A multiple-exposure photograph of insects circling a light at night.
Samuel Fabian
A new study shows how artificial light at night scrambles insects’ normal flight patterns, pulling them off course into orbit around the light.
Nature Uninterrupted Photography/Unsplash
Flowers tend to stand out against a natural background. A new study shows this contrast evolved in a key relationship with their most famous pollinators – bees.
You may hardly feel a raindrop, but for some tiny insects, one drop can have an intense impact.
Mendowong Photography/Moment via Getty Images
Microplastic pollution is a growing problem − one lab is looking at tiny insects as inspiration for how these pollutants might move through water.
Scarlett Howard
Being susceptible to visual illusions is part and parcel of life not just for humans, but many other species – including bees.
Ken Griffiths/Shutterstock
Each year insect scientists like us field questions from the press and public about Christmas beetle populations: where have they gone?
Dot-underwing moth (Eudocima materna ) found in the researchers’ yard.
Matthew Holden
An ecologist, a mathematician and a taxonomist were locked down together in a suburban house. So they counted all the species of plants and animals they could find.
Smit/Shutterstock
New research shows honeybee hive clusters are a sign of desperation, not insulation.
Temperature sensitivity makes western fence lizards vulnerable to climate change.
Greg Shine/BLM
From dark dragonflies becoming paler to plants flowering earlier, some species are slowly evolving with the climate. Evolutionary biologists explain why few will evolve fast enough.
Olive trees that have died after becoming infected with Xylella fastidiosa .
Fabio Michele Capelli/Shutterstock
The meadow spittlebug can transmit a deadly bacterium – many plants in Britain could be at risk.
Leo Quintero / Shutterstock
The number of bugs on our windscreens has plummeted in recent years. Are we driving faster? Or are there fewer of them?
Sleep tight…
Dr Richard Naylor
The trouble is most countries don’t make bed bug infestation data available to researchers.
Shutterstock
Early warm weather has triggered a bumper season for Australia’s 30,000 fly species.
Shutterstock
It’s spring, but many street trees look stressed and sick. Heat and insect attack are arriving early. But our cities are also steadily losing canopy cover.
Air pollution is the latest threat facing our insects.
Robbie Girling/Inka Lusebrink
We’re making life tough for insects – and not just by swatting them away with a newspaper.
West Nile virus is spread by mosquitoes. About 80 per cent of infected people have no symptoms, but the virus can cause encephalitis and can be life-threatening.
(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
West Nile virus arrived in North America in 1999 and spread across the continent by 2005. Here’s what you need to know about this mosquito-borne pathogen.
Wolfgang Hasselmann/Unsplash
Have we overlooked the intelligence and value of wasps?
You can help wildlife in your garden thrive if you just stop doing several simple things.
New Africa/Shutterstock
Your less manicured garden has the potential to combat tackle climate change and help wildlife survive.
The blow fly’s antenna is a specialized organ that helps the fly detect food quicker than its competitors.
heckepics/iStock via Getty Images
Flies often beat out competitors for food because of their specialized sensing organs called antennae.
Springtails (Fasciosminthurus quinquefasciatus) are found in any damp soil.
Andy Murray/chaosofdelight.org
With more than one species for every person on the planet, soils are the most diverse habitat on Earth.
Yellow underwing moths were one of the species in the study.
Eileen Kumpf/Shutterstock
But pesticides and climate change are threatening moths’ future.