Named after the Arizona Gila River basin, where they were first discovered, Gila (pronounced hee-lah) monsters are one of only a small number of venomous reptiles and the largest lizards in the USA. The largest lizard in the world is the komodo dragon Gila monsters have a frightening reputation, says Jo Price, especially in local folklore, […]
Tag: insects
“Imagine a rainbow-coloured kitten, shrink it down to the size of your fingertip and add a few more legs.” It’s time to rethink these tiny and cute killers
If I asked you to imagine a spider, what would be your first thought? For most people, that imaginary creature would be solid, black and hairy, with long legs and piercing fangs, perhaps skittering about in the depths of a dark cave. I’d like to suggest an alternative to what the archetypal spider looks like. […]
Researchers find ‘remarkable’ hot-pink insect in Panama rainforest
In March 2025, biologist Benito Wainwright and his colleagues were searching for katydids — leaf-mimicking insects related to crickets and grasshoppers — in the rainforest of Barro Colorado Island in Panama, when they came across an unexpected sight: a hot-pink katydid individual of the species Arota festae. The researchers captured the katydid and raised her in […]
Fiji ant study provides new evidence of insects’ decline on remote islands
Island-dwelling insects have not been spared the ravages of humanity that have pushed so many of their invertebrate kin into freefall around the world, new research on Fijian ant populations has found. Hundreds of thousands of insect species have been lost over the past 150 years and it is believed the world is now losing […]
Country diary: Watching bats until it’s too dark to see
We’ve sneaked back to the office after hours. My partner has been working late here recently and has promised me that if I sit by the window as the sun sets, I’ll see something special. Our office rental is on the top floor of an old Midlands shoe factory. From our window, we can see […]
Do worms feel pain and are ants happy? Why the science on invertebrate feelings is evolving
Does a worm feel pain if it gets trodden on? Does a fly ache when its wings are pulled off? Is an ant happy when it finds a food source? If so, they may be sentient beings, which means they can “feel”, a bit or a lot, like we do. Invertebrate sentience is becoming an […]
Spiders ‘Smell’ Using Their Legs, Research Finds
Most spiders have eight legs, no ears and use fine leg hairs connected to nerve cells or their webs to hear sounds in their environment. But how do they smell? A new study by an international team of researchers has found that male spiders “smell” with their legs, using olfactory hairs — wall-pore sensilla — […]
Warming threatens flies more than bees, raising pollination concerns
Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. They pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, and touch every node in the web of life, filling endless niches across the planet. As global temperatures continue to rise, some of Earth’s most important but overlooked pollinators, the flies, may be at greater risk than previously […]