After becoming President, Barack Obama had a number of species named in his honor. Donald Trump, however, has managed to do him one better, finding an animal namesake days before his inauguration in Neopalpa donaldtrumpi, a tiny moth species distinguished by its yellow, scale-covered forehead and “unique genitalia.”
We’re living in a brave new future here folks, and that means that moths can now drive tiny robot cars that are controlled by their own sense of smell.
As Portugal and France snoozed their way through the final match yesterday at Euro 2016, thousands of Silver Y moths crashed the party—including one that fluttered onto Ronaldo’s anguished face as he sat injured on the pitch. They’re calling it the moth ball final. So what brought all these moths to the Stade de…
Do a quick scan of the journal Applied Physics Letters today, and you’ll find that researchers from Belarus and France have fabricated an anti-reflective coating made from sucrose and modeled after moth eyeballs. It could be manipulating microwaves one day, but right now, it’s just incredibly neat.
Planes have long been used to drop pesticides and herbicides quickly and evenly over cropland, but the newest drone to drift quietly over us has something a little different waiting in its cargo-hold: thousands and thousands of sterilized moths.
The European silver Y moth (pictured above) can sense delicate shifts in turbulence as they migrate from northern Europe to the Mediterranean and back again, according to a new paper in Current Biology, enabling them to navigate their flight path effectively.
Some species of moth can produce ultrasonic emissions that confuse echolocating bats, and they do it by rubbing their sex organs together.
What is this material? It looks like a very tacky version of astroturf, or an arrangement of flower petals. But can you guess what it actually is?
Inspiration lies in the strangest of places—and for researchers at the Agency for Science, Technology & Research in Singapore, that includes the eye of moth. A new antireflective coating inspired by the creature's ocular faculties could help bump up the efficiency of solar cells.
Once a week, three-toed sloths slowly descend from the leafy forest canopy to poop on the ground. Why do these sluggish mammals go on such a long and potentially dangerous journey instead of just letting it fly from the treetops? Scientists now believe the answer has to do with the odd, symbiotic relationship between…
Above: A moth, shown here deploying its "relatively large protuberances." Just imagine those things wriggling their way up your nostrils and tickling the backs of your eyeballs.
Nature photographer Kjell Bloch Sandved has amassed a massive collection of butterfly and moth wings, capturing a host of unusual patterns. Using those patterns, he has assembled entire butterfly alphabets.
It's incredible, really. It features a central spire and an encircling picket-fence that's been reinforced by horizontal rails, and is strung together by a series of radially oriented guy wires. An impressive edifice at any scale, the structure measures less than 2 cm across. And here's the real kicker: nobody knows…
In what has to be one of the most brilliant self-defense mechanisms ever developed, several species of tropical moths are able to rasp their genitals against their bodies to produce ultrasonic signals that confuse an attacking bat's acoustical targeting system.
As anyone with a dog whistle knows, the range of human hearing is hardly anything to get excited about. But when it comes to picking up extremely high frequencies, there’s one particular creature that even dogs can’t compete with.
Photographer Steve Irvine captured the ephemeral movements of moths drawn to a floodlight. He took a 20-second exposure as hundreds of insects beat their way to the lights dotting an Ontario lawn, photographing just a few trails out of the entire swarm. That photo found the unexpected beauty in their hurried flights…
Here's an optical illusion that can confuse pretty much any creature with eyes. It's a simple trick caused by a quirk in the way many animals (including humans) see contrasts. And it may explain the old adage of moths being drawn to flames.
And with good reason. Sure, this Atlas moth (Attacus atlas) may be looming in the foreground of the photograph, but at close to a foot across, its wingspan is bigger than Attenborough's entire face no matter where it's positioned. That's pretty impressive for an organism with an adult lifespan of less than two weeks (…
If asked to describe a moth's flight, I doubt many of us would use an adjective like "graceful." Neurotic? Yes. Flap-happy? Absolutely. But years of watching moths careen headlong into patio lights and bug lamps have left most of us with a decidedly unremarkable impression of these bugs' flying abilities.
In the unceasing war between man and nature, the ranks of homo sapiens is about to use a dirty trick—using the natural world against itself. Californian agricultural officials are sending in wasps as instinctive mercenaries.
