4 May 2023
The crop-devastating swarms that locusts form are driven in part by the insects' tricks to avoid being cannibalised – they move around and produce a pheromone to deter other locusts from eating them
20 April 2023
Artificial light doesn’t actually attract insects but instead interferes with the control systems they use to orientate their body when flying
11 February 2022
Researchers have tested the bite force of hundreds of insects and found that the raspy cricket chomps down with 1200 times more force than the wasp with the weakest bite
23 July 2021
Red palm weevils are invasive insects known for damaging palm trees – affecting the date, coconut and palm oil industries – but a bit of clove or thyme oil reduced the amount of palm stems they ate by 35 per cent
4 June 2021
When male fruit flies go without food for 24 hours, they get hangry and become aggressive towards other males, lunging at each other and fencing with their legs
2 June 2021
When parasitic ants move into another species’ colony, they outsource foraging to the host ants – which may be why several species of parasitic ants have lost the genes for taste and smell
25 May 2021
Rove beetles have glands in their abdomen that secrete a toxin, and they are made up of just two cell types that evolved together – which may be how other animal organs originated
3 March 2021
Insects avoid being eaten by playing dead, because birds are easily distracted by other nearby insects that are still moving
24 February 2021
An Asian-Australian moth becomes more sexually active under red light than under another colour of light or in the dark
10 February 2021
The wood-feeding cockroach may be the only known example of a species that practices mutual sexual cannibalism – the male and female both nibble each other’s wings after mating
