Tails aren’t purely decorative. They have quite a few important functions. Many species use them in communication. They can tell you a lot about the animal’s mood or state of mind. A dog carrying his tail between his legs, for…
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Snails are well known for being a generally slow moving and inactive species of mollusk, and are thought by some to sleep for long periods of time. However the reality is that most common species of snail don’t sleep for…
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There is a common misconception that Mayflies only live for a day. Even the scientific name of the order, Ephemeroptera, gives this impression, the ‘ephemeral-wings’. But in fact Mayflies live for at least a year and sometimes two or three…
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When is a tiger not a tiger? A tiger is not a tiger when it is a saber toothed cat. The saber toothed cats represent a now extinct line, the Machairodontinae that diverged from the line that leads to the…
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“Eency-weency spider went up the water spout… ” nursery rhyme This kindergarden chant often introduces children to the arachnid they’re most likely to encounter, for a few years anyway: spiders. These creatures are often mislabelled as insects but they are…
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Praying mantids used to be lumped with grasshoppers in the order Orthoptera. They were taken out of there and became a suborder in the Dictyoptera along with the stick insects and the cockroaches, but most experts prefer to put them…
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Flukes are flatworms modified for a life of parasitism. They belong to the Phylum Platyhelminthes along wtih free-living flatworms such as Dugesia and the parastic cestodes or tapeworms. All platyhelminths, including the flukes, share a number of characteristics. They are…
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The sunflower (Asteraceae) family is the largest plant family on earth. There are over 24,000 species in the sunflower family.There are two other species that come close in size to the sunflower. They are the Orchid family and the Legume family….
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Nematodes are simple worms that are found simply everywhere. Buchsbaum (p 175) quotes ‘a leading student of the nematodes’, who said: “If all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly…
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If an army fought with the aggressiveness of fire ants, it would never lose a battle. Their sting is indeed painful and persistent, but it is their aggressiveness that sets them apart from other ants. If you observe the top…
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