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The insects seem to know which injuries to treat as they engage in a behavior that seems almost human. The life of a Florida carpenter ant can be brutal. These [...]

In May, parts of Chicago were covered for the first time in 17 years by a brood of buzzing, mating, crawling red-eyed cicadas. The city's tiniest trees were ready. Homeowners [...]

Byline: Erin Blakemore Modern gardeners often plant bee-friendly flowers in a bid to attract the pollinators and ensure their long-term survival. But recent research on moths' role in plant pollination [...]

The bugs are unique among colony-forming insects in that their queens cannot rule without a king. While millions of eyes are on the coronation of Charles III this weekend, other [...]

Byline: Dino Grandoni Researchers just discovered a method of animal reproduction previously unknown to science, reporting that a biological law is being 'broken' by a species of ant. The yellow [...]

Scientists isolated a ''supergene'' that seems to transform raider ants into freeloaders with attributes similar to queens found in other species. To thrive, ant colonies rely on everyone pulling their [...]

A study that involved giving frogs an unpleasant snack has shown that male wasps really can defend themselves with jabs from their genitalia. The experiment was set up like this [...]

There are 20 quadrillion ants worldwide, according to a new census, or 2.5 million for every living human. There are probably even more than that. Right now, ants are scurrying [...]

A small Australian spider uses a Cirque du Soleil-worthy tactic to prey on fierce ants. Spiders have no shortage of strategies to capture their prey. Some hunt in packs, others [...]

Like many ambitious New Yorkers, the ManhattAnt is a social climber. When Katie Guhl traveled at the end of May -- to a wedding in New Orleans and a Memorial [...]

Those wasps you hate? They're the best organic pest control around. Here's how to keep them happy (and avoid getting stung). Attention, spheksophobes: Wasps just want to help. And Heather [...]

All through late summer and early fall, Max McCarthy, a graduate student at Rutgers University, walked around wetlands in northern New Jersey with a mesh net catching bees, which he [...]

Many creatures use mimicry to hide from predators. This one also uses it to lure in prey. It almost sounds like a playground taunt: You look like bird poop and [...]

Byline: Bonnie Berkowitz Dearly beloved, here lie the Brood X cicadas. There, also. And over there. Pretty much everywhere in the Washington, D.C., area, really. Mere weeks ago they broke [...]

Byline: Kevin Ambrose Cicadas pee a lot, particularly during warm days. And when thousands of cicadas are perched overhead on tree branches, their pee falls to the ground like a [...]

Byline: Andrea Sachs When the sky turns dark over the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the howler monkeys become silent, the katydids start singing and dancing. Most of the researchers [...]

NASHVILLE -- Deep beneath the spring-warmed soil, a great thrumming force is beginning to stir. Trillions strong, these insects have been living in the dark since George W. Bush's first [...]

If their bids at motherhood fail, they can then regrow their brains. The Indian jumping ant, Harpegnathos saltator, has many talents. This inch-long arthropod, found in flood plains across India, [...]

A study shows that pretending to be immobile -- sometimes for an hour or more -- helps larvae of insects called antlions outlast hungry predators. Antlion larvae are famously ferocious: [...]

Byline: Darryl Fears They've been buried - alive - for 17 years. And now, Brood X, one of the world's largest swarms of giant fly-like bugs called cicadas, is ready [...]

A team of scientists say they have figured out the cicada-like life cycles of the many-legged arthropods. Early in the 20th century, a train line opened for service in mountains [...]

Honeybees and their problems get the most attention, but scientists are using tactics learned from bird conservation to protect American bees. In the last 20 years, the rusty patched bumblebee [...]

Before metamorphosis, monarch butterflies will aggressively head butt each other for access to their favorite food. In the 1969 children's book ''The Very Hungry Caterpillar,'' the tiny protagonist spends a [...]

In the spring of 2018 at the Montreal Insectarium, Stéphane Le Tirant received a clutch of 13 eggs that he hoped would hatch into leaves. The eggs were not ovals [...]

Just about any other living thing would be liquefied at the forces this insect can withstand. In 2015, Jesus Rivera filmed a very unusual science experiment for posterity. On the [...]

Byline: Martin Weil The transition from the worm-like caterpillar to a creature that can spread its patterned wings and fly is one of nature's marvels, but not not all caterpillars [...]

When it rains in Iran's Dasht-e Lut desert, the ground comes alive with tiny, upside-down crustaceans. In springtime, when the rain gathers into pools in Iran's Dasht-e Lut Desert, the [...]

They buzz. They hover. Sometimes they sting. But how much do you really know about these insects that can menace our summers? Wasps get a bad rap. And sometimes, they [...]

When the garden gets perilous, these pollinators hit the gas. For a human, a breeze-ruffled garden is a peaceful scene: Dandelion seeds float, leaves rustle and flowers bob their heads. [...]

The large invasive insect, sometimes known as the ''murder hornet,'' appears to have resurfaced in both British Columbia and Washington State. SEATTLE -- The Asian giant hornet has resurfaced in [...]

After Entomophthora muscae fatally infects house flies, it makes microscopic stalks for hurtling spores at other insects that come nearby. The living dead may buzz among us. Attacked by a [...]

To the list of things we've learned to fear from hurricanes -- high winds, storm surge, floating islands of fire ants -- a new study in the journal Nature Ecology [...]

It's a myth that black widow female spiders always kill and consume their mates. But courtship remains perilous for males, cannibalism or no. The terrain, navigated in the dark, is [...]

Sleep -- that absurd, amazing habit of losing consciousness for hours on end -- is so universal across the animal kingdom that we usually assume it is essential to survival. [...]

Most female flies take a low-rent approach to parenthood, depositing scores of seed-sized eggs in the trash or on pet scat to hatch, leaving the larvae to fend for themselves.Not [...]

The Dracula ant is not much of a traveler. Located mostly in the tropics of Africa, Australia and Asia, the tiny creatures spend most of their lives burrowed into tree [...]

A spring-green aphid clambers over a clot of soil, busily making its way to the shelter of a forest of plants in the distance. The insect's long legs help it [...]