't hesitate to turn their sexual partners into lunch, so striking up a friends-with-benefits relationship with these creatures may seem a tad one-sided. But, from an evolutionary point of view, sexual cannibalism can also benefit the male mantis, according to a recent study. The new research...

Jan 30, 2017

Butt-First, Ants Have No Problem Navigating Backward

Foraging ants navigate so well, they can even do it backward, a new study finds. Researchers had theorized that ants could memorize their landscape to navigate. However, the insects had been observed walking home in reverse, which contradicts the assumption that the ants relied on specific visual memory of the...

Apr 24, 2017

Crystal-Haired 'Radiohead' Ant Discovered

No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants, the band Radiohead intoned in its creepy, computerized 1997 track Fitter Happier. A new species named after the band would probably appreciate the sentiment. Sericomyrmex radioheadi is a newfound Central and South American ant named to honor Radiohead for the...

May 11, 2017

Weird Ants Have Hairy Blobs for Babies

These are not bouncing bundles of joy — the babies of trap-jaw ants are studded with spines, spires and fleshy doorknob protuberances. New research zooms in on these bizarre larvae in more detail than ever before. Scientists used scanning electron microscopy to describe the larval development of trap-jaw ants, a...

Jul 12, 2017

Fire Ants Build Sinking 'Eiffel Towers' from Their Own Bodies

Fire ants can build miniature look-alikes of the Eiffel Tower from their own bodies, and the insects perpetually rebuild the structures to save them from collapsing, a new study finds. The insects crawl up and down these structures in a phenomenon that resembles a slow-motion water fountain in reverse, the...

Aug 31, 2017

Blink and You'll Miss It: Trap-Jaw Ant's Strike Is Swift, Deadly, Unique

Recently, researchers uncovered the adaptations that enable this superfast snapping in an elusive and little-studied genus of trap-jaw ants called Myrmoteras, using X-ray scans and high-speed video to analyze the ants' jaws in action — inside and out. The scientists identified the latch, spring and trigger mechanisms for two Myrmoteras...

Feb 13, 2018

Ant Species Stay Healthy with Self-Made Antibiotics

Diseases can spread quickly among dense populations of organisms, whether they're people living in crowded cities or groups of social insects such as ant colonies. But some ant species are using homebrewed antibiotics to fight back. To stop the spread of disease, some species of ants are known for producing...

Aug 21, 2018

This Ant Attempted the World's Tiniest Diamond Heist

The perpetrator of what is probably the world's tiniest diamond heist was an ant, and its daring caper took place in plain sight. Not only was the theft detected within moments; the ant's antics were captured in a video that quickly went viral after it was posted to YouTube on...