This is all about the bizarre adaptations that animals have evolved to survive
[featured image] Mites have developed quite a niche for themselves in parasitising other arthropods, even other arachnids. Opiliones, the so-called harvestmen are often singled out by these haemolymph sucking varmints. The mites latch on to the gangly harvestman and search for chinks in its suit of chitinous armour – normally, …
[featured image] The trap ant, Allomerus decemarticulatus, is a small, unassuming South American insect, staying out of sight much of the time in nest pouches among the branches of the tree, Hirtella physophora. In this arboreal environment animal prey can be hard to come by. Any substantial insect the ants …
[featured image] Among the huge diversity of insect life there are some bewildering complex life cycles, but there are few that can …
[featured image] Surprisingly, there isn’t any government help for single mums in the insect world, so female digger wasps (hymenoptera: sphecidae) wear …
[featured image] What often bamboozles me about the natural world is the bizarre goings on just beneath the surface of something that …
[featured image] With their soft bodies and lack of wings, insect larvae are the number one food item for countless other animals. …
[featured image] Agriculture enabled humans to forsake the unforgiving ways of hunter-gathering in favour of a much more salubrious lifestyle. The cultivation …
[featured image] The Stenus rove beetles are truly blessed in bizarre adaptations. If telescopic mouthparts weren’t enough (see last post), they also …
[featured image] Catching prey is far from easy, that’s why predators have evolved a host of means of catching and subduing their …
[featured image] Spider-hunting wasps, technically known as pompilids are about as mean as insects come. They range in size from no more …