Insects/Arachnids

Madagascar hissing roaches (Photo: Liz West, Flickr Creative Commons)

The beloved—or hated, depending whom you ask—Valentine’s Day is just a week away. Still looking for that something special to give your Valentine? Maybe you’re trying to impress that darling you hope will be your love for good? Look no further than the Bronx Zoo, with its, um, unique gift any girl would treasure. Introducing roaches, two ways (one of them edible).

The eye of the Papuan forest dragon (Hypsilurus dilophus), a sit-and-wait predator, scans the forest for insects and small vertebrates. Photo: Piotr Naskrecki
 
The Papuan forest dragon pictured above is just one of the captivating creatures scientist and photographer Piotr Naskrecki has captured in his new book, Relics: Travels in Nature's Time Machine. Naskrecki traveled the globe in search of creatures and habitats that have persisted, nearly untouched, for hundreds of millions of years. The result is a book packed with stunning images and fascinating information.
 
Relics—and a print of your choice—could be yours. We've teamed up with the University of Chicago Press to give away 10 copies. Click here to enter the giveaway, see more images from the book, and learn more about it. All you have to do is leave a comment and be sure to include a viable email address (it won't show up on the page). Good luck!

Here at Audubon, we appreciate a good Internet sensation as much as anyone (if Honey Honey Badger Don’t Care, we certainly do). From snowboarding crows to cute kittens, animals consistently creep into our inboxes and on our Facebook feeds. When these images and videos are posted, blogged, and altered enough to be considered part of the web’s consciousness, they become memes. Animal memes can be silly, offensive, or even insightful – and these are some of the greatest, with explainations of their origins according to Know Your Meme.

For nearly a decade, a tiny alien menace, a beetle known as the emerald ash borer, has been destroying some of the nation’s most iconic native trees. Now researchers are honing a new method that uses wasps to ferret out these invasive beetles. The technique could help prevent the spreading of the emerald ash borer, as well as benefit other imperiled plants in the future, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Mealworm fried rice and insect nuggets could be a mouth-watering alternative to meat—or so say the founders of Bugs Originals, a company located outside of Amsterdam. Already sold at 24 Dutch food wholesalers, freeze dried locusts and mealworms are better for the environment.

Credit: Flickr ILRI
 
They burrow under the skin, forming a painful, pulsing lump as they consume the host’s living flesh from within. They lay their eggs in unsuspecting nests to ensure their large, greedy young thrive while other nestlings starve. They paralyze their prey so their offspring can enjoy a helpless, still-living snack. They lodge themselves in their victims' brains, driving the unfortunate creature to suicidal madness. They are parasites, and they deserve love, too!

Honeybees may get all the buzz, but a new study by the University of California Berkeley reveals that native bee species are an undervalued asset worth up to $2.4 billion to California farmers.

It’s not necessary to employ the words “creepy” or “crawly” or “crunchy” to make you shudder over this animal. The name is enough.

Cockroach.

Arachnophobic? Not Frank Graham. Graham, a contributor to Audubon Magazine for more than 40 years, frequently beats about the rushes and scrambles along rocky coastlines in search of spiders, “an outcast race, the age-old subject of human innuendo and reprehension.” Those eight-legged outcasts are the source of admiration and wonder for Graham and photographer Piotr Naskrecki. In their article in Audubon’s May-June issue, they give web weavers their day in the sun, celebrating arachnids’ divine design and pure splendor. Read the article and see a slideshow of Naskrecki’s spellbinding photos here. A special online exclusive transports you to Graham’s home stomping grounds in Maine, where his “spidering” expeditions reveal a new scientific discovery.

Have you ever walked through the woods or even a doorway and received a face full of spider web? It’s not a pleasant experience. The invisible threads of the web stick to your skin and because they’re incredibly thin and delicate, removal doesn’t happen nearly as fast as you’d like.

While a Charlotte’s Web-esque sign of “Danger!” would be nice, the spider’s web is a trap for unsuspecting insects, so it’s typically inconspicuous. Some orb web spiders, though, do something unusual: They decorate their webs.