Articles by

Susan Milius

Climate stress may undermine male spiders’ romantic gift giving

Courtship dazzle in spiders can lose some zing in uncertain climates. Males in places with hard-to-predict rain...

Here’s how long it would take 100 worms to eat the plastic in one face mask

Insects rank high among humankind’s go-to creatures for strangeness: Think movie monster inspirations or extreme biophysics (SN:...

Videos capture orcas’ tricks for taking down the largest fish on Earth

Video from excited ecotourists shows how orcas manage an unlikely feat of predation: killing a massive whale...

This ‘hidden figure’ of entomology fought for civil rights

On the drive to school, at the first sign of trouble, “she made me get on the...

Putting vampire bats on treadmills reveals an unusual metabolism

Vampire bats have become such specialized bloodsuckers that they metabolize their food more like some blood-feeding flies...

These hornets may be the alcohol-detox champs of the animal world

Don’t get into a drinking contest with Vespa orientalis hornets. They could out-booze a tree shrew, even...

To tell a right-trunked elephant from a lefty, check the wrinkles

There’s a Sherlock Holmes tale in here somewhere: A clever observer could check wrinkles and whiskers on...

Coyotes have the face muscles for that ‘sad-puppy’ look

Coyotes turn out to have face muscles that look capable of making that big-eyed, sad-puppy face that...