How Whip Spiders Smell Their Way Home
Whip spiders, or amblypygids, are arachnids, but only six of their eight legs are for walking. The front two are elongated sensory structures that process, among other things, smells. Whip spiders use these sensory legs to sniff their way back home after a night of hunting.
Read all about it in my latest Animal Minds post: The Arachnid That Smells With Its Legs
Animals in Space
Animals have played a key role in determining the safety and survivability of spaceflight. At first, animals were used to test the effects of weightlessness and the feasibility of sending a living being into space and returning it unharmed. Later, as spaceflight programs evolved and matured, scientists launched animals into space to study the effects of microgravity and spaceflight on various biological processes.
Check out my latest for Muse magazine is a timeline of animals in space.
Do Spiders Think?
Spider webs can be beautiful, intricate, and deadly – but what can they tell us about the spiders who build them? Orb weaving spiders’ flexible behavior during web construction seems to indicate some degree of insight or understanding.
Read more at my Animal Minds blog: Do Spiders Think?
Spiders and Centipedes Devour Frogs, Snakes -- and an Opossum
Spidersand centipedes and water bugs, oh my! It turns out these creepy crawlies can bepredators just as fierce as lions and tigers. A team of biologists has documented 15 predator-prey interactions where the invertebrates are hunters and the vertebrates prey. Their article includes photo and video evidence of invertebrate predators – mostly large spiders as well as some centipedes and a giant water bug – killing and eating vertebrates such as frogs, tadpoles, lizards, snakes, and even a small opossum.Watch a video of the opossum incident, see more photos, and read my story at National Geographic: First-Ever Video Shows Tarantula Eating Opossum
Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys Nurse Other Females' Infants
Being a mom is hard enough, but imagine mothering someone else’s kids, too. That’s the norm for golden snub-nosed monkeys, according to a new study in the journal Science Advances. Scientists found that over a five-year period, more than 87 percent of golden snub-nosed monkey infants were nursed by females other than their mothers – a phenomenon called allonursing.
Read the whole story at National Geographic: Why Do These Monkeys Nurse Each Other's Babies?