Arts & Life

Male cicadas use their blaring sounds to communicate with other cicadas. Their songs are used as alarm calls, territorial calls, or ballads to woo the ladies.

I was delighted to observe such an unusual visitor, but he had a bigger surprise for me. As I watched him forage through my yard he did something unique I had never seen, heard of, nor even imagined!

This week on ‘The Write Question,’ host Lauren Korn speaks with poet and professor Jane Wong about her debut memoir, ‘Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City’ (Tin House Books, 2023).

Introducing, the Harvester Butterfly …the only species of butterfly in North America where the caterpillars eat meat. More specifically, Woolly aphids are on their limited menu.

While other beetles are known to make various squeaks and hisses, Bess Beetle adults and larvae can make 14 distinctly different sounds to convey danger to the rest of the family, attract a mate, and enable family communications.

Lemon Ants prefer to build their homes in the stems of the tree species that survive in Devil’s Gardens. As it turns out, this is not a coincidence. In the eyes of a Lemon Ant, other trees not suitable for housing their kin just get in the way and take up valuable real estate. To make their surroundings more suitable for the continued existence and growth of their colony, it’s the Lemon Ants that rub out any rival vegetation.