Kaye still remembers the first time she saw a live tarantula. She was glancing out the front window of our California home when an enormous, hairy spider crawled past the front of the house. It was huge. Conditioned by adventure movies to believe that tarantulas are both deadly and intent upon attacking innocent people, Kaye […]
Just about everybody likes to eat insects - mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, spiders, other insects, and even some humans. Over in Great Britain, a scientist with time on his hands calculated that the country’s spiders consume enough insects each year to total the combined weight of the entire human population. And that’s just the spiders. […]
A rose by any other name looks better without aphids. And eating aphids is the specialty of the ladybird beetle, affectionately known as the ladybug. The ladybug earned its nickname by devouring pests that have been tormenting man ever since the Garden of Eden.
Back in the Middle Ages (and before the Age of Insecticides), […]
Just how far can a butterfly fly - assuming it has the urge? Down the block? Across town? All the way to the county line? Much, much farther if you happen to be a monarch - up to 3,000 miles.
Like Snowbirds, they fly south, hundreds of millions of wings filling the air. We’ve watched them […]
Don’t even try to imagine lying down on an ant hill. If you think ants should be avoided, it’s a good thing you’re not a bird. Many species of birds occasionally seek out ants for what may be a beneficial procedure – it is called “anting.” They will plop down on an […]
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