Dragonflies are renowned for their remarkable flying abilities. Male dragonflies often compete for territory and mating opportunities, engaging in fascinating in-flight battles. Researchers at Imperial College London and Taipei Zoo recently carried out a study investigating the aerial maneuvers male dragonflies use while fighting competitors and the overall purpose of these battles.

A new Murdoch University study has uncovered alarming levels of pesticide contamination in the food sources of endangered Carnaby's cockatoos in the Wheatbelt—including concentrations well above regulatory limits found in seed spills near grain silos.

What if the plants growing in a field could one day produce the same proteins that give milk its nutrition, texture and cheese-making properties? A new study brings that possibility a step closer by revealing an unexpected way plant seeds can manufacture and store one of milk's most important proteins. The discovery could help overcome a major hurdle in producing real dairy proteins without cows, paving the way for more sustainable dairy ingredients and alternative food production.

Award-winning entomologist Dino Martins, known for his work on pollinators, shows in his latest book that even the most gruesome creatures have vital roles to playDino J Martins has never been able to resist the small things. The renowned entomologist and evolutionary biologist spent his formative years in biodiversity-rich western Kenya with his foster parents, Joe and Sarah Ellen, looking at birds, flowers and insects on Mt Elgon, and in Kakamega forest and Kerio valley.He was especially transfixed by the miniature world beneath his feet – dung beetles rolling mounds of cattle dung; safari ants’ migrations across the plains; male butterflies that suck salt and other nutrients from the mud to produce “nuptial gifts” during mating; and bees pollinating the critically endangered African violet alongside crops in a farmer’s field. Continue reading...

Fossils from Queensland suggest a newly recognized marsupial order may have survived in Australia for around 35 million years, rewriting part of the story of how the continent's unique mammals evolved. The discovery challenges the idea that Australia's marsupials all came from a single straightforward ancestral lineage.