Vintage Spiders & Arachnid Spider Web Science Video DVD: Classic Spider Species Pictures & Arachnology Footage
L. A. Times Dodgers Blog (Free subscription) | 10/31/2009
Scientists discover the biggest known species of orb-weaving arachnid, and find that another subsists on an unusual diet. On the creepiest day of the year, we have news about one of the creepiest insects around: the spider.
Page 3.14 (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
In honor of Halloween this week, ScienceBloggers are offering some creepy crawlies to intrigue and frighten you. Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science began spinning the spider web with his fascinating coverage of the Bagheera kiplingi , a "mostly vegetarian" jumping spider found throughout Latin America. Days later, he reported on the recently discovered Nephila kowaci , the world's largest...
Living the Scientific Life (Scienti (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
tags: Tutelina species , Jumping Spider , macro video , animal behavior , streaming video Here is some video (and stabilized from some really shakey footage using Deshaker, a plugin for Virtualdub) of male and female jumping spiders from the genus Tutelina . Not sure on the species, but the videographer's best guess is Tutelina elegans . The female could be mimicking the antennae movements of an ant....
Wired Science (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
Scientists have found the world’s largest species of golden orb-weaver spider in the tropics of Africa and Madagascar. The discovery marks the first identification of a new Nephila spider since 1879. Females of the new species, Nephila komaci, measure a whopping 4 to 5 inches in diameter, while the male spiders stay petite at less than [...]
Green Options (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
Move over, meat-eating spiders. There is a rare vegetarian spider in town! Unlike the other 40,000 predatory spider species that typically feed on insects and other prey, the Bagheera kiplingi is the first known spider that predominantly and deliberately dines on plants. Read more of this story »
Ask Slashdot (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
Smivs writes with word on a spider, Bagheera kiplingi, that dines almost exclusively on plants. "The recently described species of jumping spider, discovered by researchers from Villanova and Brandeis Universities, dines on the protein rich tips of acacias, the thorny shrubs found in much of Central America. ... The species of acacia... favored by the Bagheera kiplingi has protein-rich leaf tips...
Scientific American (Free subscription) | 10/12/2009
Vegetarianism is not exactly what springs to mind when considering spiders, which usually rely on web spinning and other finely tuned techniques to catch and eat other creatures. But one spider has now been observed to feed mostly on plants, shattering the common assumption that all spiders are strict carnivores. [More]
Eurekalert (Free subscription) | 10/12/2009
( Villanova University ) There are approximately 40,000 species of spiders in the world, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals. Now, scientists have found that a small Central American jumping spider has a uniquely different diet: the species Bagheera kiplingi feeds predominantly on plant food.
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 10/12/2009
There are approximately 40,000 species of spiders in the world, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals. Now, scientists have found that a small Central American jumping spider has a uniquely different diet: the species Bagheera kiplingi feeds predominantly on plant food.
Treehugger (Free subscription) | 09/28/2009
This new species is Phreatomerus latipes, from Coward Springs, South Australia. Photo credit: University of Adelaide via Eurekalert Scientists have discovered 850 new species of invertebrates living in underground water, caves and micro-caverns across arid and semi-arid Australia. Over the course of a four-year study, the team found whole communities of previously undiscovered insects, small crustaceans,...
The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel (Free subscription) | 08/12/2009
NASA have deployed a swarm of robo-spiders to stand guard over an active volcano. Possibly in preparation for appearing on a huge screen in the White House and demanding one hundred billion dollars (in funding for space science). But this...
Green Options (Free subscription) | 07/29/2009
Isalo National Park, Madagascar (photo: Bernard Gagnon) 160 million years ago, what is now called Madagascar–the world’s fourth largest island–broke free from its parent continent (Africa), allowing evolution to do some of its most creative work. The Island, located just off the Southeast coast of Africa and roughly the size of California, is home to an amazing array of life-forms...
Pruned (Free subscription) | 07/27/2009
(Photo by Brent Humphreys.) Popular Science paid a visit to Disaster City in College Station, Texas. It isn't a city, of course, but “a vast disaster-simulation center designed to look and feel as close to catastrophe as you ever want to be. Each hairline crack, each mangled car, all the mountains of rubble are modeled on wreckage from real disasters, like the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los...
Secret Science Club (Free subscription) | 07/27/2009
Surrounded by the Coral Sea, the Louisiade Archipelago is a volcanic island chain stretching away from the southeastern extremity of Papua New Guinea’s mainland. These tropical islands are home to rare plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. Earlier this year, Dr. Susan Pell led a five-person botanical expedition to the islands’ remote mountains, rain forests, and wet savannahs....
Ars Technica (Free subscription) | 07/12/2009
The hydrogen economy goes down the toilet: Energy experts have mixed opinions on whether hydrogen might make sense as a portable fuel of the future. It can be made using electricity from renewable sources, which is good, but the process is inefficient and requires fresh water, which is already in short supply in many areas of the globe. All of which makes a recent paper on an alternate method of producing...
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